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Creating POS coupons and coupon codes
Creating POS coupons and coupon codes
Bill C. avatar
Written by Bill C.
Updated over a week ago

What are coupons and Why would your retail store benefit from creating/using them with your Heartland Retail POS?

A coupon is a document that can be redeemed for an in-store financial discount or when purchasing a product. Typically, coupons are issued by retailers of consumer packaged goods to be used in their retail stores as an exciting part of sales promotions.

A store can benefit from the coupons they offer to consumers. By offering coupons to your customers it provides a way to promote products and engage with your consumers. Coupons often entice customers and build store loyalty.

Below are some great tips if you are planning to create/accept a coupon in your retail store.

  • Make sure all coupons have an expiration date. This will create a sense of urgency for the customer to come in and get a great deal. Expiration dates also protect your business exposure. You do not want an old coupon showing up and negatively affecting your margins.

  • State the Coupon limitations clearly. Customers do not like fine print. Clearly state the term "this coupon may not be combined with any other offer." This will protect the business. Not stating it, allows the customer the opportunity to "stack" multiple coupons on an offer and or to possibly use them on an already reduced sale item.

  • Keep it simple. Sometimes coupons have too many exclusions. If a coupon is difficult for the customer to redeem, the customer experience is diminished.

  • Clearly communicate with your employees. Make sure your whole team is aware of any coupons that are in circulation. The best experience is to make sure the first time they see the coupon is not when the customer tries to redeem it.

Getting Started

This article will tell you everything you need to know about creating coupons in Heartland Retail. If you've ever used our promotions system, creating coupons will feel very familiar to you.
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In order to create and manage coupons in your Heartland Retail account, you'll need to be an administrator or have these permissions turned on for your role:

Note: in order for users to redeem coupons in the POS, they need to have the "View and redeem coupons" permission turned on in their respective roles.

To create a new coupon, follow these steps:

  1. In the top navigation menu, click the “Sales” link.

  2. Under the Sales menu, click the “Coupons” link.

This will bring you to the Coupons page.

Creating a New Coupon

Click the “New” button. This will bring you to the New Coupon page, as shown below:

You'll need to fill in the following fields:

  1. Coupon Code: A coupon code can have letters and numbers. If you create physical coupons with barcodes, you'll want the code you create on this page to match the barcode number you created. Scannable barcodes are optional; coupons can be manually redeemed at the POS.

  2. Name: Enter a descriptive name for the coupon you are creating in the “Name” field. This coupon name will be displayed on customer receipts. 

  3. Start and End Date: Start and End Dates control when coupons can be applied at the POS. The coupon will only be applied within these dates. Also, if you want the coupon to go on indefinitely, you can leave the "End Date" field blank.

  4. Hit the 'Save' button.

Important: All coupons are exclusive of each other, but coupons are not exclusive of promotions. Coupon code discounts can be applied on top of a discount created by a promotion rule, but a coupon code discount cannot be applied on top of another coupon code discount.

Here's an example of what your new coupon might look like:

Adding Conditions

Now you need to tell Heartland Retail under what conditions to add a coupon. Conditions are a way of filtering coupons. To add a condition:

  1. Click the "Condition" button.
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  2. Choose an option for the dropdown that you would like to filter the coupon on.
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    For example, you can set a condition to choose which location to apply the coupon to. You can also use conditions to target customers or customer custom fields. You can also create a condition to specify the minimum total spend or total qty on a ticket that needs to be met before the coupon is applied. Here's an example of a condition with a minimum spend requirement:

According to the condition specified above, the coupon will not be applied at the POS unless the total spend on the ticket is greater than or equal to $100.

Adding Actions

Actions are what happens when the coupon is applied at the POS. To add actions:

  1. Choose an action from the dropdown. For example, with actions, you can specify: (1) a percentage off or dollar amount off a specific item, (2) a fixed price per item or (3) a buy one, get one free promotion, (4) buy a certain amount of a vendor, automatically get a free item.

  2. Once you choose an action, you can add filters so that you can narrow down the type of promotion to a specific item or group of items. Click the “Filter” link to add a filter on the items receiving the promotion.

  3. For instance, if you would like to filter by a specific vendor, you would select "Primary Vendor" is and then select the vendor(s) you would like to apply the action.

Once you have configured the coupon to your liking, you can save your changes by clicking the "Save" button.

Activating Coupons

All coupons by default, will start as "Paused" when you create them so that you can edit them freely without worrying that the coupon will be applied while you are creating it. Once you are ready to activate the coupon, click the "Start" button.

Congratulations! Your coupon is now live and can be redeemed in the POS.

If you have any questions about how to create coupons, just let us know.

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