A gift voucher is money paid in advance for a service or product that someone else will choose later. It may carry a dollar value, such as $100, or name a treatment, such as a 60-minute massage. For salons and spas, vouchers are a large part of December trade and a steady trickle the rest of the year, and they bring in new clients who might never have walked in on their own.
In Australia, most gift vouchers sold to consumers must be redeemable for at least three years from the date of sale and must show the expiry date. Some kinds are exempt, and the ACCC's website lists them. Record each voucher when you sell it, with a number, the value, the buyer and the date, so a lost one can be traced.
In practice
A beauty salon sells 85 vouchers between November and Christmas: 50 at $100 and 35 at $150, $10,250 in all. That money is in the account, but the work is not done. By the end of March, 52 have been redeemed. The salon plans its January and February rosters around those redemptions instead of treating December's takings as spare cash.
Voucher clients behave differently from regulars. Many are first visits, many choose the most generous service the voucher allows, and some arrive with a voucher worth less than the service they picked. Decide in advance what happens to a leftover balance and to a top-up, and say it when you confirm the booking. The rules worth settling are in gift voucher rules that do not bite.
In Glow Line
Write your voucher rules in notes: how long vouchers last, what they cover and what happens to a balance. The assistant reads them out when a caller asks and then takes the booking request as usual. See change what the assistant knows.