Gift card liability report

This report shows the gift-card balance you still owe across all your cards, how many you issued versus redeemed in a period, and every card with its remaining balance - so gift-card sales are never counted as profit before they are spent.

What it shows

• Outstanding gift-card liability: the headline figure. It is the live balance you still owe customers across every active card. This is the real all-time total from Shopify and is not tied to the date range. It includes cards issued as a refund or store credit and cards you created manually, not just cards bought on an order.
• Cards: alongside the outstanding liability (with the number of active cards), Issued shows the value and count of cards issued in the period; Issued without an order shows cards issued in the period that were not bought on an order (a refund or store credit given as a gift card, or one created manually); Redeemed shows the value spent and how many orders used a gift card in the period.
• Issued vs redeemed: a trend of issued against redeemed over the period, shown when there is activity.
• All issued gift cards: a table of every card with its last characters, issue date, source (purchased or no order), initial value, remaining balance, and status (active, empty, or disabled). Filter it by source: all, no order attached, or purchased.

A gift-card sale is treated as deferred revenue, so it is not counted in your profit until the card is spent on real products. See how profit is calculated for where that sits.

Setup

This report needs the read_gift_cards permission. If gift cards are not connected yet, add the permission and re-open the app to approve it. The report then pulls in every issued card - purchased, refunded, or manually created - with its real balance.

Filters and options

• Date range picker.
• Compare to the previous period, the previous year, or a custom range. The Issued, Issued without an order, and Redeemed cards show the comparison value beneath each one. The outstanding liability is always the current live total.
• Source filter on the card table: all cards, no order attached, or purchased.

When to use it

Use it to see the real gift-card balance you still owe, to watch how fast cards get redeemed, and to keep gift-card sales from being mistaken for profit before they are spent. For how that deferred revenue fits your monthly numbers, see the profit and loss report.