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To: DanZ who wrote (50087)	12/15/2003 7:31:02 PM
From: BWAC	Respond to of 53068

Thanks for the explanation on SNPS. Its a bit clearer now. As for Gift Cards. You are basically right. But some benefits are that inventory gets cleared, it drives traffic to the store twice from two customers (once to buy card, once to spend it), these customers generally either buy additional items or spend more than the card itself, theory is that people spend the card on something they want regardless of price (discount is the gift type thinking), cards don't always get spent immediately after Christmas or in the first quarter. Oh and did I say it CLEARS inventory. That is a big help. Accounting: Cards become a Liability. Cash received, Some account Gift Cards Payable. Cards tracked by bar code. Redemption of card reduces Payable, adds to Sales. And now I have a headache thinking of all the times I had to manually balance, fix, and adjust the old paper Gift Certificate accounts for Belk. Which as recently as 1995 consisted of crumpled pieces and slips of paper held in a shoebox at each individual store, tended locally either by Betty Beentheresince1902 or Buffy Ditz on the high school shift. With some insane "Its my store's sales mentality" that required certificates redeemed in X store but sold by Y store to be mailed to Y store, so Y store could manually cut X store a check. Which X store then deposited and promptly recorded in the wrong type account. Ugggggggggggggggh x 350 stores. And rife with fraud, lost certificates, lost documents, etc. And I had people two years out of college, some passed CPA examination, and they couldn't figure this account out if you gave them 2 weeks. They usually had more luck balancing Buffy Ditz after work. Can you see the productivity gains yet?