Normally this type of thing would be paid for, but you're giving them away. In a case like this, think of what you would do if you weren't skipping the cash. Like if someone did your plumbing for you and you gave him a gift card instead of paying. If you weren't skipping the cash, you'd debit your repairs expense. The cash you're skipping here is what you'd pay for advertising.
Although I would call this promotions. I call anything that's a give-away or any type of indirect advertising "promotions."
Since you weren't paid for them, there is the question of charging them when they're given away or when they're redeemed. I think it would be more fitting to charge them off at the time they're given away.
In which case you would debit the Promotions (or some expense). And then you credit a liability account, which you can just call Gift Cards. You have created the obligation to give merchandise away when someone uses a card.
When they're redeemed, debit the liability and credit Sales. If they expire... hmm, you could credit it back out of Promotions. I'm a little questionable on that part.
This is my opinion -- someone else may handle it different. As far as I'm aware, the only place where GAAP comes in is that things like gift certificates are liabilities, and you can't charge a revenue ahead of time if you haven't sold the merchandise yet. I don't recall if there's anything specific about if they expire.
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