Matthew- Although we don't use gift certificates here at Stonefield, I have an extensive retail background also. My suggestions would be this: 1) Expirations dates are used so that people do not hold on to them forever. Therefore, I suggest that we use an expiration date of 1 yr to 18months. That should give them used plenty of time to use the certificate. If someone how does bring one in that is expired, you should empower your staff to make reasonable judgements on them. For instance, if it expired recently then you should take it, if it expired several months or YEARS ago I would hesitate. Also, if the customer/patron is going to make stink about it, then take it! Also, this is something that I have used to perserve customer relatations but emphasis that the gift certificate is expired "This certificate is expired, but since we value you patronage we will make an exception for you this one time." This let's them know that they should be responsible from now on. 2) I would suggest that you write a policy on gift certificates that talks about giving change. I would suggest that you set into place a cut off. If they have more that $5.00 or $2.00 or whatever in change, then they get another certificate, but if its less than you should just give them back the change. (The cut off amount should be based on your gift certificate incriments.) Also, put into place a policy for gift certificate returns!! It will save you lots of headaches later. 3) You don't carry gift certificates as liability. You should think about gift certificates as pre-purchases. Your institution recieved payment ahead of time for the items that they redeem them for. You should track how many you sell and the amount (if they can be variable, but I would suggest set amounts for simplicities sake - since they have to be purchased in those amounts then) and you should track what comes in. But you already recieved money for the goods that those certificates represent, so they are NOT a liability. 4)You should make the certificates usable based on how your money is accounted for. If all the funds from store, the entrance fees, and memberships all go to a central fund then use them for everything, but if they go into seperate funds you might not want to do this for accounting purposes since it would require the transfer on funds between accounts. IF you don't have seperate accounts but you must use the funds for set purposes then I also wouldn't use them for everything. 5)I can't say that I have seen successful implimentation of gift certificates on-line. It is necessary that you track them through a number system which can get very complex, unless payment is sent rather than done on-line. I would hesitate myself to try this, but maybe someone else has tried this and can offer you some suggestions. But if you do them on-line, you may want to either give no change or have variable certificates so track how much they user has spent. If you have any other questions or comments, please feel free to contact me at the address below. Tracie Tracie Evans, Curator of Collections Stonefield Historic Site, SHSW PO Box 125 Cassville WI 53806 608-725-5210 [log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask] ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).