How to Set Up and Manage Plastic Gift Cards that Work with Heartland Retail

Whether you have existing plastic gift cards with outstanding balances that you'd like to manage or you are starting from scratch, Heartland Retail makes it easy for you to issue and redeem gift cards at the Point of Sale.

How to manage existing gift cards and balances

Do you have existing plastic gift cards that you'd like to use with Heartland Retail? No problem. Heartland Retail supports the use of barcoded plastic gift cards and most other types of gift cards. The bottom line: as long as you can find the gift card number, you can issue the gift card at the POS, track the balance and redeem it at a later time. Refer to Issuing a gift card in the POS, checking the balance and tendering a gift card for assistance.

In order to redeem a gift card in the POS, it needs to have a balance. If you have existing gift cards and balances that you'd like to honor in Heartland Retail, you simply need to import the card number and balance for each gift card. Refer to How to import data (items purchase orders, customers, etc.) into Heartland Retail for guidance on how to import gift cards.

Starting from Scratch

Never used plastic gift cards before, but want to give it a try? Here's what you need to do:

Scannable barcode gift cards

1. Card Market is the preferred gift card provider for Heartland Retail. You can order directly using mycardmarket.com or you can contact Gretchen Butler from Plastic Resource directly at 651-262-5381 or [e-mail].
2. Ask the gift card vendor to help you create a randomly generated list of gift card numbers to use on the back of the cards. We recommended creating gift card numbers with a combination of both letters and numbers that are at least six digits long (e.g. A43X69), so that the numbers aren't easy to guess. Make sure that the sequence they create results in unique card numbers for each card and also make sure that the new list of gift card numbers does not conflict with any previously issued gift card numbers.
3. Design your card so that the gift card number and the barcode number are printed on the back. This will allow you to scan your gift cards when you issue/redeem them or manually type the number in if a scanner is not available.
4. The barcode symbology that we recommend is Type 39 (sometimes referred to as Code 39).
5. Order your gift cards, but remember to keep the list of numbers you created. When you go to order gift cards again in the future, you'll want to make sure that your new gift cards don't conflict with the ones you just created.
6. When you receive the physical gift cards, just start using them. Refer to Issuing a gift card in the POS, checking the balance and tendering a gift card for assistance.

Note: At this time, we don't recommend that you obtain magnetic strip gift cards. We recommend that you put a scannable barcode on the back of your gift cards so that gift cards can be scanned with your POS barcode scanner.

Any questions? Email [e-mail] and we'll be happy to help.