Products / Selling
Hoq Funds
Gift cards, store credit and your payment accounts, shared by every till.
What it does
Hoq Funds holds everything a customer can pay your business with: gift cards, store credit, promo credit and saved cards. One file covers the whole business, so every café, till and website shares the same balances, and each entry records where it happened.
It also holds your payment accounts: your own Stripe and Square keys, several of each if you need them. Rules send each payment to the right account by place, storefront, channel, app, form, product or category. Hoq Shop, Hoq Service and Hoq Forms take payments through it.
A card's code is kept only as a fingerprint and shown once. Tills hold an amount before taking it, so two tills can never spend the same money, and a till that retries after a timeout is charged once.
Where the law forbids it, Funds refuses an expiry date: gift cards and store credit in Washington and California. It offers cash-out of small balances at each state's limit.
In numbers
$5 / $10cash-out limits in Washington and California
100Square-coded cards per print batch
3 mm at 300 dpibleed on card art, front and back
4characters of a card number ever shown after it is made
Specifications
| Who holds the money | Your own Stripe or Square account. Hoq never holds the money; keys are sealed on the server. |
|---|---|
| Payment providers | Stripe (cards, saved cards, card readers, Tap to Pay) and Square (payments and refunds via Square's page). |
| Expiry by state | No expiry allowed on gift cards or store credit in Washington and California. Promo credit can expire. |
| Cash-out | Offers cash for a gift card under $5 in Washington and under $10 in California, never on store credit. |
| Codes | Stored only as a fingerprint; afterwards only the last four characters show. |
| Square cards | Prints 16-digit numbers registered with Square first, so Square registers activate and scan them. |
| Bookkeeping | Each day as a balanced journal by place; optional posting to Hoq Books as one entry per day. |
| Bring cards over | Imports card numbers and balances from Square or any spreadsheet, once each, as balances brought over. |
| Where the data lives | One .funds file per business in the owner's Hoq drive, shared by all its places. |
Features
57 features, all in beta. Listed from the product's feature ledger; each row shows the day it was last checked.
| Sell a gift card | Makes a card, puts on it what the customer paid, and shows its code once so it can be written or printed. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Give a card away | Makes a card the business gives away, counted as a marketing cost rather than money taken. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Check a card | Finds a card by its code however it is typed and shows its balance, what can be spent now and its history. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Spend and refund | Takes money off a card for a sale and puts a refunded sale back on the card that paid. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Hold then take | Lets a till reserve an amount for a few minutes before taking it, so two tills can never spend the same money. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Printed cards | Makes empty cards with a number and a QR code each, shown once, to keep at the counter and load when sold; with a design, in your own art (see Card designs). | Checked 2026-10-25 |
| Load a card | Puts money a customer paid onto a card that already exists: a printed card sold, or a top-up. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Bring cards over | Reads a spreadsheet of card numbers and balances from Square or anywhere else and brings each card over once, as a balance brought over, not a sale. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Cash out small balances | Offers to pay out a gift card in cash when less than the law's limit is left (Washington under $5, California under $10), empties the card once, and never on store credit. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Codes kept safe | Keeps a card's code only as a fingerprint; afterwards only its last four characters are ever shown. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Designs | Each design has a front and a back picture, cropped to the card with 3 mm bleed at 300 dpi, kept in the business's own file. | Checked 2026-10-25 |
| Place the codes | Drag the QR, the Data Matrix, the card number and the balance link onto either side; sizes, white boxes and text colour; warns when two overlap. | Checked 2026-10-25 |
| Your code, Square's, or both | A design carries our QR to the balance page, a Data Matrix Square registers scan (`sqgc://` and a Luhn-checked number), or both on one number. | Checked 2026-10-25 |
| Proof | A one-card PDF, front and back, with a sample number. | Checked 2026-10-25 |
| Art for a print shop | The bare front and back at bleed with crop marks, then a proof, as one PDF. | Checked 2026-10-25 |
| Print a batch | Makes empty cards and their PDF in one step: a card printer (front, back, or both in pairs), or Letter and 13 × 19 in sheets with crop marks and backs mirrored for duplex. The numbers exist only in that PDF. | Checked 2026-10-25 |
| Send to Hoq Print | Connects to the business's own Hoq Print and sends a batch straight to its card printer; if Hoq Print does not answer, the PDF downloads instead so no numbers are lost. | Checked 2026-10-25 |
| Connect Square | Paste the business's own Square access token; Funds checks it with Square, keeps it sealed (never in the business's file), and picks the location, or asks when there are several. | Checked 2026-10-25 |
| Square-coded printing | Each number (16 digits, Luhn-checked, starting 70) is registered with Square as an empty card before it is drawn, up to 100 a batch; the register turns it on when sold and the money stays in Square. | Checked 2026-10-25 |
| Square balances on the balance page | A Square card's number, typed or scanned, shows what Square holds, or says it is not turned on yet; existing Square gift cards work too. | Checked 2026-10-25 |
| Your brand | A colour and a logo for the business; the balance page wears them, with the default design's front as the card. | Checked 2026-10-25 |
| Apple Wallet pass | An active card can be added to Apple Wallet from the balance page: brand colour, logo, card art as the strip, balance when added, and a code the counter scans (Square's for Square cards). Signed and tested; switches on when Hoq's Pass Type ID certificate is configured. | Checked 2026-10-25 |
| Google Wallet pass | The same card as a signed "Add to Google Wallet" link. Switches on when Hoq's Google Wallet issuer is configured. | Checked 2026-10-25 |
| Gift card page | A page anyone can open to buy a gift card, choosing an amount and who it is for, with a message. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Your own Stripe | Takes payment straight into the business's own Stripe account; Hoq never holds the money, and the key is kept sealed on the server. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Sent by email | Makes the card once the payment goes through and emails its number to the person it is for, with a receipt to the buyer that never shows the number. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Never lost | Keeps the number sealed until the email has gone, retries an email that failed, and makes one card however often Stripe repeats itself. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Balance page | A public page where a customer types their card number, or scans the QR on a printed card, to see what is left; a few wrong guesses an hour and it stops. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Limits per buyer | Caps how many cards one buyer may buy in a day. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Held for a look | Holds large orders for a few hours before the card goes; the owner can send one sooner or cancel and refund it through Stripe. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Stolen-card protection | A Stripe fraud warning keeps a held card from going; a chargeback turns a card already sent off. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Orders | Lists the cards bought online with who bought them, who they were for and whether the email went. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Counter link | A link for each till or tablet, so staff can check a card, take money off it and load it without signing in. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Scan a card | Reads a card's QR code with the tablet's camera where the browser can. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Kept to its job | A counter reaches only its own business, names cards only by number, records every movement at its place, and can be turned off at once. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Store credit | Gives a person credit for a refund, found by email or phone, added if they are new. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Promo credit | Gives a person promo credit with its own expiry, counted as a marketing cost. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Wallet | Shows everything one person holds, fund by fund. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Funds with rules | Keeps several funds of each kind, each with its own expiry and the places that honour it. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| No expiry where the law forbids it | Refuses an expiry date on gift cards and store credit in Washington and California. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| What is owed | Shows the money customers can still spend, fund by fund. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| A day for the bookkeeper | Shows one business day as a balanced journal, by place, in the business's own time zone. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Ledger check | Walks every movement to prove it is chained, balanced and matches every balance. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Retries land once | Takes each movement with the caller's own reference, so a till that retries after a timeout is charged once. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Expiry | Lapses promo balances past their date on the five-minute tick. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| JSON door and MCP | Offers every console action to other apps and agents, with owners alone setting rules and correcting balances. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Hoq Books, if you use it | Optional: sends each finished day to the business's Hoq Books as one balanced entry, by place, under its own key so a retry never posts twice. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Days in order | Sends days in order and never skips one; a day Books could not take holds the days after it until it goes through. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Accounts set up for you | Uses Books accounts already named for the job, makes the rest, and asks only about the accounts this business can post to. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Books agree check | Compares what is owed here with the Books accounts it posts to, and shows any difference, such as an entry made by hand. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Key kept apart | Keeps the Books key sealed on the server, never in the business's own file. | Checked 2026-10-24 |
| Payment accounts | Holds the business's own Stripe and Square accounts, several of each if needed, and sends each payment to the right one by place, storefront, channel, app, form, product or category; rules can be tried against the last 90 days first. | Checked 2026-10-28 |
| Saved cards | Saves a customer's card on the business's own Stripe account, from Funds' pages, a Shop checkout or a tap at the till, shown only as brand, last four and expiry; the customer can see and remove them from an emailed link. | Checked 2026-10-28 |
| What the customer agreed to | Records for each saved card the words the customer agreed to and for which app, and refuses any charge outside them, such as a renewal bigger than agreed. | Checked 2026-10-28 |
| Pay from anything | Lets Shop, Service and Forms take a payment on the business's account, from a balance first then a card, once however often they ask; a payment whose result was lost is found again, and one the bank wants confirmed sends the customer a confirm page. | Checked 2026-10-28 |
| Card readers and Tap to Pay | Lets Shop's tills take cards on the business's readers or a phone, each a Funds payment with its tip, and keep the card when the customer says yes. | Checked 2026-10-28 |
| Square payments | Takes payments and refunds on the business's own Square account through Square's payment page; no saved Square cards or Square readers yet. | Checked 2026-10-28 |
Works with
- Hoq ShopThe store's gift cards and checkout payments run through Funds, with holds at the till.
- Hoq LoyaltyBoth run on the same stored-value ledger; points live in Loyalty, money in Funds.
- Hoq CommerceCommerce counts a gift card as a sale when it is spent, not when it is bought.
Your data
| Where it is kept | One file per business in the owner's Hoq drive; payment keys are sealed on the server outside it. |
|---|---|
| Getting it out | Every console action, including balances and the daily journal, through the JSON API. |
| If you leave | Not documented on a public page. |
APIs and standards
- JSON API: POST /api/funds/w/{key} with a Bearer key
- MCP tools for every console action; owners alone set rules and correct balances
- Counter links for tills and tablets, no sign-in
- Standard: QR code
- Standard: Data Matrix
- Standard: Luhn-checked card numbers
Compared
| Checked 2026-11-01 | Hoq Funds | Square Gift Cards | Givex |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly fee | not published | None1 | not published2 |
| Load fee | not published | 2.5% of the amount loaded; none on Square Premium1 | not published2 |
| Where the money settles | Your own Stripe or Square account | Your Square account1 | not published2 |
| Expiry | Refused on gift cards and store credit in WA and CA; promo credit may expire | Gift cards do not expire1 | not published2 |
| Store credit and promo credit | Included, each with its own rules | not published1 | not published2 |
| Works with Square registers | Yes, with Square-coded printed cards | Yes1 | not published2 |