Store Credit
Grant customers store credit with an optional expiry, manage individual credit grants, and review each customer's credit history.
Store credit is a L$ balance a customer can spend at your vendors instead of paying out of pocket. Each customer carries two balances: Store credit, which works for any purchase, and Restricted credit, which the customer can spend on themselves but cannot use for gifting. Any credit you grant can be given an expiry date, so a promotion or a goodwill gesture does not sit unused forever.
Opening a customer's credit
Credit is managed per customer from the Customers page. Click on a customer's row to open the customer drawer, then switch to the Credits tab. The Customers page guide covers the rest of the drawer.
The drawer header always shows the customer's Store credit and Restricted credit totals. These are the balances the customer can spend right now: expired credit is already excluded.
How credit expiry works
On the Credits tab, each balance is broken down into two parts:
- The Never-expiring balance holds credit granted without an expiry. It never lapses.
- Expiring lots are individual grants, each with its own expiry date. Once a lot passes its date, that credit no longer counts toward the customer's balance.
When the customer spends credit, expiring lots are used before the never-expiring balance, and the lot with the soonest expiry is used first. This spends credit that expires soon before longer-lived credit.
Expiry dates on the tab are shown in Second Life time; hover a date to see it in your local time. A lot expiring within 30 days also carries a countdown badge, which turns red once the expiry is 7 days away or less; hover it for the exact countdown.
When a customer redeems a gift card, the credit arrives as its own lot marked with a badge, both in the lot list and later in the credit history.
Adding credit
To grant credit, click Add credit in the Store credit or Restricted credit section, enter the amount, pick an expiry, and click Add credit
The Expiry presets are No expiry, 30d, 60d, 90d, 1 year, and Custom…, which opens a calendar for an exact date. Leaving No expiry selected adds the amount to the never-expiring balance; any other choice creates a new expiring lot.
Editing a lot
To change a lot's amount or expiry, click on its row, adjust either or both, and click Save lot
An existing lot always keeps an expiry date: the editor lets you move the date, not remove it.
Revoking a lot
To take back a grant before it expires, click on the lot's row.
Revoking is immediate and cannot be undone: the customer loses that credit right away. To reinstate it later, add a new grant.
Setting the never-expiring balance
To set the never-expiring part of a balance to an exact amount, click Edit balance next to Never-expiring balance, enter the new amount, and click Save balance
Unlike adding credit, this sets the balance rather than adjusting it, and it only affects the never-expiring portion: the customer's expiring lots are left untouched.
Reviewing the credit history
At the bottom of the Credits tab, click Credit history to review credit that is no longer active. Events are grouped into Store credit and Restricted credit, and each entry shows when the lot closed, the amount that was granted, and a badge explaining why it closed:
- Expired: the lot reached its expiry date.
- Superseded: the lot was replaced when the customer's credit was set to an exact amount.
- Revoked: a grant you took back with the revoke action.
Expiry on bulk adjustments and new customers
Two other flows can attach an expiry to credit:
- Bulk credit adjustments: the Bulk Credits dialog on the Customers page has an Expiry (applies to added credit) field. The expiry applies only to credit you add; the dialog rejects an expiry when you are reducing credit.
- New customers: when you add a customer manually, you can seed their starting credit with an expiry using the same presets.
For both flows themselves, see Customers.
Default expiry for earned credit
Automatically granted credit, such as purchase bonuses and coupon-share credit, can take a default expiry from Bonus credit expiry (days), in the Bonus credit dialog you open from Store Settings. Leave it empty and that credit never expires.
Permissions
The Customers page is visible to the store owner and to managers with the View Sales or Manage Customers permission. Editing customers, including their credit, is part of Manage Customers. See Store Managers for granting permissions.