Gift Cards

MakerVera supports stored-value gift cards that members can purchase and use toward any checkout. This guide covers both admin configuration and member usage.

How Gift Cards Work

1. An admin sets the available preset denominations and a custom-amount minimum from the Gift Cards settings panel — one global config for your whole makerspace
2. A member purchases a gift card by choosing a preset or entering a custom amount
3. The system generates a unique code in XXXX-XXXX-XXXX format and sends it to the recipient’s email address
4. The recipient enters the code at checkout to apply the gift card balance toward their order
5. Partial use is supported — any remaining balance stays on the card for future purchases

To protect cards from being guessed, a member who enters five gift card codes that can’t be used within a minute (at checkout, at event registration or on the balance page) is asked to wait a minute before trying again. A code counts when it doesn’t match an active card, or, at checkout, when the card is in a different currency or has nothing available to spend right now. A code that works never counts.

Available Balance and Holds

A card’s balance is what is left on it. Its available balance is what it can spend right now. The two differ only while part of the balance is on hold:

Hold	When it happens	When it ends
Held for a pending refund	You refunded the purchase that bought the card, and the payment provider has not finished the refund yet	The refund goes through (the balance drops by the refunded amount), or the refund fails or is cancelled (the hold is released)
Held for a checkout in progress	A buyer applied the card and is paying the rest by card	The card payment succeeds (the held amount is spent), the buyer starts the payment again or closes the payment pop-up, the payment is cancelled, or 10 minutes pass
Held while a bank payment clears	A buyer applied the card and paid the rest by bank debit	The bank payment succeeds (the held amount is spent) or fails (the hold is released). It does not end after 10 minutes. See Bank Debit Payments

Checkout applies only the available balance. This is how MakerVera makes sure the same value is never spent twice: your makerspace never refunds a card purchase and then also honors the refunded value at checkout.

Gift cards are stored value — a gift card balance can be applied toward any store purchase or paid event registration. There are no item-specific cards.

Plan Requirements

Gift cards require the Gift Cards feature on your makerspace’s plan. This is included on the Foundational and Professional plans.

Action	Without Gift Cards Feature	With Gift Cards Feature
View existing gift card codes and balances	Yes	Yes
View redemption history and details	Yes	Yes
Issue new gift card codes	No	Yes
Cancel active gift card codes	No	Yes
Configure presets and minimum	No	Yes
Purchase gift cards (member store)	No	Yes
Redeem existing gift card codes at checkout	Yes	Yes
Check balance on an existing code	Yes	Yes
View gift card performance report	No (requires View Reports)	Yes

If your plan doesn’t include gift cards, the Gift Cards admin page shows a banner explaining how to upgrade. You can still view all existing gift card data — existing cards remain fully functional for holders who have already received them.

Tip

If your makerspace previously had gift cards and downgraded, your existing codes are safe. Members can still redeem them and check balances. You just can’t issue new ones until you upgrade again.

For Administrators

You need the manage_billing permission to manage gift cards.

Configuring Gift Card Settings

Navigate to Admin → Store → Gift Cards and open the Settings panel to configure your gift card offering.

Preset Denominations

Preset denominations are fixed dollar amounts that buyers can choose from when purchasing a gift card (for example, $25, $50, $75, $100). You can offer as many presets as you like. Buyers who want a different amount can use the custom amount option instead.

To add or remove a preset, edit the list in the Settings panel and save.

Custom Amount Minimum

You can allow buyers to enter any amount at or above a minimum you set. If a buyer enters an amount below the minimum, they see a clear error message before proceeding.

Setting the custom minimum to a reasonable floor (such as $10) prevents very small-value cards that create more administrative overhead than value.

When Gift Cards Can’t Be Sold

If your gift card settings are priced in a different currency than your makerspace sells in, the Settings panel shows a banner explaining that gift cards can’t be sold. Buyers see a notice instead of the purchase form. See Items that can’t be sold in your currency.

Note

Before this simplified model, MakerVera supported multiple “gift card types” (dollar amount, specific product, specific event) managed from a Gift Card Types tab. That tab has been removed. All gift cards are now stored-value cards usable toward anything. Existing codes from the old model continue to work exactly as before.

Managing Gift Card Codes

Navigate to Admin → Store → Gift Cards to view all gift card codes.

Gift card codes work like cash, so MakerVera shows them only to people who need them. The list and the detail page show only the last four characters of each code, for example •••• JKMN. Store and billing access is not enough to see a full code. See Who can see a full code.

Filtering

You can filter the list by:

• Status — Active, Fully Redeemed, Expired, Cancelled
• Date range — When the code was created
• Purchaser — Who bought the gift card

The search box matches a recipient email or the last four characters of a code. If you have a full code, for example from a member who contacted you, type or paste all of it. MakerVera looks that exact code up and shows the matching card, still masked. The code is sent privately, so it never appears in the page address or your browser history.

In the list, a card with part of its balance on hold shows a small on hold badge with the total held under its balance.

Code Statuses

Status	Meaning
Active	Code has remaining balance and can be used
Fully Redeemed	Entire balance has been used
Expired	Code passed its expiration date
Cancelled	Admin cancelled the code, or a refund of the original purchase brought its balance to $0

Viewing Code Details

Click any code to see its full details:

• The code, masked to its last four characters
• Original value and remaining balance
• Available balance, and any amount Held for a pending refund or Held for a checkout in progress (see Available Balance and Holds)
• Purchaser and recipient information
• Redemption history showing each use (amount, date, order)
• Purchase mode (preset or custom amount)

Issuing Gift Cards

You can issue a gift card code directly from the Gift Cards page — no purchase required. Click the Issue Gift Card button and enter:

Field	Required	Description
Recipient Email	Yes	The email of the person receiving the gift card
Amount	Yes	Choose a preset denomination or enter a custom amount at or above the configured minimum

This is useful for raffle prizes, employee appreciation, promotional giveaways, or replacement cards. Admin-issued codes appear in the gift card list alongside purchased codes.

After you issue a card, MakerVera shows its full code once, so you can copy it and send it to the recipient. Once you close that dialog, the code is masked like every other card. Copy it before you click Done. If you lose it, use Resend to recipient, or ask someone with the View sensitive message details permission to reveal it.

Resending a Gift Card

If a recipient lost their email, open the card and click Resend to recipient. MakerVera emails the code to the recipient’s address again. You never see the code yourself. You can resend only active cards. Every resend is recorded in the audit log.

Who Can See a Full Code

Who	What they see
Staff with billing or store access	The last four characters only, in the gift card list, on the detail page and in order details
Staff with the View sensitive message details permission	A Show full code button on the detail page. Every reveal is recorded in the audit log with the card and the last four characters
The admin who issues a card	The full code once, right after issuing it
The gift card’s recipient	Their full code, in the delivery email, under Gift Cards on their profile, and in their Communications tab
A member who bought a card for someone else	The last four characters and who it was sent to. The code belongs to the recipient

View sensitive message details is a system permission. By default only the Admin role has it. See Roles.

Cancelling a Code

You can cancel an active gift card code from the detail page. Cancelled codes cannot be redeemed. You cannot cancel codes that are already fully redeemed or cancelled.

Refund Behavior

Refunding a gift card purchase. You can refund a gift card purchase only up to what is still unspent on the card. If a $50 card has been spent down to $5, the most you can refund is $5. When the refund goes through, the card’s balance drops by the amount refunded, and a card brought to $0 is cancelled. A full refund cancels the card, so the recipient can’t spend value your makerspace has given back. A card that has been fully spent, cancelled or has expired can’t be refunded, and the refund dialog says why.

While the payment provider is still processing that refund, the refunded amount is held on the card, so it can’t be spent in the meantime. A buyer who tries to use it sees that part of the balance is on hold for a pending refund. The message never says how much. If the refund fails or is cancelled, the hold is released and the card can spend its full balance again.

Refunding an order paid with a gift card. When you refund an order that was paid (in full or in part) with a gift card, the gift-card share goes back onto that card’s balance.

Replacement gift cards. If that card has since been cancelled or has expired, a new gift card is issued in your makerspace’s name for the gift-card share instead:

• The refund dialog tells you before you submit that the share will go on a new card.
• The new card has no expiry date and belongs to the same recipient as the old one.
• The recipient is emailed the new code in your makerspace’s name. Billing managers get an email naming the last four characters of the old and new codes.
• The new card appears in your code list like any other card.

The same applies when a member cancels an event registration they paid for with a gift card. See Refunds & Reversals for the full refund dialog.

Automatic refunds of a card payment. When a buyer pays part of an order with a gift card and the rest by card, the card payment is refunded in full automatically from your makerspace’s payment account if the order can’t be delivered:

• A duplicate payment. The buyer paid twice for the same order, for example from two browser tabs. The first payment creates the order; the second is refunded.
• The gift card can no longer pay its part. The card payment succeeded, but in the meantime the gift card was cancelled or expired, or its 10-minute hold ran out and the balance was spent elsewhere.

The buyer gets an email, in their language, saying they were refunded. Everyone in your makerspace who can manage billing gets an email too. Both the payment and its refund appear on Transactions. If the email says Manual refund needed, the automatic refund could not be completed: refund it from Transactions or from your payment provider’s dashboard.

Gift Card Performance Report

Navigate to Admin → Reports → Gift Card Performance to see how your gift cards are being used. The report shows:

• Total gift cards issued (count and value) in a date range
• Preset-vs-custom split — how many buyers chose a preset denomination vs. a custom amount
• Breakdown by preset denomination — which amounts sell most
• Redemption rate — what share of issued value has been used

See the Gift Card Performance Report guide for details and CSV export instructions.

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For Members

Purchasing a Gift Card

Visit the Gift Cards page (accessible from the store or at /gift-cards).

1. Choose an amount — Select a preset denomination or enter a custom amount at or above the minimum. If a custom amount is below the minimum, a message tells you the lowest amount accepted.
2. Enter recipient details:

Field	Required	Description
Recipient Email	Yes	Email address of the person receiving the gift card

3. Complete checkout — Gift card purchases are not taxable (stored value, not a taxable good). You pay only the face value of the card.
4. Share the code — After payment, a unique code is generated and delivered to the recipient’s email address.

The code belongs to the recipient, not to you. If the recipient has an account at your makerspace with that email, the card is linked to them and appears in their profile and Communications tab. You see the card as •••• JKMN, along with who it was sent to. If you buy a card for your own email, you are the recipient and see the full code.

Note

Gift card purchases are non-taxable. No sales tax is added at the time of purchase.

Checking Your Balance

On the Gift Cards page, enter your code to see:

• Available balance (what the card can spend right now)
• Currency
• Status (active, fully redeemed, expired, cancelled)

An unknown or invalid code shows a “not found” message without revealing whether that specific code exists — this protects against code enumeration.

Using a Gift Card at Checkout

You can apply a gift card on the following checkout flows:

Checkout flow	Gift card accepted?
Store purchases	Yes
Paid event, class, and workshop registration	Yes
Free event registration	N/A — no payment to apply against
One-time donations	No
Recurring donations, memberships, and other recurring charges	No
Buying another gift card	No

To apply a gift card on a supported flow:

1. Enter your XXXX-XXXX-XXXX code in the gift card field on the checkout summary
2. The system validates the code and shows the available balance
3. The gift card amount is applied toward your total

If part of the card’s balance is on hold, only the available part is applied. A card with nothing available shows why: part of its balance is on hold for a pending refund, or it is being used by another checkout in progress. In that case, finish or close the other checkout, or try again in 10 minutes.

Partial and Full Coverage

Scenario	What Happens
Gift card covers part of the total	You pay the remaining balance through your makerspace’s payment provider
Gift card covers the full total	No additional payment is needed. Before anything is taken from the card, a confirmation shows the amount taken from it, that nothing is charged to a card, and what stays available on the card after the order
Gift card has more value than the total	Only the needed amount is deducted. The rest stays on the card

Example: Sarah has a $50 gift card and buys a $30 item. She confirms that $30 will be taken from her gift card, pays $0 out of pocket, and her gift card balance drops to $20 for future use.

If anything about the order changes before you confirm (for example, the card was used for another purchase), nothing is taken from the card: the confirmation shows the new amount and asks you to confirm again. If the card no longer covers the whole order, the confirmation closes and you can review the total. If the confirmation couldn’t load the exact amount and you confirm anyway, nothing is taken from the card yet: the confirmation loads the amount and asks you to confirm again.

When a gift card covers only part of the total, the remaining balance is paid in a secure payment pop-up rather than on a separate payment page. The pop-up’s payment form is shown in the language you’ve chosen in MakerVera (English, Spanish or French), not your browser’s language. If you switch languages, close the pop-up and open it again to see the change. Cards issued in Canada, the United Kingdom and Puerto Rico don’t ask for a postal code.

After you pay the remaining balance, the page you come back to shows the result MakerVera has confirmed, not just what your bank or wallet reported. “Your payment is processing” means your payment is still being confirmed, and we’ll email you when it completes. “Your payment didn’t go through” or “This checkout has expired” means you haven’t been charged and your gift card balance is untouched. In the store your cart is still saved, so you can return to checkout and try again. If the page says it couldn’t confirm your order or registration yet, check your email for a confirmation before you pay again.

If your makerspace’s payment provider can’t split a payment between a gift card and a card, checkout says “This makerspace can’t combine a gift card with a card payment” before anything is held or charged. Use a gift card that covers the full amount, or pay by card without the gift card. Whether you ever see this depends on which payment provider your makerspace uses.

If the payment form for the remaining balance can’t load, the pop-up says so instead of showing an empty form, and Pay now stays off so nothing is charged. “This payment was already submitted” means that payment may have gone through already: check your email for a confirmation before you pay again. “Online payment is temporarily unavailable” means the form couldn’t load or took too long to load (for example, a browser extension blocked it, or your connection stalled). If it was only slow, the card fields may still appear: when they do, the message goes away and Pay now turns on. Otherwise, close the pop-up and start checkout again to get a fresh form.

While You Pay the Rest by Card

When the payment pop-up opens, the gift card amount is held for you for 10 minutes, so it can’t be spent anywhere else while you pay. Closing the pop-up cancels that unfinished payment and usually makes the balance available again right away; if MakerVera can’t reach the payment provider at that moment, the balance is available again at the latest 10 minutes after the pop-up opened. If you leave without closing it and don’t finish within 10 minutes, the payment is cancelled and the balance is available again. You can start checkout again at any time.

If you choose to cover the processing fees, the fee is worked out on the amount you pay by card, not on the gift card’s part. The pop-up’s Amount due is the part the checkout summary shows you paying by card, with that fee included.

After you press Pay now, the pop-up can’t be closed until your bank answers. If the card is declined, you can close it again.

If the hold ran out before you pressed Pay now, the pop-up says the payment expired instead of declined: close it and start checkout again. If the payment already went through, for example from another tab, the pop-up says it was already submitted: check your email for a confirmation before you try to pay again.

You are never charged twice for the same order:

• Starting the payment again (for example, after closing the pop-up) cancels your earlier unfinished payment first, then opens a new one.
• “Your payment for this order already went through” means the earlier payment succeeded. Check your email for the confirmation instead of paying again.
• “Your payment is still being confirmed” means your bank is still confirming the earlier payment. Wait a moment and check your email before you try again.
• “We couldn’t check your earlier payment” means MakerVera couldn’t confirm the earlier payment’s status, so it didn’t open a new one. Try again in a minute.

If a second card payment for the same order still goes through, it is refunded in full to your original payment method automatically, and you get an email. The same happens if your card payment succeeds but the gift card can no longer pay its part, for example because the card expired or was cancelled while you paid, or because the 10-minute hold ran out and the balance was spent elsewhere. Your card portion is refunded and no order is created.

Why Some Flows Don’t Accept Gift Cards

• Donations would create accounting complications. A gift card purchase is already recognized as revenue at the time the card is bought, so redeeming it as a donation would count the same money twice and create an unsupportable tax receipt.
• Recurring charges (monthly donations, memberships, recurring add-ons) require a payment method on file that can be billed automatically each month. A gift card balance is finite and decremented per use, so it can’t serve as a saved payment method.
• Gift card purchases themselves don’t accept a gift card — you can’t use a gift card to buy another one.

Viewing Your Gift Cards

The Gift Cards card on your profile lists the active gift cards you have received or bought:

• Cards you received show the full code and the remaining balance.
• When part of a card’s balance is on hold, the card also shows its Available amount and one line for each hold, for example “$20.00 on hold for a pending refund”.
• Cards you bought for someone else show only the last four characters and the masked address they were sent to. Only the recipient can see the full code.

Refunds to Your Gift Card

If a purchase you paid for with a gift card is refunded, or you cancel an event registration inside its refund window, the gift-card part of the refund goes back onto your card’s balance. If that card has been cancelled or has expired in the meantime, you get a new gift card for that amount instead, by email, with no expiry date.

Code Format and Security

• Gift card codes use the format XXXX-XXXX-XXXX (letters and numbers)
• Codes are case-insensitive — entering abcd-efgh-1234 works the same as ABCD-EFGH-1234
• Ambiguous characters (like 0/O and 1/I/L) are excluded to prevent confusion
• Each code is cryptographically generated with over 7.9 × 10¹⁷ possible combinations
• Balance lookups return the same “not found” message for unknown, cancelled, and incorrectly formatted codes — preventing code enumeration
• Full codes are need-to-know. Lists, details and order views show only the last four characters. A full code is shown only to the recipient, once to the admin who issues it, and on an audited reveal by staff with the View sensitive message details permission

Not Yet Available

The following features are planned but not yet supported:

• Guest purchase — Gift card purchases currently require a logged-in account.
• Bulk code generation — Admins can issue individual gift cards, but bulk generation is planned.

Next Steps

• Gift Card Performance Report — Analyse gift card sales and redemption
• Store Guide — Managing your store products
• Donations — Setting up donation campaigns
• Overview — Return to the billing overview