Knowledgebase

CRE Loaded - Creating Gift Vouchers

The Credit Class system adds some functions to the Order Total class to make it easier to write complex Discount/Credit systems. As always simple discount systems can be written as ordinary order total modules. What is the difference. Complex discount/credit systems require some form of user interaction during checkout. This may be a redeem box for entering coupon codes or a select box for deciding whether to use a discount or not. At the moment their are two modules written which take advantage of the Credit Class code. The gift coupon system and the discount vouchers system. More details of these can be found later in this document.

For versions of this software as installed in Chain Reaction Edition Loaded 6

Introduction
Installation
Upgrading
What are discount voucher, gift coupons.
Creating coupons and vouchers
Enabling gift coupons and discount vouchers
Setting up different types of coupons and vouchers
Appendix A: Explanations of gift coupon Configuration Parameters.

Installation

Credit Class/gift coupons/discount vouchers has been pre-installed in Chain Reaction Loaded 6.2, this part of the instructions have been removed they can be seen in the original contribution.

Upgrading

Periodic patches are released to the cart these may contain fixes and upgrades to the Credit class and GV system

What are discount voucher, gift coupons.

There are several type of coupons and discounts that you can use. Sometimes they are very confusing.

Gift coupon: This is a product you sale in your catalog they can be purchased by your customer. Once the payment and order have been approved A Coupon balance can be started. They can send part or all of the balance to one person or to several. They can also use the credit to make other purchases for them selves in the store.
Coupons: These are coupon sent by a customer to another person.
Welcome discount voucher: when a person creates an account at your store you can automatically send them a discount voucher. The welcome discount coupon can be configured for use with only certain product, categories etc.
Discount voucher: you can create a coupon to send to some of your valued customers. These can be only redeemed in your store. They can be limited in several ways as to what they can be redeemed for.

Creating coupons and vouchers

Creating a Gift coupon

Creating a gift coupon for a customer to buy is the same as creating a new product with the exception that the gift coupons model number must start with the word GIFT in upper case. It can be GIFT_25 or GIFT25 or whatever you would like to use, as the suffix to the word. But MUST START with the word GIFT You can create gift coupons in any denomination. Gift certificate images have been provide in the catalog\images directory in denominations of 25$, 50$ and 100$ values But, feel free to make your own gift product images.

Creating Discount and Welcome vouchers

Both the Welcome and Discount Vouchers are created in the same edit screen. The main difference is how the customer is sent the voucher. Creating a discount voucher is done through the admin->Vouchers/Coupons->Coupon Admin This selection allows you to create/insert, edit, email and delete a coupon.
Coupons can be created in fixed or percentage amounts, for a single product, multiple products, a single category, multiple categories or the complete inventory. A note on product discounts: product discounts (which includes categories) are just that product discounts. Though you can set the modules->order total -> discount voucher to do shipping, tax, etc... this type of coupon will not figure the percentages of shipping tax. Though it will discount shipping it isn't a true discount in that it doesn't try to determine the products value in shipping etc.
1. Goto vouchers/coupon > coupon admin
Sending a Discount voucher
You can also create gift coupons by sending them to your customers via the admin->Vouchers/Coupons->Mail gift coupon selection within the admin. To use this to send a voucher to a customer use the drop down customer list. To send to a single customer or future customer you can put their email in the Email To: text box.
Do not use both the customer drop down list and the Email To: text box or the customer will get 2 gift coupons. To determine what values the gift coupon is used on please see the doc on modules->order total->gift coupons.

Gift coupons are a virtual product. They do not require shipping charges to be added to them. To avoid the shipping charge on gift coupons, set the weight of the gift coupon to 0 when creating the product and enable downloads by setting true the value admin->configuration->downloads->enable download.

Creating discount vouchers

Creating a discount voucher is done through the admin->Vouchers/Coupons->Coupon Admin This selection allows you to create/insert, edit, email and delete a coupon. Coupons can be created in fixed or percentage amounts, for a single product, multiple products, a single category, multiple categories or the complete inventory. A note on product discounts: product discounts (which includes categories) are just that product discounts. Though you can set the modules->order total -> discount voucher to do shipping, tax, etc... this type of coupon will not figure the percentages of shipping tax. Though it will discount shipping it isn't a true discount in that it doesn't try to determine the products value in shipping etc.

Enabling gift coupons and discount vouchers

If for some reason that these are not installed you will need to enable the modules:

To enable the gift coupon, go to your admin->modules->order_total->gift coupons and choose to install it. On a default system there should be a button with a green cross and the words install. Click that button.
To enable the discount voucher, go to your admin->modules->order_total->discount vouchers and choose to install it. On a default system there should be a button with a green cross and the words install. Click that button.

The default settings :

Discount Vouchers

Display Total - True
Sort Order - 9
Include Shipping - True
Include Tax - True
Re-calculate Tax - None
Tax Class - None

Gift Coupons

Display Total - True
Sort Order - 740
Queue Purchases - True
Include Shipping - True
Include Tax - True
Re-calculate Tax - None
Tax Class - None
Credit including Tax - False

The default value of the new customer gift coupon and discount voucher are set so that no value or notification is sent in the welcome email. The values in the admin->configuration->Welcome gift coupon Amount tells the system how much of a gift coupon you would like to send your customer that has just created an account. If you do not want to use this option set the text box to 0. Do not leave blank. To change the discount voucher that you send to your customer when creating a new account edit the admin->configuration->Welcome discount voucher Code and place the coupon code that you would like to use in this text box. Note: Previous versions of the discount voucher used the coupon_id value from the database. This version uses the coupon code that is made when you create the discount voucher.

Setting up different types of coupons and vouchers

Free Gift Coupon

Install the The WebMakers Corner FREE CHARGE CARD payment modules
The price must be 0.00 and the weight must be 0.00
Install the FREE SHIPPING module

Setting up the product

Set up the product as you would normally do
If you set the tax class the customer will need to select a payment method on check out.
if you set the weight, the customer will need to select a payment to cover the shipping charges.

TIP: You can avoid the above should include the shipping charges in the price of the item

Setting up the coupon

Setup the coupon as a normal coupon
Do not check free shipping
You should set the Valid Product List to the specific product
Once the coupon is built, you must use the email to send the coupon to the customer

Appendix A

Gift Coupon Parameters

To edit configuration parameters click on the edit button in the right hand box of admin -> modules -> order total -> gift coupon The parameters are set as follows.

Display Total => Always leave set to true.
Sort Order => Needs to be set according to how tax shall be calculated. You will also need to change the sort order of the other order total modules.

No tax recalculation required.

Sub-total - Sort Order = 1
Shipping - Sort Order = 2
Tax - Sort order = 3
Gift Vouchers - Sort order = 9
Discount Coupons - Sort Order =740
Total - Sort Order = 900

Tax recalculation required

Sub-total - Sort order = 1
Shipping - Sort order = 2
Gift Voucher - Sort Order = 740
Discount Coupons - Sort Order =760
Tax - Sort Order = 800
Total - Sort Order = 900

Queue Purchases:

When a gift coupon is purchased, there exists a possibility for fraud. Depending on the payment method, the customer may purchase a gift coupon. Then by whatever means, cancel their payment. They can then use the gift coupon to spend on your store without having paid for it. If you have some payment methods that might make this possible then you should set this option to true. Now, when the customer purchases a gift coupon it will be logged in a queue. The customer will not be able to use the gift coupon until you use the admin option to release it from the queue. If set to false the gift, coupon will be immediately available to the customer.

Include Shipping:

Set to true to include shipping in the amount that the gift coupon is used to pay for during checkout.

Include Tax:

Set to true to include tax in the amount that the gift coupon is used to pay for during checkout.

Recalculate Tax:

The decision as to whether to recalculate tax depends on the Tax laws in the shop owners country. In most cases this should be left set at none. If you do need to re-calculate the tax element after deduction of the gift coupon amount, there are two strategies available.

Standard

This simply recalculates the tax on any taxable elements after deduction of the gift coupon amount. For example. If the cart contains $100 of goods which are liable to tax at 10% then before the gift coupon is applied then the checkout values will look like this.

sub-total = 100.00
tax = 10.00
total = 110.00

If the gift coupon is worth $10 then with standard tax recalculation the checkout values will look like this.

sub-total = 100.00
gift coupon = 10.00
tax = 9.00
total = 99.00

Credit Note

This recalculates the tax by considering the gift coupon amount as a Credit Note. If the gift coupon is worth $10 and the Tax Class (see below) assigned to the gift coupon gives a tax rate of 10% then the gift coupon is assumed to contain a tax element of $0.91 (10/110*10) This would give checkout values as follows:

sub-total = 100.00
gift coupon = 10.00
tax = 9.09 (10-0.91)
total = 99.09

Tax Class:

This is used to assign a tax class that is used when using the Credit Note tax recalculation method.

Credit including Tax:

The gift coupon is created just like any other product in the store. Like any other product it can have a tax class assigned to it. Consider this situation. In your country you must apply tax to gift coupon purchases at a rate of 10%. When you created the gift coupon product you assigned a tax class to accomplish this. The gift coupon price was set at $10.00 so at checkout the customer will be charged $11.00. Now how much should go into the customers gift coupon account. if this option is set to true then they will get $11.00 in their GV account. If set to false they will get $10.00 in their gift coupon account.

Discount Voucher Configuration Parameters.

To edit configuration parameters click on the edit button in the right hand box of admin->modules->order total->discount voucherNote: enabling and configuration values are similar to gift coupons.

Display Total true
Sort Order 9
Include Shipping true
Include Tax true
Re-calculate Tax None
Tax Class --none--

This needs to be set according to how you want tax and your discount to be calculated. You will also need to change the sort order of the other order total modules.Set the sort order of the order total modules as follows:

Sub-total - Sort Order = 1
Shipping - Sort Order = 2
Tax - Sort order = 3
Gift Coupon - Sort order = 9
Discount Vouchers - Sort Order =740
Total - Sort Order = 900

This allows the gift coupon to assume a greater amount of the total cost while applying the discount to the total after the gift coupon has been applied. If you have recalculate tax set to true then you should place the sort order as the following:

Sub-total - Sort Order = 1
Shipping - Sort order = 2
Gift Coupon - Sort Order = 9
Discount Vouchers - Sort Order =740
Tax - Sort Order = 800
Total - Sort Order = 900

*special note:

Your discount voucher has many choices for per product/category items tax is only calculated on the item not on the total tax, so if you have tax on shipping it will not be recalculated though shipping would be if shipping is set to true.

Include Shipping: true

Include shipping allows the discount voucher to be used against shipping also. If the discount voucher is used on a site wide basis the shipping tax is included in the discount if you have tax set to true else it only applies to the shipping.

Include Tax: true

Include tax allows the tax of the item to be discounted as well as the item.

Re-calculate Tax: None

Recalculating tax allows the tax to be shown either with the new tax or not. note: this item needs to be in conjunction with the sort order of how you would like it to be shown and include tax.

Tax Class --none--

Determines on which tax class you would like the discount voucher to be used against.

Many eBooks related to gift vouchers for CRE Loaded can be found at osCommerceUniversity.com

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