The Gift Cards report lists every gift card you have issued — its number, what it was loaded with, how much has been spent, what is left, and when it expires. Like a deposit, an unspent gift card is money you are holding rather than money you have earned.
This article assumes you already know the basics of the Sharper reporting module — the Name, Token, Subtotal, column picker, and filter fields. For a full walkthrough of the reporting form itself, see the Sharper Reporting Reference Guide. This article only covers what's specific to the Gift Cards report.
Why This Report Matters
Outstanding gift card balances are a liability, and they are one of the easiest to lose sight of because nothing prompts you to look at them. They also carry rules — many jurisdictions restrict when a gift card may expire and what happens to unclaimed balances — so the outstanding total is worth knowing rather than guessing. Use this report to:
Total the gift card balances still outstanding, for your balance sheet
See which cards are approaching expiry, if you expire them at all
Investigate a card a customer says is not working
Review how many cards are sold and how many are actually redeemed
Amount, Used, and Balance
Three columns describe the same card at different stages, and it is worth being clear which one you want:
Column | What It Represents |
Amount | What the card was originally loaded with — your gift card sales |
Used | How much has been redeemed against purchases |
Balance | What is left on the card — your outstanding liability. This is the column to subtotal. |
Subtotalling Amount gives you what you have sold, not what you owe — and the two are very different numbers once cards start being spent. For the liability figure your accountant wants, subtotal Balance and filter to cards that still have one.
Building a Gift Cards Report
Go to Reports → Accounting → Gift Cards in the left sidebar.
If a shipped report is close to what you need, use the ⋯ menu → Copy first — shipped reports can only be edited by the Sharper team.
Otherwise click + New and give it a Name, such as "Outstanding Gift Card Balances."
Add the columns below from the Available panel.
Set Subtotal to Balance.
Turn on All Outlets if cards are sold and redeemed across more than one location.
Click Save, then Get Report to run it.
Available Columns
Field | What It Shows |
Number | The gift card number — what a customer will read out to you over the phone |
Status | The card's state. Check this first when a customer reports a card being declined. |
Amount, Used, Balance | The value columns described above |
Expiration Date | When the card expires, where you set an expiry. Blank means it does not expire. |
Created Date | When the card was issued — use this to measure gift card sales over a period |
Customer Name, Cust Email, Cust Phone | Who the card is associated with, where it was issued to a known customer |
Product Name, Product SKU | The gift card product used to issue it |
User Display Name, User Email | The staff member who issued the card |
Gift Card ID | The internal record reference |
Note: A card bought as a gift is often not associated with the person who will spend it, so Customer Name can be blank or show the purchaser rather than the recipient. Do not rely on it to identify who holds a card — the Number is what identifies the card.
Useful Filters
Outstanding liability: Field Balance, operator >, value 0, subtotalled on Balance.
Cards expiring soon: Field Expiration Date, operator Between, entering today and a date 30 or 60 days out, with a balance greater than 0.
Expired cards still holding value: Expiration Date operator < today And Balance greater than 0 — check your local rules before writing these off.
Gift card sales in a period: Field Created Date, operator Between, subtotalled on Amount.
A specific card: Field Number, set to the card number.
Fully redeemed cards: Field Balance, operator =, value 0.
The outstanding-liability filter is the one to save and run at each period close — it is a single figure, and it is the one your accountant will ask for.