Gift cards in the accounts

When the card is sold, you get the money, but you still owe the goods. The amount stands as an outstanding liability, not as revenue.

When the card is used, you deliver the service and the redeemed amount becomes turnover. With a partial redemption only the deducted amount is moved. The rest still stands as a liability.

An unredeemed card remains a liability until both the validity period and the subsequent cash payout period have expired. Only then can the remaining balance be recognised as revenue.

Cards you issue from the dashboard are kept separate from those bought in your shop, because the money has not gone through the payment flow. You choose the type when you issue the card, and the choice determines both how the card is booked and what rights the customer has:

Kuvert's service fee of 2 % + VAT is deducted on each transaction through Stripe. The VAT is deductible input VAT. Stripe's own fees are settled separately on your Stripe account and are VAT-exempt. Both are expenses, not deductions from the liability.

Cards you issue yourself do not go through the payment flow, and there is neither a Kuvert fee nor a Stripe fee on them. They still stand as a liability from the moment they are issued.

You get one invoice from Kuvert a month, under Invoices in the dashboard. It covers both the commission and the handling fee, and its amount is exactly what Stripe has deducted in the period, so it can be reconciled directly against the account. That is the document you deduct the VAT from: the fees are taken automatically via Stripe and leave no documentation on their own. The invoice is filled in with your billing details; if we do not fetch them automatically from Stripe, you can correct them yourself under Settings.

The handling fee is DKK 5.00 incl. VAT per gift card and per ticket, so an order of three cards costs DKK 15.00. By default it is added on top of the card amount for the buyer. The payment is made on your own Stripe account, so you are the one who collects the fee from the buyer, and Kuvert invoices it on to you. Under Settings you choose whether the shop or the customer pays it, and the same for the commission, separately for gift cards and for tickets. The only part that actually stays with you is Stripe's own percentage of the fee (a few øre), because Stripe calculates its fee on the whole payment. Tickets under DKK 25.00 carry no handling fee, whoever you have chosen to pay it.

For bookkeeping, the fee is two entries that cancel out: you have income on what the buyer paid, with output VAT, and an expense on Kuvert's invoice, with input VAT. Net it costs you nothing, but it appears in both places, and it has to, because the payment came into your account in your name.

It appears as its own column in the monthly export and as its own line on the invoice. The invoice amount is the commission plus the fee, which is exactly what leaves your Stripe account, so the reconciliation balances on one figure.

An invoice is a snapshot and is never changed. A VAT document that changes while someone is reading it is not a VAT document. But if an order is refunded after the month has been invoiced, Stripe also gives our commission back. The invoice would then be charging for something that has been reversed.

That is why we issue a credit note. It is created automatically, it refers to the invoice it corrects, and it has its own number in the same continuous series. Together, the invoice and the credit note add up to exactly what Stripe ended up deducting. Your reconciliation then balances without anyone having changed a document that has already been issued.

A period can have several credit notes. If one order is refunded in September and another in October, those are two corrections of August, not one that gets changed.

The VAT on our invoice follows you, not us. If your company is Danish, it shows 25 % VAT, which you deduct as input VAT. If it is registered in another EU country, the transaction is subject to reverse charge: we charge no VAT, it is stated on the invoice, and you account for it yourself under the rules in your own country. If the company is outside the EU, the place of supply is outside the EU, and the transaction is not VAT liable in Denmark at all.

The liability above is accounting, not VAT, and the two do not follow each other. If the card can only be used at your business in Denmark, and everything it can be used for carries the same VAT, it is a single-purpose gift card, and the VAT must be paid when the card is sold, even though the amount still stands as a liability. If it can be used for things with different VAT, it is a multi-purpose gift card, and the VAT is only paid on redemption.

• VAT and bookkeeping for gift cards