Introduction

Gift cards follow special accounting rules, as the revenue is not recognized when the card is sold. Instead, the revenue is registered when the gift card is used, expires, or is otherwise redeemed.
This guide explains how TRAEDE structures gift card sales and usage when syncing to e-conomic.

Understanding gift card accounting

Gift cards represent a liability, not revenue.
When a customer buys a gift card:

• You receive money from the payment provider

• You do not register revenue

• You instead register gift card debt, because you now owe the customer goods worth the gift card value

When the gift card is used on a future purchase:

• Revenue from the product sale is recognized

• Part of the payment is covered by the gift card

• The gift card liability is reduced by the redeemed amount

Example: selling a gift card

A customer purchases a 100 EUR gift card in your Shopify shop.

In e-conomic, the sync from TRAEDE will show:

• A receivable from your payment provider (e.g., credit card provider)

• A credit to the gift card liability account, increasing your outstanding gift card balance

• No revenue is booked, because no goods have been delivered yet

Example: using a gift card

In this example, a customer buys a product totaling 3,659 EUR and uses their 100 EUR gift card toward the purchase.
The remaining 3,559 EUR is paid by credit card.

In e-conomic, you will now see:

1. Invoice entry

The full amount (e.g., 3,659 EUR) is recognized as revenue, because goods have been sold.

2. Payment entries

Payments are split into two parts:

• Credit card payment → booked to your payment provider account

• Gift card payment → reduces the gift card liability

3. Gift card liability adjustment

The system decreases the gift card liability by 100 EUR, bringing the balance back to zero.

This ensures that:

• Revenue is recognized correctly

• Payment receivables are registered properly

• Gift card debt is cleared once redeemed