Yes. PocketSuite’s Gift Certificates feature lets a business sell a gift certificate with a set name, price, and optional built-in discount, and Discounts lets a business create promotional codes that reduce the price of a service, package, or the full invoice total at checkout.
PocketSuite powers 7,000+ service businesses, including 1,000+ pet service businesses, whose clients have collectively processed nearly $1 billion in income and scheduled over 9.2 million appointments. A gift certificate sold in December often introduces a completely new client to a facility the following spring, making it one of the more effective, and least expensive, ways a business brings in a first-time booking.
The two tools work well together, a gift certificate covers the upfront purchase and value transfer, while a discount code can be layered on top for a specific promotion, a referral incentive, or a seasonal sale.
Selling a Gift Certificate Online
A business can create a gift certificate with its own name and price, list it for sale through Online Booking, and let a client purchase it as a gift for someone else without needing a specific appointment slot to buy it. The certificate can also include a built-in discount, a certificate worth $100 that costs $90, for example, functioning as a promotional bundle rather than a pure dollar-for-dollar transfer.
“PocketSuite’s a little bit more fluid, you can navigate between things a little bit easier.” said Robert Norris, owner, The Dog Wizard Woodlands, describing the overall ease of navigating between different parts of PocketSuite, a quality that extends to setting up something like a gift certificate listing without a lengthy separate setup process.
Watch: The Dog Wizard Woodlands on Upgrading to PocketSuite for Board and Train
Applying a Gift Certificate at Checkout
When a recipient books using a gift certificate, its value is applied directly to their invoice total at checkout, staff pull up the certificate and apply it toward whatever service or booking the recipient is scheduling, without any separate manual bookkeeping outside the system to track its remaining balance.
If a certificate’s value does not fully cover a booking, the remaining balance is simply charged to the client’s card the normal way, so a $50 certificate applied to a $75 stay leaves a $25 charge rather than requiring an all-or-nothing redemption.
Creating a Promotional Discount Code
Separately from gift certificates, Discounts lets a business create a promo code tied to a specific percentage or dollar amount off, applicable to a product, service, package, class, or subscription. A business running a referral program, a seasonal sale, or a first-time-client incentive can generate a code specific to that promotion and track how often it gets used.
Because a discount can be scoped to a specific offer rather than applied business-wide, a business can run more than one promotion at a time, a referral code for existing clients and a separate first-booking discount for new ones, without either one interfering with the other.
Tracking How Much Gift Certificate Value Is Outstanding
Every gift certificate sold and every dollar redeemed against one shows up in the same income reporting a business already uses for other revenue tracking, so a facility can see how much certificate value has been sold but not yet redeemed at any given point. That visibility matters for a business trying to understand its actual cash position versus outstanding future obligations.
A facility running a strong holiday gift-certificate season, in particular, benefits from being able to see that outstanding balance clearly, since a large batch of certificates sold in one month often gets redeemed gradually over the months that follow.
Deciding Whether to Discount a Certificate at All
Not every business needs to discount its gift certificates to sell them well, a certificate sold at full face value still brings in the same new-client benefit without reducing revenue on the sale itself. A business can decide whether a built-in discount makes sense based on its own goals, growing gift certificate volume specifically, versus simply offering the option at full price for a client who wants to give one as a gift.
Either approach can be tested and adjusted, since a certificate’s price and discount, like any other listing, can be updated without disrupting certificates already sold under the previous terms.
Using a Promo Code for a Referral Program
A discount code does not have to be tied to a general sale, a business can create a specific code for an existing client to share with friends or family, giving the referred client a discount on their first booking while the code itself tracks exactly how many new clients came through that specific referral source. That tracking makes it straightforward to see which referral relationships are actually bringing in new business.
A referral code can also be paired with a small reward for the referring client, a discount code of their own to use on a future visit once the referred client’s first booking is complete, giving an existing client a reason to actually share the code rather than letting it sit unused.
Promoting Gift Certificates Ahead of the Holiday Season
Because a gift certificate listing lives in Online Booking the same way any other service does, a business can promote it directly to its existing client list through a targeted text campaign in the weeks leading up to a gift-giving season, rather than relying on clients to think to ask about one. A short message linking directly to the certificate listing removes any friction between a client deciding to buy one and actually completing the purchase.
Timing that outreach a few weeks before the holidays, rather than the week of, gives clients enough lead time to buy a certificate as an actual planned gift rather than a last-minute afterthought.
Selling a Gift Certificate to Someone Who Has Never Booked Before
A gift certificate listing on a business’s public online booking page is visible to anyone, not just existing clients, which means a certificate can be someone’s very first interaction with a facility entirely. A friend or family member buying a certificate as a gift is, in effect, referring a brand-new client without a business needing to run any separate referral program to make that happen.
Once that gift recipient redeems the certificate and books their first appointment, they become a client on file the same as anyone who found the business another way, with their own profile ready to build a normal ongoing relationship from that first visit forward.
That first booking is also a business’s best chance to make a strong impression on a brand-new client who arrived with no prior expectations set by advertising, only by whoever bought them the certificate in the first place.
A business that tracks where its new clients actually come from can add gift certificates as their own source in that tracking, giving a facility a clearer picture of how many first-time bookings trace back to a friend or family member rather than a paid ad or a search result.
Getting Help Setting Up Gift Certificates or Promo Codes
A business setting up its first gift certificate listing or promotional code can reach a Product Expert through in-app live chat, available 10 hours a day, seven days a week, or request an ASAP Call for a live walkthrough with a callback within 15 to 30 minutes, useful for getting pricing and redemption rules set correctly before the first certificate sells.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. A business can create a gift certificate with its own name and price, and list it for sale through Online Booking.
Yes. A certificate can be set to include a built-in discount, for example a $100 certificate sold for $90.
The certificate’s value is applied to the invoice, and any remaining balance is charged to the client’s card the normal way.
No. Gift Certificates are a purchased item with a set value, while Discounts create promo codes that reduce a price by a percentage or dollar amount.
Yes. Discounts can be scoped to a specific offer, so a business can run separate promotions, like a referral code and a new-client discount, at once.
Income Reports shows gift certificate sales and redemptions, so a business can see outstanding certificate value at any point.
A gift certificate sold today is often a new client’s first introduction to a facility months from now, and a well-timed discount code can turn a hesitant browser into a booked client. Having both tools available, and reporting that shows exactly how each one is performing, gives a business real visibility into what promotional efforts are actually working.
For a facility that has never formally sold gift certificates or run a tracked promo code, the upcoming holiday season is a reasonable place to start.
