Customer Rewards Program Overview

Many retailers offer incentives to repeat customers, based upon their spending level. Also referred to as a Customer Loyalty program, this can be a very effective tool for maintaining and expanding your customer base.

You define the parameters of your rewards program in the Reward Manager, available from the Customers menu. Customers can be added to the program automatically or selectively as you make sales (or on their customer record).

Members are indicated by the rewards program icon in various places in the program. Printed receipt rewards reminder

Point of Sale tracks purchases for each program member and alerts the cashier when a reward is earned or when a reward is available for redemption. Merchandise returns are subtracted from the current purchase tracking balance.

Rewards earned and rewards redeemed are printed on customer receipts, as is the spending amount needed to qualify for the next reward.

Reward redemption reports are available for tracking purposes. Reward discounts are also added to the item grid of saved receipts for later viewing.

If you are requiring employees to log in, security rights control access to the Rewards Manager and to redemption reports.

In a multiple store configuration, all stores share a single reward program, which can be defined only at Headquarters. Customer purchases and redemptions made at any store are updated to Headquarters with each Store Exchange and the updated information sent back out to remote stores. Important Note

Item/Payment Type	Qualifies to Earn Reward	Qualifies for Redemption
Inventory, Service, Non-inventory, Group, Assembly	Yes	Yes
Sales Tax	No	No
Shipping Charges	No	No
Gift card/certificate purchase	No	No
Gift card/certificate redemption	No Impact	No Impact
Charges to customer account	No impact	No impact
Payments on customer account	No	No

Reward Manager: Point of Sale program window where you define the parameters of your Rewards program.

Rewards Member: Any customer that has been enrolled as a member in your program. Point of Sale automatically tracks reward members purchases and rewards.

Purchase Threshold: The amount a customer must purchase during the purchase tracking period to earn a reward. Another reward is earned each time the customer purchases reach this amount.

Purchase Tracking Period: Time period within which purchases must be made to qualify for rewards. Specify a start and end date; or leave end date open-ended.

Reward Amount: The reward value earned when a customer meets the purchase threshold. This can be defined as a dollar amount or as a percentage off a future purchase.

Reward Expiration: (Optional) Specifies how long a reward is valid for redemption. Measured from the earned date, adjusted for a reward blocking period if used (see below).

Earned Reward: Pending reward that has been earned but not yet redeemed.

Purchase Balance: A customers current sales accumulation toward earning the next reward.

Reward Redemption: The act of applying a customer reward to discount a new purchase.

Redemption Blocking Period: Period after the qualifying sale in which redemption of an earned reward is not allowed. This can be set to the length of your return policy to help avoid returns of items for which a customer has already earned and redeemed a reward.

Qualifying Purchases/Redemptions: The list of items whose purchase qualifies toward earning a reward and/or that qualifies for reward redemption. To qualify, items must be purchased within the purchase tracking period. The return of a qualifying item reduces the customers current purchase balance.

Point of Sale integration with Microsoft Office allows you to write letters to your rewards program members to remind them they have earned a reward and to reinforce the benefits of their reward membership.

Filter your customer list to display these members and then choose Write Letters from the I Want To menu. Select the Customer Rewards Earned template and customize as necessary.

Learn more about writing letters.

Because no money changes hands when a reward is earned, it is a non-accounting event and has no immediate effect on your financial accounts. Likewise, the expiration or cancellation of an unredeemed reward has no effect on your financial records. Point of Sale reports can be used to track earned, but unredeemed rewards.

A reward redemption is a discount that is accounted for in the same manner as other sales discounts.

By default, Point of Sale sends net sales amounts to QuickBooks income accounts and doesn't account for the discount separately. However, if you elect the preference to send separate original and discounted values, Point of Sale creates (if necessary) and reports reward discounts in the Sales: Rewards Discounts income account.

Note: You must have company preference I want to track customers enabled to use a customer rewards program. You can turn this preference on the General page of company preferences (access from File menu).

These are basic steps of a rewards program. Press F1 or select the help links on any screen for more detailed instructions for that task.