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A Tour of LocalGiftCards and WebTerminal for STS Gift Cards: https://help.pm.leapevent.tech/a/1027407
The Smart Transactions gift card solution is composed of two parts: the customer-facing LocalGiftCards site, and the staff-only WebTerminal. In this article, we'll show you:
- What your LocalGiftCards site looks like, and how your patrons can use it
- How your patrons can purchase gift cards from your LocalGiftCards site
- How you can use WebTerminal to run reports, activate gift cards for folks who want to purchase gift cards in person, and more
For more information about how you'll use STS gift cards with PatronManager, check out our All About Gift Cards / Gift Certificates (STS) article.
Your LocalGiftCards site
During the setup process, LocalGiftCards will use a high-resolution logo provided by your organization to design a customer-facing gift card site. Here is an example:
Let's go through each component of the LocalGiftCards site and get an idea of what you and your patrons can do on it.
The header will likely be the first thing your patrons see when they visit your LocalGiftCards site. The image on the header is a high-resolution image file your organization provides during STS account setup.
The Home tab is where patrons land when they go to your LocalGiftCards site; it takes you to the screen with all of the gift card options.
The Login tab prompts the user (your patron) to sign in or sign up to LocalGiftCards.com, which is an account patrons can use to speed up the gift certificate purchasing process if they tend to purchase gift cards on a regular basis.
In this tab, patrons can check their gift card balance. All they need to do is input the gift card number printed on their physical card or e-gift receipt and click "Get Card Balance".
When a patron inputs their gift card number and click "Submit" they'll be able to see a total history of all of the credits and debits on the card.
This tab provides a wealth of information about STS Gift Cards. Patrons can find answers to basic questions about gift cards, like how to buy a gift card on the site, what kinds of gift cards are available for purchase, how to check the balance of their gift card, and more.
Patrons can check on any gift cards they've ordered - they just need their gift card order number and the email address associated with the gift card order to see the status.
This tab has the contact information for your organization or the gift card help line.
Gift card purchasing options
All gift cards purchased online will be paid through the Stripe payment processor. You may sell as many or as few options on your organization's LGC site as you wish.
Patrons can purchase physical plastic gift cards online and your organization will need to regularly fulfill and mail out orders.
Curious about how much plastic gift cards cost? head over to the All About STS Gift Cards article for more information on plastic gift card pricing.
STS offers non-plastic gift card options called E-Gifts and M-Gifts.
- E-Gifts are emailed to the recipient, and take as little as a couple of hours to be activated and sent to the recipient (the website states that this delay is for security reasons).
- M-Gifts are texted to the recipient with the option of also emailing the card to the recipient in case the text message does not go through for some reason.
Schedule E-Gifts and M-Gifts in advance
Patrons can schedule both E-Gifts and M-Gifts up to 3 months in advance, which is a great feature for taking care of birthday presents and holiday gifts ahead of time.
STS charges the card at checkout regardless of when the patron schedules the gift card to be sent. The gift card will not activate until the time of delivery, and STS will set the expiration date according to the activation date.
The final option on the homepage is for either the recipient or the purchaser of the gift card to recharge the gift card. They first enter and validate the gift card number, then they recharge the gift card with their credit card.
STS WebTerminal
STS provides a web service called WebTerminal. It works like a Point-of-Sale terminal your organization uses to debit and credit funds from the gift cards in the STS database. WebTerminal is not a payment processor, it simply adds and removes value from gift cards.
Payments are processed through the customer-facing website or the virtual Stripe payment processor. For more information on processing payment in different scenarios for gift cards, see the following article: How to Sell Gift Cards using PatronManager and STS.
Logging in
The WebTerminal is a website: https://localgiftcards.net/webterminal/patron_log-in.php
When you go to this website, you'll log in with a unique username and password provided by STS. Once logged in, you can add and modify users as well.
Want to play around in a safe test environment? We welcome you to use the demo account we set up for exactly this purpose - just log into WebTerminal with these credentials:
- Username: Patron
- Password: theatres
Once you're logged in, you'll see a series of sections and tabs. Let's explore further!
Note: We won't cover the Batch Maintenance tab, as you likely won't need it!
In the Transactions section, you can add credit to - and check on the balance of - your patrons' gift cards. possible to debit value from a gift card here as well, though you shouldn't need to with the latest PatronManager Box Office / STS integration, as you'll charge gift cards in PatronManager.
Each tab relies on the gift card number to get more information about the gift card; you can enter the gift card number one of two ways:
- Enter the number on the physical card by hand
- Use a Magtek swiper
There are multiple tabs in the Transactions section, not all of which will likely be used by your organization. The most commonly used tabs in the Transactions section are Sale, Credit/Activation, Activate E-Gift, and Inquiry. Find out more about each tab below.
The Sale tab is the default tab you see when you log in. You shouldn't need to use this tab with the latest PatronManager Box Office STS integration, as you'll charge gift cards in PatronManager.
The Credit/Activation tab allows you to activate a new plastic card or add funds to an existing plastic or e-card when a patron wants to purchase a gift card in person. Use the "Include cardholder information" checkbox to attach personal information to the gift card and later search for that card in WebTerminal by last name.
You can also use the Credit/Activation tab to edit the cardholder information attached to an existing card - enter in the gift card number, set a $0 Amount, and edit the cardholder information.
The Activate E-Gift tab allows you to create an e-gift that is immediately sent to the recipient's email. To ensure the recipient's last name is on the card and easily searchable later, enter the cardholder information on this screen.
This tab can also be useful in a scenario where you need to create value "out of nowhere" - for example, if you wish to reward volunteers for their service with gift cards.
Finally, the Inquiry tab allows you to enter a gift card number to check the balance of any given card. The balance will display on a receipt-like image.
The Reports tab gives you access to basic daily reports, card statements, and the last name Card Lookup function.
The reports in WebTerminal aren't the only available reports through STS - STS can also send additional reports that are excel-ready via email on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
The main reports STS provides via email are:
- Merchant Chain Statement: Transaction-level view of all gift card sales and redemptions.
- Gift Card Liability Summary: Overview of all active cards in your STS account.
- Gift Card Position Report: In-depth summary of the status of every gift card in your STS account.
If the above reports don't meet your needs, you can get in contact with STS to learn more about custom reporting capabilities.
The Transaction Detail Report shows basic information on a daily basis of all of the credits and debits that occur on a given calendar day.
This is a supplement to the reports STS can send to you on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
The Card Statement tab will give you a history of any individual card's credits and debits.
- When you type the last name in Cardholder's Last Name, a list of all the gift cards tied to that last name will generate.
- Click to the left of the card number to view the balance of each card.
- An invalid or expired card will show an X rather than a balance.
- You can copy the card number from here if you need to use it elsewhere in WebTerminal.
The configuration section allows you to set up various elements of your WebTerminal.
The General section allows you to enable or disable different security settings and supported card types.
- Each organization can decide on their security settings
- Your organization will most likely want the Gift Cards option to be selected
The Users tab is where Admin users can create new users and modify existing users. There are three types of users in WebTerminal - Admin, Clerk and Reports Only.
The Admin view has full access to all the tabs and functions of WebTerminal.
The Clerk user has access to every tab except the the Configuration tab; this user can't create new users or modify existing users.
The Reports Only user only has access to the Reports tab. This user can view and run reports, but they can't add or remove value from a gift card or make any other changes in WebTerminal.
The Receipt tab gives users the option to customize various parts of the receipt, including several custom lines of text.
If your organization has a receipt printer, you can visit this tab to see instructions on how to set up your printer settings.
