Getting notified about pending gift card transactions

Some till integrations, such as Lightspeed, book a gift card payment or top-up as pending first and complete it when the sale on the till is finished. If a pending transaction is still open when its review deadline passes, someone needs to look at it, and we email your team about it.

Who gets the email by default

The emails are on for every gift card program until you turn them off. Until you pick team members, they go to your account’s email address and to every admin on the account.

Choose who gets them and when

Settings are per gift card program, so repeat this for each program.

1. Go to Store → Giftcards and pick the program under Selected program at the top of the sidebar.
2. Open Settings and scroll to Pending transactions.
3. Click the gear icon on the Notification settings row. Don’t see the row? Click Edit notifications, choose Send email notifications and click Save changes.
4. Under Team members, choose who gets the email. Leave it empty to keep sending to your account’s email address and all admins.
5. Under When to send, choose one:
   • As soon as it happens: the first transaction that needs review sends an email straight away. After that, you get at most 1 email per program every 24 hours.
   • Collected into one email on a schedule: pick the days and a Time, in your account’s time zone. Monday at 09:00 is filled in for you. The email only goes out if something new needs review since the last one.
   • Don't send an email: nobody is emailed.
6. Click Submit.

You can change the same settings under Settings → Notifications: click Configure next to Giftcard transactions need review and pick the Giftcard program first.

Turn the emails off

1. Click the gear icon on the Notification settings row, choose Don't send an email and click Submit.
2. To hide the row as well, click Edit notifications, choose Don’t send email notifications and click Save changes.

What triggers an email

Every 5 minutes, we look for pending transactions whose review deadline has passed and mark them for review. The till integration sets that deadline when it creates the transaction, so a transaction without one never triggers an email.

The email says transactions are waiting for review and links to the Pending transactions tab. The notification also shows in the dashboard, whatever you chose for email.

Handle a pending transaction

1. Go to Store → Giftcards and check the program under Selected program. The list only shows that program’s transactions.
2. Open Transactions and then the Pending transactions tab. It lists every open transaction, before and after its review deadline.
3. Click Commit to book the transaction on the card, for example when the contact paid at the till. Click Decline if the sale didn’t go through: nothing is booked on the card.

Both buttons act straight away, with no confirmation step. See Finding gift card balances and transactions for more on reading transactions.

If nobody gets an email

• Don't send an email is chosen, or Don’t send email notifications is selected for this program. Both are per program, so check the right one.
• With As soon as it happens, this program already sent an email in the last 24 hours.
• On a schedule, the email waits for the next day and time you picked.
• The till didn’t give the transaction a review deadline, so it’s never marked for review. It’s still listed under Pending transactions.
• A team member who has left the account is skipped.