MCS Back Office - Vouchers

MCS Back Office - Vouchers

Voucher is bar coded prepayment/gift certificate that can be exchanged to a product/ticket or used as a payment in a controlled manner.

MCS supports 3 different categories of vouchers:
  1. Ticket Vouchers
  2. Product Vouchers
  3. E-Money
Ticket vouchers can be exchanged to a ticket, product vouchers to a product and e-money is a payment tthat can pay either full sum or part of a transaction regardless of transaction content.
Vouchers can be either printable or e-vouchers. E-Vouchers are not printed out, they require customer profile to be associated with voucher generation transaction and generated vouchers will be attached to
person profile.
Voucher creation process includes following steps:
1. Voucher template definition
2. Product definition – a sellable product is defined and associated with voucher template.
3. Selling the product – when a product that has voucher template associated with it is sold and corresponding transaction committed, voucher(s) are generated at the end of transaction.
If voucher template defines vouchers to be printable, generated vouchers are printed out to receipt printer. 

Vouchers can be generated in Front Office transaction or using Back Office Sales Order feature. Sales order is relaying on exactly the same mechanism of voucher creation as Front Office, the only difference is that the transaction will be started and committed in Back Office.

Voucher Templates

Voucher template defines all properties of a voucher except the sales price, which is determined by the product that the voucher template is associated with.


Main Voucher Properties


Following screenshot illustrates voucher template definition for generating ticket vouchers. Voucher template must have:
Unique name. In current screenshot the name is “Ticket Voucher”.
Type determines if voucher will be printable or e-voucher.
Category has following values:
  1. e-Money: generated voucher will act as a payment that can be applied to entire transaction. The value of the payment will be the price at which the product associated with current template is sold. For instance, if the product price in Front Office is 10 EUR, the voucher generated from this template will act as payment of 10 EUR.
  2. Single Ticket: generated voucher can be exchanged to single ticket (one voucher equals one ticket). The ticket that the voucher can cover must match criteria set in Voucher Definition group box.
  3. Single Product: the generated voucher can be exchanged to a product that is listed in Voucher Definition group box.
Becomes Active controls the Valid From date of generated voucher objects. Possible values are:
  1. Immediately: generated vouchers are active and usable immediately after they are generated
  2. N Days After Generation: generated vouchers will be active N days after they are generated
  3. On Fixed Date: generated vouchers will become active on certain predetermined date. This option is very useful for running holiday related campaigns – for instance, you can generate vouchers that will not be usable before certain holiday season starts.
Voucher expiration has two options:
  1. N Days after Generation: vouchers will be active for selected number of days after being generated. This is the most common and default choice.
  2. On Fixed Date: voucher expiration will happen on predetermined absolute date. This option is useful for running holiday related campaigns.
In case of ticket vouchers, the Voucher Definition group determines ticket categories that the vouchers generated from this template can be matched to. This allows you to restrict and refine voucher usage. For instance, you may have voucher that is valid for children tickets only.
In case of product vouchers, this list contains products that the voucher can cover.
In case of e-money, this control will be hidden.

You can also create ticket vouchers that are only valid for certain event – select corresponding movie from Event combo box.

Min and Max value in the price range group contain the gross price range of single ticket that the voucher is valid for. In case of a product voucher the range determines the price range of product item. In case of e-money, the range represents total transaction value.
Note that it is useful not to set the lower range to zero, because sometimes there are free items in the transaction and you do not want people to mistakenly apply voucher payments to such items. This may be an odd thing to do, but in real life this happens.
Voucher Face Value defines the value of the voucher. 



Customizing Voucher Texts

You can customize the texts that appear on vouchers generated from current template on the Layout page of the window.  

Insert Caption; Primary Message and Bottom Message. You can also assign a specific logo for each template. Voucher Logos can be added from Registers -> Financial -> Voucher Logo menu.



These texts will be associated with all generated vouchers, including e-vouchers. In case of an e-voucher, this information is used in the web portal at the customer profile voucher list. In case of printed vouchers these text values appear on the location determined by voucher printout layout that is chosen in Computer Configuration object. By default the printout includes three primary areas: caption, primary message and bottom message. In such case the caption is meant to be the text that communicates to the customer what kind of voucher this is (e-money, ticket, and product). Primary message provides explanation about the kinds of tickets/products that the voucher covers and bottom message is meant for additional fine print clauses.


Selling Vouchers

Associating Voucher Template with Product 

After defining voucher template you must associate the template with a product. Vouchers are generated at the end of a transaction that contains corresponding product. In current sample we define
a product named “Ticket Voucher Sample”: 




Pay attention to the „Options“ tab
There is After Sales Activity option – selected. Activity is Generate Voucher and our newly defined voucher template named “Ticket Voucher” has been selected.



To make this product sellable in the Front Office, WEB etc. we must perform the same additional activities as for any other product – we must make sure that the product is present in the price list associated with
sales point, and in the product layout page. The products associated with each voucher template are listed in the voucher template details window, Associated Products page:



Single voucher template can be associated with many different products. The vouchers generated from the same template may be sold for many different prices, since the template only defines the ticket/product price range that which the voucher can cover, not voucher sale price. The sale price is
determined only by the price at which the product that generates the voucher is sold for. 

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