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Leat Help Center

Physical gift cards

Physical gift cards are printed cards you sell and accept at your own locations. Leat creates the card numbers, your printer turns each number into a QR code on the card, and your team scans the card in the Business App to load it or pay with it.

Is your account's country the Netherlands? Then we can also print gift cards and passes with your own design for you, through a Dutch order form. This service is only available in the Netherlands, and we'll stop offering it in the future. The steps below are for cards you have printed by your own printer, which works in every country.

What Leat makes and what your printer makes

Leat only makes the card numbers. Depending on how your account is set up, a card number is either "H" followed by 8 characters, or a 16-digit number.

Your printer makes the QR codes. Each QR code has to contain that card's number exactly, with nothing added, such as a web address or spaces. It's a good idea to print the number on the card as well, so it can be typed in when a code won't scan. If your account uses a QR code prefix, cards scan with or without it.

Generate the card numbers

  1. Go to Data → Generate and click Create.
  2. Under Type, choose Giftcards. Under Option, choose Create giftcards with an amount or Create giftcards without an amount. Click Start.
  3. Enter a Name and a Quantity (1 to 10,000) and click Next step.
  4. Choose the Giftcard program and decide whether the cards are Reusable (see below). For cards with an amount, also choose the Business profile the load is booked at and enter the Amount in cents, up to 10,000 (100.00 in your currency). Click Next step.
  5. Check your data and click Start.

The batch then appears on the Generate data page, where you can follow its progress.

Export the card numbers for your printer

  1. Open the batch and click Options → Export.
  2. On the Columns step, choose the columns you need: Card number (hash), plus Amount or Amount in cents if the cards carry an amount. Click Next.
  3. On the Summary step, check the Name, Decimal separator and Date notation. Turn on Email the export results if you'd also like an email with a link to the export's page. Click Start export.
  4. You land on the export's page. When it's finished, click Download. You'll also find it later under Data → Exports.

Send that file to your printer.

What happens once the cards exist

  • Cards are active the moment they're created. Cards with an amount already carry their balance, so look after the printed stock the way you'd look after cash.
  • Every batch adds your account's "All" group, the group with all your business profiles, to the gift card programme. Groups decide which business profiles accept the programme's cards, so after a batch the programme may be valid at more locations than before. Check Store → Giftcards → Groups if the programme should only work at some of them.

Loading and topping up at the till

Scan the card in the Business App and tap Top up to put money on it. The button only shows when your Business App configuration allows top-ups and the card can still take a load.

  • Reusable on: the card can be topped up again and again.
  • Reusable off (the default): the card takes 1 load only. A card generated with an amount has already had that load, so it can't be topped up.

Cards you already have

Already using printed cards from another system? Import them instead of generating new ones. They keep their existing numbers, so the QR codes already on them keep working. See How to import gift cards with balances.

When something goes wrong

  • The QR code doesn't find a card: the code doesn't contain the exact card number. Ask your printer to encode the number and nothing else.
  • A batch with an amount turns Failed and holds fewer cards than you asked for, or none: the amount is higher than the programme's Maximum amount. No card is made when its load is refused, so lower the amount or raise the maximum, then generate a new batch.
  • There's no Top up button: the card isn't reusable and has already been loaded, or top-ups aren't allowed in your Business App configuration.
  • A location won't accept the card: that business profile isn't in one of the programme's groups.

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