Payment Methods

[rjsmeyer]

I have the General Retail, latest version (10?) of EZP.

This is actually a two-part question, but the parts are similar.  I'm looking for a good way to handle Gift Certificates that I handle, as well as Donations that I give to charitable groups.

First, it seems that either case would require finding the appropriate Payment Method.  I want to be able to handle either situation just like any other transaction - to both keep them on the books, and to be able to adjust inventory as I go along.

However, it seems that most Payment Methods are fixed, either working as the standard Cash, Check or Credit Card - or for some external application that works with EZP.  I thought that the "Gift Card" might work, but apparently only with external software.  Then I thought "Food Stamps" or "Undef 18" might work if renamed, but I run into the same thing there.

Is there possibly a way of either adding a new Payment Method, or duplicating an existing one, e.g., "Cash" or "Check"?  And then just renaming them?  I suppose I could "share" one of them, e.g., rename "Check" to appear as "Check/GC" - but I'd rather keep them separate for sake of bookkeeping.

And for Donations, I suppose I could go into the Customer info and use Levels, renaming "Free" to "Donations" - but it seems that I'd rather handle them just by single transactions.

How has anyone else handled these?

Thanks!

[ronaldrwl]

Version 10 is over 3 years old.  The current version is 13.  Try using Coupon's.  Create a product and change "Sell" to "Coupon" or "Coupon%".  There are more details in the help document. 
I'm confused with trying to change a payment type.  Not sure what that would be for.
For donations use the Free option.  I suggest creating a customer for each place you donate to and set the Free option.

[rjsmeyer]

It must be v.13.

It seems that changing "sell" to "coupon" would have to be done item by item.  I'm looking for a way for a Gift Certificate to be able to be applied to ANY purchase.  Unless I'm misunderstanding, I'd have to essentially duplicate the entire inventory to have a "sell" and a "coupon" version for each item.  I'll have to research that some.

It looks like the "free" choice would be the most likely way to handle donations - I'm just fearful that someone will come in on behalf of that Customer for something to buy, and get it for "free" instead.

What I mean by "changing" payment types is to change the names of them.  I want to be as clear as possible to the clerks, so would like to use terminology that's consistent with what they're doing.  Some things (e.g., gift certificates) happen infrequently enough that they usually need some kind of cue (e.g., "checks/GC's") to remember which payment method to use.

[ronaldrwl]

Not sure why you'd do that.  A coupon takes an amount off the total purchase.  Why do you need more than one?

[rjsmeyer]

Hey, I finally get it!

What I was thinking was that I needed to deal with Payment Methods somehow.  But instead, you apparently use products that essentially function as payment methods. 

From there it was an easy matter to use the Gift Card function.  I created a product, and changed "sell" to "gift card", and named it "Gift Certificate".  I ask for the "price prompt" and "serial number prompt" at purchase.  It shows up in the Gift Card list real clearly.  At checkout, "gift card" is used as payment, the serial number is entered, and everything works out very nicely.  In the Z-Out Report, the Gift Certificate shows up as payment just the way I'd want.

The Donation works if I do a 100% off "coupon" (replacing the "sell" with "coupon %").  It works great at time of transaction, but there's a little less info on the Z-Out Report.  The item donated shows up with a $0 value, which makes sense, of course - but there's no indication of what might've happened to get it there.

I did some other experimenting with "coupons", and couldn't find how their use might be indicated somewhere at the end of the day.  Is there some report that'll show that? 

Anyway, I'm thrilled to keep finding functions that I didn't expect to have!