Loading fees

Each time a card is loaded with a value of more than $10.00, $0.40 CAD will be charged to your account. Cards loaded with a value of $10.00 or less will be charged $0.20 CAD. Loading fees will be billed semi-annually, on December 31st and July 31st, with an online report available to track usage and charges. There are no fees charged when a card is redeemed, only when it is loaded or refilled.

Fully redeemed cards

When a card is fully redeemed, you can take it back from the customer. Cards may be recycled (issued again to another customer), and we encourage you to do so to bring costs down. Customers will not be able to see any previous history on recycled cards, but you can if need be. In our experience, gift cards get 2-3 cycles of use before they become too tattered and worn to be issued again.

Expiring cards

Depending on provincial/state laws, gift cards may not be allowed to expire. In fact, most provinces in Canada no longer allow gift cards to have an expiration. If your area allows expiry dates, and you decide to implement them, make certain your policy is displayed on the physical cards. Cards can be designed with an “expiry date” space to hand write the date upon issuing.

Security

The physical plastic gift cards contain no information about the card's balance or history. Rather, Bookmanager uses the unique barcoded number printed on the card to obtain the information stored on your server and mirrored on our servers. For this reason, we recommend that the physical gift card itself be present at the time of redemption, to reduce the chance of a stolen or counterfeit number being used. It is very difficult and unlikely that your physical gift card be reproduced exactly, with a working barcode, and a number that is activated and carries a balance.

That said, card numbers can be entered manually if the card or the scanner is damaged, or upon exceptional occasions where the physical card itself cannot be presented.

A 3-digit PIN is included and printed beside the barcode as additional security. This PIN allows for additional vetting when the card is not physically present, or for online redemption. By default, this PIN is not obscured behind a scratch-off panel. If you keep your unloaded gift cards behind the front desk and out of customer reach until they are issued, a scratch-off panel is not necessary. Otherwise, scratch-off panels can be requested for an additional $0.10 CAD/USD fee per card.

¹ Design pricing

Designing your card is a minimum $150 charge, and that includes one hour of work, which results in 2-4 front and back mock-ups/variations. Each additional half hour of work is billed at $50. The time spent designing varies on the amount of work and revisions needed to create your design.

Each design is created from scratch for each individual store, allowing your card to be as unique as you like. If you have your own graphic artist and provide print-ready material, there is a minimum $50 artwork setup fee. Please refer to the Design Resources section at the bottom of this page for templates and guidelines for designers. We highly recommend providing an unflattened PDF file, or an Adobe Illustrator file (with font/text outlined), for best print quality. If designing in Photoshop, we prefer a PDF export, with text outlined. We will also accept a 300dpi JPG, PNG or TIFF file too, but vector based files (such as PDF, SVG, EPS, or Adobe Illustrator files) will print at 2400 dpi. If your vector-based design contains 4 or less colours, we can employ offset printing for vibrant colours and very crisp lines.

Printing your own cards

We have no issue with stores purchasing their gift cards from a third party for use with the Bookmanager software. We do require that you contact us to obtain a file containing the authorized, randomized barcode numbers (they must adhere to Bookmanager's validation formula otherwise they will be rejected). There is no charge to generate this file.

We can also integrate your pre-existing gift cards for use with Bookmanager. These cards will adhere to the loading fee structure outlined above.

Delivery time

Approximately 2-4 weeks after the final approval of artwork and payment is received by us. Rush production/delivery can be requested at an extra cost, but this still takes an average of 1-2 weeks until you receive the cards at your store.

Shipping & other options

The prices per card outlined above include shipping. Cards are shipped direct from our manufacturer in Ontario, using FedEx / UPS Express "2-day" service to avoid duties.

If you would like to have multiple gift card designs for a single order, ask us about pricing and minimum quantities. For example, you can order 1000 cards total, but have 500 printed with one design, and 500 with another.

² The backs of cards can be printed in full CMYK or Pantone spot colours. On average, this adds about 40-45% cost to the total. For example, 500 cards normally at $1.25 each will be $1.75 each if you want colour on the back.

Coming from another system?

If you are able to provide us with a spreadsheet of your current gift card numbers and their respective balances, we are often able to import those into Bookmanager for integrated use within the software and webstore. This conversion will incur a fee for the time it takes us to convert and import those balances. Loading fees will not apply to your existing cards converted and imported. Loading fees will only apply to newly loaded cards; new ones from us or your existing cards being loaded for the first time in Bookmanager.

Not all gift cards from other systems can be converted. Your existing cards must have at least 8 unique numbers, and must be written on the card itself. If the gift card number is only accessible by scanning a barcode or swiping a magnetic strip, and no number is written out on the card for your staff to manually reference, we will not be able to import those for use in the system.