A patient walks up to reception holding a voucher her partner bought for her. It is a printed card from the drawer under the desk, with an amount written in pen. She has used some of it already. Nobody is quite sure how much. Someone digs out the notebook, someone else checks the till receipts, and the patient waits while the team tries to piece it together.
Paper vouchers feel simple when you start. They are easy to sell at the desk and they look lovely in an envelope. But they only work while everyone remembers the story behind each one. Once a few are half spent, passed between friends or handed in months later, the desk is guessing.
There is a calmer way to do it. Sell vouchers on your website, let the recipient's balance land on their patient record, and let reception apply it at checkout in a couple of clicks. Here is how that works in Clinic Membership.
What goes wrong with paper vouchers
Most clinics do not choose paper vouchers. They just never got round to replacing them. The problems creep in slowly:
- Nobody can tell what is left. A voucher partly used on one visit has no reliable record on the card itself.
- They only sell when the desk is open. Someone who wants to buy a gift on a Sunday evening has to remember to ring on Monday.
- The buyer has to visit. A friend who lives miles away cannot easily pick one up.
- Reception does the maths. Every redemption is a small calculation at a busy moment, with a patient watching.
None of this is anyone's fault. A paper slip simply cannot hold the information your team needs at the till.
Selling gift vouchers on your website
With Clinic Membership, gift vouchers are bought on your own website and paid for securely through Stripe. Visitors pick an amount, add who the gift is for and pay, at any time of day.
What they see is a simple purchase form with preset amounts, the recipient's name and email, and a secure Stripe checkout. After payment, the recipient (or the person who bought it) receives the voucher code by email. You can place the form on your website as an embed, or share a direct link in emails and social posts.
Setting it up takes a few steps once payments are connected:
- Go to Settings, then Payments.
- Scroll to the Gift vouchers section.
- Switch on Sell gift vouchers online.
- Expand Get codes to copy the embed HTML or the direct link.
- Paste the embed on your website, or share the link wherever your patients already find you.
The sell gift vouchers online guide shows each screen.
How the voucher finds the right patient
This is the part that removes the guesswork. When someone buys a voucher on your site, they enter the recipient's email address. When the payment succeeds, Clinic Membership looks for a patient on your list with the same email.
If it finds a match, the voucher is linked to that patient automatically, and the balance is ready for checkout straight away. You rarely need to link vouchers by hand. The recipient and the buyer still get the code by email as confirmation.
If the recipient is not on your list yet, the voucher waits in the Unallocated list under Admin, then Gift vouchers. Once they become a patient, reception can:
- Open Admin, then Gift vouchers, and go to the Unallocated list.
- Find the voucher by code or by recipient email.
- Click Assign and choose the patient.
From then on, their gift balance appears at checkout like any other linked voucher. A good habit is to use the same email on the patient record as the one used on the gift form, so future vouchers link without any admin step at all.
You can see every voucher you have issued under Admin, then Gift vouchers. Use the Active only switch to keep the list focused on codes still in use, and switch it off when you want the full history.
Redeeming at the till
When the patient comes in, reception takes payment in Sales as usual. If you already run treatments and products through Sales, this will feel familiar. Our post on running POS and invoicing in one system covers that side.
For a patient with a linked voucher, the steps are:
- Open Sales and start a sale for the patient.
- Add the treatments or products to the cart.
- In the Gift balance section, enter how much credit to use and click Apply.
- Check Due after gift, then click Checkout: create invoice.
- Collect anything left to pay as usual, by card, cash or payment link.
Reception can use some or all of the balance on a visit. Gift credit is capped at the cart total, and any unused balance stays on the voucher for a future visit. So when the patient asks what is left, the answer is on screen rather than in a notebook.
The redeem gift vouchers at checkout guide walks through it with screenshots.
A simple way to switch over
You do not need to stop selling at the desk overnight. A gentle order that works for most clinics:
- Connect Stripe under Settings, then Payments, if you have not already.
- Switch on online gift vouchers and copy your embed or direct link.
- Add the form to your website where patients already look, such as your treatments or contact page.
- Share the link in your next email and on your social channels.
- Brief reception on the Gift balance section in Sales and the Unallocated list.
- Point desk enquiries online. When someone asks for a voucher at reception, send them the link so the gift and its balance live in the system.
If you still hold paper vouchers from before, honour them as you always have. The aim is simply that new vouchers stop adding to the drawer.
Why it matters at reception
Gift vouchers are often a patient's first visit to your clinic. Someone who has never been in before arrives with a present from a friend, and the way the desk handles it is their first impression. A quick, confident checkout says a lot more than a hunt through a notebook.
Selling online also means gifts can be bought whenever the idea strikes, whether that is a busy gifting season or a last minute birthday. And because the balance sits with the patient, your team can stop doing sums at the till and get back to looking after the person in front of them.
You can see all of the gift voucher guides together in the gift vouchers section of the Help Centre.
Clinic Membership brings gift vouchers together with your patients, calendar, payments and memberships. Free covers up to 10 patient records. See pricing for paid plans.
