Core Concepts

A handful of ideas explain almost everything in Rewardly. Read this page once and the rest of the guide will click into place.

Members

A member is a customer who has joined your loyalty program. Each member:

• is identified by their phone number (your cashier finds them by phone, or by scanning a QR code, at the POS),
• belongs to one membership tier,
• has a points balance, a store credit balance, and a collection of vouchers and stamp cards.

When a cashier attaches a member to a sale, Rewardly knows whose balances to update and which rewards to apply.

Programs

Most Rewardly features are set up as programs. A program is one configured reward rule — for example "earn 1 point per $1 spent" or "10% off on Tuesdays".

These features are each a type of program:

• Loyalty Points
• Vouchers
• Stamp Cards
• Discounts
• Cashback
• Packages
• Referral

Two features are not programs but work closely with them:

• Membership — your tiers (Silver, Gold…).
• Store Credit — a money balance, like a wallet.

Draft vs Live

Every program has a status:

• Draft — saved, but not active. Customers never see it and it has no effect. Use Draft while you are still setting things up.
• Live — active. The program now runs for real on every sale.

Going Live locks the program

Once a program is Live, most of its fields become read-only. This protects sales and balances already in progress. To make a big change you usually create a new program instead. So: finish configuring while it is still in Draft, then switch it to Live.

Outlets

An outlet is one physical location — a branch or store. You can have one outlet or many. Most programs can be limited to specific outlets, or left to apply everywhere. See Outlet Settings.

Channels

Some programs (vouchers and discounts) can be limited to a channel — where the sale happens:

• POS — your in-store till.
• Kiosk — a self-order screen.
• Online — web ordering.

How the features depend on each other

This is the most important section on this page. Several features only work in combination — and setting them up in the wrong order is the single most common reason a new merchant gets stuck.

Membership and Loyalty are a pair

Membership and Loyalty Points depend on each other. Neither one works alone.

        ┌──────────────────────────┐
        │       MEMBERSHIP         │   The tiers your customers
        │   e.g. "Member", Gold…   │   belong to. Just a label
        │                          │   until a Loyalty program
        └────────────┬─────────────┘   is attached.
                     │
                     │  every Loyalty program
                     │  MUST be linked to one
                     │  membership tier
                     ▼
        ┌──────────────────────────┐
        │     LOYALTY POINTS       │   What members in that tier
        │   "earn 1 pt per $1"     │   actually earn per purchase.
        └──────────────────────────┘

• Loyalty needs Membership. When you create a Loyalty program, the form requires you to choose a membership tier. You cannot save a loyalty program until at least one membership tier exists.
• Membership needs Loyalty. A membership tier on its own is just a name, a colour, and a level. It has no earning power. Members in that tier earn nothing until a Loyalty program is linked to it.

The golden rule of setup order

Always create the Membership tier first, then the Loyalty program linked to it.

Each loyalty program belongs to exactly one tier. If you have several tiers that should all earn points, create one loyalty program per tier — and you can give each tier a different earn rate (for example, Gold members earn faster than Silver).

Rewards can be granted by other features

Some features hand out other features as prizes. A Stamp Card completion, a Package, or joining a Membership tier can all issue vouchers, points, and store credit:

   STAMP CARD completed ──┐
   PACKAGE earned ────────┼──▶  grants  ▶  VOUCHERS
   MEMBERSHIP tier joined ┘                POINTS
                                           STORE CREDIT

This is why you usually build the "prize" features (vouchers, store credit) before the features that give them away.

Discount vs Cashback — same engine, different timing

Discounts and Cashback are built on the same rules engine. The difference is when the customer gets the value:

	When the customer benefits
Discount	Immediately — money comes off the current bill.
Cashback	Later — a percentage of the bill is returned as Store Credit to spend next time.

Points can become store credit or vouchers

Loyalty Points are not only a payment method. Members can also convert points into Store Credit (using a conversion rate you set) or spend them to buy Vouchers.

The running example in this guide

To keep things concrete, this guide sets up one fictional business throughout:

"Bean & Brew" — a small coffee shop with one outlet. Every feature's Default setup example builds on Bean & Brew, so the guide reads as one continuous setup story.

When you see a Bean & Brew example, just swap in your own business details.

Next: First-Time Setup →