Does your shop take part in the city voucher? Then you redeem one at the till in seconds — no extra terminal required. It all happens in the shop app on your phone or tablet.
Step 1: open the app and sign in
You get an invitation by email and set your own PIN there. After that you log in with your email address and that PIN. It stops anyone deducting money without permission — and you need no MijnEvent account. Once you're in, you land straight on the redemption screen.
Step 2: scan or type the voucher
Ask the customer to show the voucher's QR code and scan it, or enter the voucher code by hand. You immediately see the voucher's current balance.
Step 3: enter the amount and deduct
Type in the amount being spent — exactly what the customer is paying you. Confirm, and the amount comes off the voucher. Spending less than the balance? Then the remainder stays put for another time.
Step 4: confirmation
You immediately see the deducted amount and the remaining balance. The customer automatically receives an email with the new balance, and the voucher in their wallet updates itself. Ready for the next customer.
The amount in your own till as well
The voucher is now updated, but your own till knows nothing about it yet. So in your shop profile you choose what the confirmation screen shows. There are four ways:
- An instruction (default): the amount with a short note, for example that your colleague chooses "(paper) gift card" in the till and enters the amount.
- A fixed EAN code: the barcode of your gift card item. You scan it and enter the amount yourself.
- A barcode with the amount (beta): one scan puts the item and the amount in your till. In theory that works, provided your till accepts a price code on an article number of your own or your till supplier is willing to set that up.
- Amount only: nothing extra.
You do not need a phone per staff member: one device with a browser at the till is enough. All four ways, and what to ask your till supplier, are in the full explanation.
"Blocked by the issuer"?
One message may be new to you: "This card has been blocked by the issuer." You see it when the holder (or the issuer) has frozen the card — after loss or theft, for instance. Nothing is wrong with your app or your shop: the card is simply locked. Refer the customer to the issuing organisation; only they can release the card again.
If a customer freezes their card shortly after paying at your shop, you get an email about it. That is purely for your information: your redemption stands and will be paid out as normal. Freezing is about what can still happen to the card, not about what already happened.
A card without an email address
Scan a card that is not yet linked to an address and you'll see a notice about it. It blocks nothing — you can deduct as usual. But you can pass something useful on to the customer: if they register the card on the issuer's page, they can block it when it is lost, get an email after every deduction, and a heads-up when the card is about to expire while there is still credit on it. No newsletters. You never see the address yourself — the till only gets a yes or no.
Changed participant terms
If the issuing party updates the participant terms, logging in takes you to an acceptance screen instead of the scanner. One tick and you're back where you were. Until you accept, lookups and deductions return nothing — that is not a fault.
What about the payout?
You enter your payment details once in the app under Shop profile: IBAN, account name and your company details. The form asks for the account name and the trading name separately — with a sole trader the account is often in the name of "J. Jansen" while the chamber of commerce says "Jansen's Bakery", and banks trip over that difference. A VAT number may be left blank.
Once you confirm, those details are locked. Only the issuing organisation can change them, with a stated reason, and you get an email about it. Always read that email: it is your warning if someone tries to divert your account number.
After that it runs by itself. The issuing party — the municipality, BID or retailers' association — periodically puts together a payout round; your shop is in it with everything deducted at your till since the previous round. You are notified by email, with the document attached:
- a self-billed invoice or a payment statement, drawn up on your behalf and addressed to the issuing organisation, with its own numbering series separate from the one you use for your own revenue;
- where applicable a UBL file you can read straight into your bookkeeping.
Which of those forms you get is chosen by the issuing organisation together with its accountant — how a city voucher is treated for VAT is their question, not MijnEvent's. By default €0.05 per redemption comes off your payout; the rest of the amount you deducted is paid out to you. The money comes from the issuing organisation: MijnEvent only draws up the file it uses to pay from its own bank.
Scan the voucher, type the amount, deduct — and the customer walks on with the remainder still in their pocket.
