Reward Points: Setting, Manual Issue and Record

Reward Points is an add-on module, and Automated Rewards (Loyalty+) is a further add-on. You may email us at support@shopcada.com for more details.

Overview

Reward Points is your store’s loyalty currency. Customers earn points when they spend, and redeem them as a discount at the next checkout. The balance sits in the customer’s account, so it follows them across web and POS.

You can:

• Name the currency whatever suits your store — that name then replaces the word “Points” everywhere
• Award points at a flat rate, per membership tier, or at a bonus rate during a customer’s birthday month
• Choose which products, order statuses and customer groups earn points
• Let customers redeem at a flat rate, in tiers, or as a percentage, and cap how much of an order points may pay for
• Set how long points last, and extend the expiry on thousands of transactions at once
• Give a sign-up bonus and a welcome bonus to referred customers
• Issue or deduct points by hand, by user group, or from a CSV file
• Decide what happens to points when an order is refunded
• See every balance and every movement, filter it, and export it to CSV
• Send three automatic emails: a monthly summary, an expiry warning, and a points-earned notice

This document cover:

• Where Reward Points Lives

• Part 1: Settings

  • Naming Your Points

  • How Customers Earn Points

  • Birthday Month Bonus

  • How Customers Spend Points

  • Checkout Wording

  • Refunds on Orders Paid with Points

  • Points Expiry

  • Sign-Up and Referral Bonuses

  • The Three Reward Points Emails

  • Turning the Monthly Summary Off for One Customer

• Part 2: Issuing Points by Hand

  • Adding Points to One Customer or a Group

  • Add Points Express

  • Batch Upload from a CSV File

  • Extending Expiry Dates in Bulk

• Part 3: Viewing Balances and Transactions

  • Summary by Customer

  • One Customer’s History

  • Full Transaction List

• Related: Automated Rewards and Refer a Friend

• Important Notes

Where Reward Points Lives

Navigate to Dashboard > Marketing > Reward Points.

Everything in this guide is on that page or one of its tabs.

Every label reads in your own branding. Rename your points to “Stars” and the tab, the columns, the checkout text and the emails all say Stars. This guide uses the default, Points.

Part 1: Settings

Navigate to Dashboard > Settings > Marketing > Reward Points.

If you are already on the Reward Points page, the Settings tab there opens the same page: Dashboard > Marketing > Reward Points > Settings.

Every section below is a block on this one page, in the order they appear, top to bottom. Nothing saves until you click Save configuration at the foot of the page, so work through the whole page in one pass.

Naming Your Points

Set the Points branding section first — the rest of the page relabels itself around it.

How Customers Earn Points

The Award Settings section decides who earns, on what, and when.

Step 1: Set the rate

• Set the Point System Start Date.
  Points are only given for orders checked out on or after this date.
• Choose the Points Award Calculation Type — Simple for one rate for everybody, or By Membership Tier for a rate per tier.
  This choice only appears if your store uses membership tiers.
• Fill in the rate row: <points> Points will be awarded to customer for every <amount> spend.
  Points accept one decimal place, so 0.5 per dollar is valid.
• Selling in more than one currency gives you one rate row per currency.

Step 2: Decide what qualifies

What counts as spend

Points are calculated on the qualifying total: the product value after discounts, and after anything paid with a gift certificate, store credit or points. Refunded lines are deducted.

Good to know

• The excluded group setting blocks every source of points, not only purchases.
  A customer in an excluded user group receives nothing from a purchase, a manual issue, a CSV upload or an automated reward. Use it for staff and test accounts only.
• Membership rates use the tier held at checkout.
  If the same order that earns the points also upgrades the customer, the points are awarded at the old tier’s rate. The new rate applies from the next order.
• Cancelling an order reverses its points both ways.
  The points it earned are taken back and the points spent on it are returned. A fully refunded order does not trigger this — see Refunds on Orders Paid with Points.
• Guests earn nothing.
  Points need a customer account, so an order checked out as a guest earns none.

Birthday Month Bonus

Switch on Apply different points award calculation to Birthday Month members, in the same Award Settings section, to run a second set of rates during a customer’s birthday month.

• The bonus rates have their own Simple or By Membership Tier choice, independent of your normal rates.
• Tier rows are labelled Birthday Month <Tier name> Rate.
• Excluded categories, award status and rounding all behave exactly as they do for the normal rate.

Good to know

• The customer must have a birth date on their account.
  A customer with no birth date recorded is quietly awarded at the normal rate — no error is shown.
• Bonus awards are labelled in the transaction list as Award Points for Birthday Month purchase, so you can tell them apart.

How Customers Spend Points

The Redeem Settings section decides what a balance is worth and where it may be spent.

Step 1: Choose a Redemption Mode

For the tiered modes, fill the tiers in from the smallest amount to the largest. Each currency gets its own row.

Step 2: Set the conditions and limits

Step 3: Decide about discounts

Do not allow points redemption if any DISCOUNT is used is on by default. Switching it on reveals three more fields.

Read these two fields as an allow list. They are labelled “Exclude”, but they hold the discounts that are permitted alongside points, exactly as their own help text says.

When the redeem box does not appear

The box is hidden silently — no message is shown — if any one of these is true:

• The customer is not logged in
• Their balance is zero
• They are in a group excluded from redeeming
• The cart holds a product from a blocked category
• The cart is below the minimum purchase amount
• A gift certificate is in the cart and points may not buy one

Points are removed, not blocked. If the customer adds a disallowed discount after choosing to redeem, the checkout drops the points, restores the order total and shows your error message. The order still goes through.

Checkout Wording

The Checkout Page section controls the two pieces of text around the redeem box.

Refunds on Orders Paid with Points

The Refunds for Order Paid by Points section decides what happens to the points a customer spent when you refund their order. It applies only to the points part of the payment; the rest follows your normal refund settings.

Set this to match your published refund policy, and tell your service staff which one you chose.

Points Expiry

The Points expiration section sets how long a point survives after it is earned.

Good to know

• These settings are not retroactive.
  The expiry date is stamped on each transaction when it is created. Changing the period here affects only points issued from that moment on — use Extend Expiry Date for points already in circulation.
• Points are spent oldest first.
  When a customer redeems, the points closest to expiring are used up first.
• Expiry runs automatically in the background.
  Expired points appear in the transaction list as a negative movement with the operation Expiry.

Sign-Up and Referral Bonuses

Two short sections near the foot of the Settings page, Sign Up Bonus and Referee Welcome Points, give points for joining rather than for spending.

Rewarding the inviter is a separate feature. Nothing on this page gives points to the person who sent the invitation — see Related: Automated Rewards and Refer a Friend.

Click Save configuration to save the whole page.

The Three Reward Points Emails

Go to Dashboard > Settings > Emails > Email List.

All three are grouped there under Reward Points.

Editing them

• For the monthly summary, scroll to Monthly Summary at the foot of the Settings page and click Edit.
  It is the only one of the three reachable from there.
• For the other two, go to Dashboard > Settings > Emails > Email List and find the Reward Points group.
• Enable the email, write the content, then use Preview to check it with sample data.

Replacement variables

Turning the Monthly Summary Off for One Customer

The monthly summary is a store-wide setting, but you can switch it off for one customer without switching it off for everybody.

• Go to Dashboard > Customers.
• Search for the customer, open their record and click Edit.
• Under Notifications, untick Receive monthly credits summary.
• Click Save.

The customer can do this themselves from the email preferences on their account page, or by clicking the unsubscribe link in the email — that link switches this same preference off.

This one preference covers every monthly balance summary your store sends — points, store credit and gift certificates alike. A customer you untick here stops receiving all of them, even while the store-wide setting stays on.

Part 2: Issuing Points by Hand

Three ways to give points outside the automatic rules, and one way to change expiry dates in bulk.

Adding Points to One Customer or a Group

• Go to Dashboard > Marketing > Reward Points.
• Click Add Points at the top right.
  The button carries your branding, so it may read Add Stars.
• Under Select the preferred option to add Points to user(s), choose who receives them:

• Enter Points.
  Positive adds, negative deducts: 25 gives 25 points, -25 takes 25 away. Zero is rejected.
• Set the Expiration date.
  It is pre-filled from your Expire Points after setting. Clear it and the points never expire.
• Enter a Description.
  Optional, but this is what the customer sees in their account history — an unexplained movement generates a support enquiry. Reference is an optional short code for your own records.
• Click Save.

Good to know

• Email addresses without an account are skipped.
  The page lists them back to you as an error and gives points to everyone else. Create those accounts and run the missing ones again.
• Over 50 customers runs as a background job.
  A progress bar appears and the work continues after you leave the page.

Add Points Express

Use this at a counter with the customer in front of you.

Go to Dashboard > Marketing > Reward Points > Add Points Express.

• Set Points, Expiry Date and Description once.
  The form remembers them for the rest of your session, so after the first customer you only touch Customer ID.
• In Customer ID, do any one of three things:
  • Type the numeric customer ID
  • Type the customer’s email address
  • Put the cursor in the box and scan the barcode on the customer’s account page
• Click Add Points.
  The confirmation names the customer, so you can check you rewarded the right person before serving the next one.

Leave Expiry Date blank and the points never expire.

Batch Upload from a CSV File

Go to Dashboard > Marketing > Reward Points > Batch Upload.

The first row of the file must be the column names, spelled as below.

• Choose the file under CSV File and click Import.
• The page reports how many records were uploaded, and lists any email addresses with no matching customer.
  Those rows are skipped.

Uploaded transactions are recorded as Manual, the same as points added from the Add Points form.

Extending Expiry Dates in Bulk

Use this to give customers longer to spend points that are about to lapse.

• Go to Dashboard > Marketing > Reward Points > Extend Expiry Date.
• Set Expiry date from and Expiry date to.
  Every unexpired transaction whose expiry falls in that range is selected.
• Enter the Length of entension in days.
  It must be a positive whole number.
• Click Review before Proceed.
  The next screen tells you how many transactions will change.
• Check that number, then click Proceed.

Good to know

• This cannot be undone.
  There is no reverse button. If the count on the review screen is far larger than you expected, go back and narrow the date range.
• Points that have already expired are not brought back.
  Only transactions still unexpired when you run it are extended.

Part 3: Viewing Balances and Transactions

Two views of the same data: a balance per customer, and a line per movement.

Summary by Customer

Go to Dashboard > Marketing > Reward Points.

The page opens on the summary, one row per customer holding a balance.

• Columns are Name, Email and your points branding.
  Click any heading to sort.
• Use the quick search for a name or email address, or open the filter for Name contains and Email address contains.
• Click Download to export the list you are looking at, filters included, as a CSV of customer ID, name, email and balance.
• Click View Details on a row to open that customer’s history.

One Customer’s History

From Dashboard > Marketing > Reward Points, click View Details on the customer’s row.

The page is headed Points for <customer name> and lists every movement on the account, newest first: Date, Points, Expiry, Operation, Description and Order ID. The Net Points Balance is printed under the table, and any order ID links straight to the order.

The Expiry column is only filled in on rows that added points. Deductions and redemptions have nothing to expire, so it is blank on those rows.

Full Transaction List

Every movement in the store, across all customers.

Go to Dashboard > Marketing > Reward Points > Full Transaction List.

Columns are Date, your points branding, Expiry, Operation, Description, Customer and Order ID, and every one of them sorts.

Reading the Operation column

Filtering and exporting

• Filter on Name contains, Email address contains, Created Date Between, Expiry Date Between, Operation and Order ID.
• Selecting the Reward operation reveals a Reward Name filter, so you can see what one automated reward has cost you.
• Click Download for a CSV of the filtered list.
  It carries two columns the screen does not show: the transaction ID and the customer’s email address.

To answer “how many points expire next month?” filter on Expiry Date Between and download.

Related: Automated Rewards and Refer a Friend

Two things merchants often look for on the Reward Points page are configured elsewhere.

The one referral setting that is on the Reward Points page is Referee Welcome Points, which rewards the person who accepted the invitation.

Important Notes

• Set the Point System Start Date before you switch anything else on.
  Without it, an existing store can award points against orders placed long before you launched the programme.
• Excluding a user group from earning excludes them from everything — purchases, manual issues, CSV uploads and automated rewards alike.
• Expiry is stamped when the points are created and never changes on its own.
  Editing Expire Points after affects only points issued from that moment on.
• Cancelling an order reverses its points both ways, but a fully refunded order does not — that case follows your Refunds for Order Paid by Points setting.
• Bulk actions cannot be undone.
  Neither an All Active Users issue nor an expiry-date extension has a reverse button.
• Test the emails before you enable them.
  Use Preview on the email edit screen, and check the monthly summary carries [points-email-unsubscribe-url].