When a customer walks up to pay and they’ve got money sitting on a Virtual Gift Card, it’s nice for the cashier to know about it. Maybe the customer forgot they had credit, or maybe they didn’t even know someone loaded a card for them. Either way, a quick heads-up at the register means they can use it.
TORO can automatically pop up a notification at the payment screen whenever a customer has a Virtual Gift Card balance. You control whether this feature is on or off, and you can set a minimum dollar threshold so your employees aren’t bothered by tiny leftover balances.
How It Works #
When an employee opens the payment screen for a transaction tied to a customer account, TORO checks that customer’s Virtual Gift Card balance. If the balance meets or exceeds your threshold, a popup appears telling the employee the customer’s name and their current balance — something like “John has a Virtual Gift Card balance of $50.50.”
The employee sees it, mentions it to the customer, and they can decide whether to apply it toward the purchase. Simple as that.
The Notification Threshold #
Not every balance is worth interrupting the flow of a transaction. If a customer has $0.38 left from a cash rounding credit, the cashier probably doesn’t need a popup about it. That’s what the threshold is for.
The threshold is the minimum dollar amount a customer’s VGC balance needs to reach before the notification fires. The default is $1 — meaning customers with balances under a dollar won’t trigger the popup.
A few examples:
- Threshold set to $5 — A customer with a $3 balance? No popup. A customer with $8? The employee gets notified.
- Threshold set to $25 — Only customers with $25 or more on their card trigger the notification.
- Threshold left empty — Every positive balance triggers a notification, even $0.05.
Set it to whatever makes sense for your store. If you sell mostly small items and gift card balances tend to be low, a $5 threshold might work. If your average sale is higher, $10 or $25 keeps things clean.
Turning It On or Off #
The notification is controlled by a checkbox in your transaction settings. If you don’t want employees seeing VGC balance popups at all, just uncheck it.
- From the main screen, tap Dashboard
- Go to Setup > Transactions
- Find the checkbox: “When making a payment, notify Employee of Virtual Gift Card Balance for Customer”
- Check it to turn notifications on, uncheck it to turn them off
- Click Save
Setting the Threshold #
The threshold field sits right next to the notification checkbox. You’ll see a “Threshold $” label with a small text box.
- From the main screen, tap Dashboard
- Go to Setup > Transactions
- Next to the VGC notification checkbox, enter your dollar amount in the Threshold $ field (whole dollars — no cents needed)
- Click Save
There’s a ? button right next to the threshold field. Click it anytime for a quick explanation of what the setting does and what your current value means.
Things to Know #
- The notification only fires once per transaction. If the employee closes the popup and continues, it won’t pop up again during the same payment.
- It only shows for customer accounts. Walk-in transactions without a customer account attached won’t trigger anything — there’s no VGC to check.
- The threshold applies store-wide. Every employee sees (or doesn’t see) the notification based on the same threshold.
- Changing the threshold takes effect immediately. No need to restart anything — the next payment screen that opens will use the new value.
- The default is $1. If you’ve never touched this setting, that’s what it’s set to. Most stores find this is a good starting point.
