# Setting Up Gift Cards Our Gift Cards feature allows your patrons to effortlessly purchase, redeem, and check gift card balances on your theatre's CrowdWork page. You can activate and deactivate the Gift Cards feature at any time from your Dashboard. {% hint style="success" %} **✨ Special Feature** **Gift Cards** is one of our **Special Features** — powerful tools to grow your revenue and deepen patron loyalty. These features are completely optional. When enabled, each one adds a 1% fee to all transactions. If your theatre passes fees on to customers (the default setting), they cost you nothing to use. [Read more about Special Feature pricing >](https://docs.crowdwork.com/for-theatres/setup-your-theatre-account/understanding-crowdwork-fees#special-features) {% endhint %} {% hint style="success" %} **Gift cards never expire**, but they can only be redeemed when the Gift Cards feature is activated on the theatre's account. When the feature is not enabled, the gift card will retain its value and will be eligible for redemption anytime the Gift Cards feature is re-activated. {% endhint %}

Gift Cards in the CrowdWork Dashboard menu

## Activating Gift Cards To get started, you'll need to activate the gift cards functionality from your Dashboard. 1. **Navigate** to the [**Gift Cards**](https://crowdwork.com/dashboard/gift-cards) section in the left menu. 2. **Click** the teal "Activate Gift Cards" button.

3. **Review** the information in the popup box (*see image below*). 4. **Confirm** by clicking "Activate Gift Cards" in the popup to enable the Gift Cards feature.

Activate Gift Cards modal in the CrowdWork Dashboard

> **Direct link:** [Gift Cards Dashboard](https://crowdwork.com/dashboard/gift-cards) **Once activated**, there will be a few key changes to your account: * An additional **1% fee** will be added to all online credit card purchases (if your theatre passes fees on to customers, this is covered by your patrons automatically) * A new **"Gift Card" field** will appear on the checkout page, allowing patrons to enter a gift card code as payment * A **"Gift Cards" tab** will be added to your public CrowdWork page where patrons can purchase new gift cards and check their balances {% hint style="success" %} **Deactivating** You can deactivate the Gift Cards feature at any time from your Dashboard navigating to Gift Cards and clicking the yellow PAUSE button. Deactivating will remove the 1% fee and prevent patrons from buying or redeeming gift cards. However, the balances of any gift cards already issued will remain intact if you re-activate the feature later. Image showing the blue Create New Gift Cards button on the left and the yellow Pause Gift Cards button on the right

Image showing the blue Create New Gift Cards button on the left and the yellow Pause Gift Cards button on the right

{% endhint %}

Gift Cards tab on a theatre's public page

*** ## Creating New Gift Cards There are two ways gift cards get created in the system: 1. **Theatres can manually generate gift card codes** of any value and assign them to any customers within the theatre's CrowdWork Dashboard. Read more here 2. **Patrons can purchase new gift cards** directly through the Gift Cards tab on the theatre's public page, which automatically creates and adds them to the theatre's Dashboard. [Read more here](#purchasing-gift-cards)

Create New Gift Card form with note about adding new customers first

### Manually Creating New Gift Cards As a theatre admin, you can easily create a new gift card code in your theatre's CrowdWork account Dashboard. We always recommend adding new customers first, then proceed with generating the gift card code: 1. **Navigate:** On your Dashboard, go to [**Gift Cards**](https://crowdwork.com/dashboard/gift-cards) then click [**Create New Gift Card**](https://crowdwork.com/dashboard/gift-cards/new) 2. **Customers:** Select the purchaser and recipient patrons from the dropdown menus * **If your purchaser/recipient are not found**, click the "Create a New Customer" link, add the new customers, then return to the gift card form 3. **Amount:** Enter the desired gift card amount in dollars 4. **Save:** Click Save to create the new gift card code {% hint style="warning" %} **Adding new customers before creating gift cards** Gift cards can be redeemed for tickets to any shows or classes from the issuing theatre. However, only Customers (not Students nor User accounts) can be issued a valid gift card code. *Therefore, both the purchaser and recipient must already exist as customers in a theatre's account in order for a gift cards to be issued.* If manually creating a gift card to/from a new patron, first add them as customers by either: * clicking the "Create a New Customer" link under the Purchaser or Recipient selection fields on the New Gift Card form; or * navigating to [**Customers**](https://crowdwork.com/dashboard/customers) in Dashboard menu, then clicking [**+ Add New Customer**](https://crowdwork.com/dashboard/customers/new) Create New Gift Card form with note about adding new customers first

{% endhint %} *** ## 🛒 Purchasing Gift Cards For theatres that have the Gift Cards feature activated, patrons can purchase gift cards from the theatre's CrowdWork page. Gift cards are available in preset $25, $50 and $100 denominations, or a custom dollar amount can be entered. Patrons can optionally enter a personal message to be included in the gift card email sent to the recipient. **When a new gift card is purchased online:** * The full gift card value is immediately credited to the theatre's account. * If applicable, new customers are automatically created in the theatre's account. * The recipient will receive an email containing the new gift card code (and optional personal message). A receipt is emailed to the purchaser. * CrowdWork will then automatically track the balance and deduct amounts whenever that gift card code is redeemed for purchases.

## 🎟️ Redeeming Gift Cards When a theatre has activated the Gift Cards feature, patrons will be able to redeem gift card codes when making purchases. During the checkout process, there will be a "Gift Card code" field above the usual Credit Card fields. Entering a valid code will reduce the order total by that gift card's available balance. **Only one gift card can be used per transaction**. The full amount of a gift card will be applied toward the total first. No fees are assessed on gift card payments. **If the gift card balance covers the entire order total**, then no other payment is required. **If there is still an amount due after the gift card is applied**, payment for the remaining total can be made via credit or debit card. **If a gift card has credit remaining**, the same gift card code can be used multiple times until the card's balance is depleted. {% hint style="info" %} **Gift Cards are currently for online use only** Gift cards can be used during checkout to pay for tickets to any show or class. However, at the moment, gift cards can only be redeemed online and cannot be used inside our [POS app for mobile devices](/for-theatres/setting-up-point-of-sale-pos.md). {% endhint %}

Gift Card code entry during checkout on CrowdWork

## 💰 Checking Balances While theatre admins can see all gift card balances in their account Dashboard, patrons can also easily check the balance of their personal gift cards. To view the current balance on a gift card code: * Visit the Gift Cards section on the theatre's CrowdWork public page * Under the large Gift Cards heading, select the "Check Balance" tab. * Enter the gift card code and press the CHECK BALANCE button to view the amount of credit remaining for that code. {% hint style="success" %} **Gift cards never expire**, but they can only be redeemed when the Gift Cards feature is activated on the theatre's account. When the feature is not enabled, the gift card will retain its value and will be eligible for redemption anytime the Gift Cards feature is re-activated. {% endhint %}

*** As always, if you have any other questions, don't hesitate to [reach out to our support team](https://github.com/bp-crowdwork/cw-gitbook/blob/gitbook/contacting-support/README.md) for assistance! \\ --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://docs.crowdwork.com/for-theatres/setting-up-gift-cards.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.