By the end of this article, you'll understand the different gift card entry types (liability, redemption, and adjustments), how to generate and save a gift card template, and how to post it into your accounting system (QuickBooks, NetSuite).
What Is the Gift Card Journal Entry?
Blue Onion has a separate Gift Card journal entry specifically designed to capture gift card activity that falls outside of your standard Orders entry. While your Orders journal entry already captures gift card purchases by customers and gift card redemptions used toward a purchase (shown as a clearing account), the Gift Card journal entry handles additional scenarios:
Scenario | What It Records |
Gift Cards Issued | An increase in your liability and, for complimentary gift cards, an associated expense |
Gift Cards Expired | A reduction in your gift card liability when cards expire or are disabled |
Gift Card Refunds | Adjustments when a gift card is refunded |
Balance Adjustments | Any manual or system-level adjustments to gift card balances |
Two Key Types of Issued Gift Cards
Complimentary gift cards — Issued for free to customers (e.g., promotional or goodwill credits). These create a liability for the company and an expense.
Gift cards issued via platforms — Issued through third-party services like Shopify or Rise.ai. Blue Onion will indicate the source.
Step 1: Design Your Gift Card View in the Interactive Explorer
Navigate to the Journal Entries section and open the Explorer View. You'll be defaulted to the Interactive View.
Tip: Toggle to Export View for a cleaner, easier-to-read layout.
Select Gift Cards as your Journal Entry Type and choose your date range.
Choose Your Grouping and Filters
The grouping and filter options are the same as other templates (order system, order system account, channel, location). However, most customers find that one gift card template without additional filters covers all of their gift card activity.
If you do want to filter, you can narrow by specific channels (e.g., online store only) or by order system, just as you would with Orders or Revenue Recognition templates.
Recommendation: Unless you have a specific reason to break it out, leave the data unfiltered so all gift card activity is captured in a single template.
Step 2: Create the Template
Once you've confirmed the view, navigate to the Templates page and click Create Template.
Fill In the Template Details
Field | Example |
Template Name | Gift Card Template (or any name you prefer) |
Journal Entry Type | Gift Cards |
Use Financial Statement Currency | Toggle on (e.g., USD) |
Group By | Your preferred grouping, or leave as default |
Filters | None (recommended), or filter by channel/order system if needed |
Step 3: Map and Configure
After saving the template, you'll see it listed on the Templates page with the same four icons as other templates:
Icon | Function |
1st — Edit | View or modify the template's filters and structure |
2nd — Manual Push | Preview and trigger manual pushes into QuickBooks |
3rd — Mappings | Map all line items to your Chart of Accounts |
4th — Disable | Temporarily disable the template |
All of these steps need to be completed before you can successfully push your gift card journal entry into your accounting system (QuickBooks, NetSuite). Specifically:
Map every line item to the correct GL account using the Mappings icon (3rd).
Test by previewing and manually pushing using the Manual Push icon (2nd).
Go live once you've validated the entries in QuickBooks.
How Gift Cards Interact with Other Journal Entries
It's helpful to understand where gift card activity appears across your different templates:
Activity | Where It Appears |
Customer purchases a gift card | Orders journal entry |
Customer uses a gift card toward a purchase | Orders journal entry (as a clearing account) |
Gift card is issued (complimentary or via platform) | Gift Card journal entry |
Gift card expires | Gift Card journal entry |
Gift card is refunded or balance is adjusted | Gift Card journal entry |
This separation ensures that your gift card liability is tracked accurately without inflating or conflating your order-level entries.
Summary
To set up your Gift Card journal entry template:
Design your gift card view in the Interactive Explorer
Create the template — most customers use a single unfiltered template for all gift card activity
Map all line items to your Chart of Accounts
Test by previewing and manually pushing into QuickBooks
Go live once everything is validated
Have questions? Reach out to our Customer Support team for assistance.