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Tracking Discounted Gift Cards in Shopify with Bookkeep

Bookkeep is excited to announce a powerful update for Shopify merchants: you can now capture all gift cards issued via orders—both fully paid and discounted—and map them with greater accuracy to your accounting system.

This enhancement ensures your books reflect the true balance of gift card liabilities, giving you cleaner reconciliations and better financial visibility.

Why This Matters​

Gift cards are a proven tool for driving sales, but they also create accounting complexity:

  • Fully Paid Gift Cards – The full amount should increase your gift card liability, which is reflected correctly in the Shopify Finance Summary.

  • Discounted Gift Cards – These should also increase your gift card liability with an associated discount expense. However, Shopify does not reflect these correctly in the gift card sales number in the Finance Summary, making proper accounting challenging.

For example:

  • Shopify’s Finance Summary shows £47 as the increase in gift card liability:

  • In reality, the true gift card liability increase is £71:

Without capturing both amounts, merchants risk understating gift card liabilities, leading to inaccurate balances.

How It Works in Bookkeep​

With this new feature, Bookkeep continues to match Shopify’s Finance Summary while providing more detailed tracking of gift card issuance.

Here’s what’s new:

  • Track Both Paid and Discounted Gift Cards – Bookkeep now pulls the full breakdown of all gift cards issued, including those sold at a discount.

  • Map Separately in Your Books – Assign the discount portion to a specific expense account, while the full value of paid gift cards is posted to the liability account.

  • Maintain Accurate Liabilities – Your gift card liability account reflects what is truly owed, without understating balances by ignoring discounted gift cards.

Benefits for Merchants​

  • Cleaner Balance Sheets – Liability balances stay accurate.

  • Smarter Reporting – Separate tracking of gift card discounts makes it easier to measure the true cost of promotions.

  • Automated Accuracy – Bookkeep handles the details daily, eliminating manual adjustments.

The Bottom Line​

This update strengthens Bookkeep’s mission to deliver automated and accurate accounting for ecommerce merchants. By capturing both discounted and fully paid gift cards—and allowing you to map them separately—Bookkeep helps Shopify merchants maintain precise liability balances and clearer financials.

If you’re a Shopify merchant using Bookkeep, this feature is already available. Simply review your account mappings to take full advantage.

For questions or setup help, reach out anytime at [email protected].