Hi,
I hope you can help me. I'm writing a computer program to be used for personal money management, and I'm hung up in the design process.

I need a word (or short term) that describes gift certificates, in-store credits (as when you return an item without a receipt), and gift cards/cash cards (MC/Visa cards that may be received for a product rebate or as a gift), and also differentiates them from "deposit accounts" (checking and savings accounts) and "credit accounts" (credit cards, etc.). The most relevant difference for my purpose is that the gift certificates, and the others in the group, start off at a certain monetary value which reduces as the money value is spent, and generally it’s not possible to add money value back to them.

Thanks very much.

Would "voucher" fit the bill?

Voucher is interesting, I hadn't thought of it. But I'm not sure.

Here are the ideas I’ve com up with so far. I thought someone might be able to improve or fix one, but I’m also wide open to not using any of them.

finite credit balances
finite usable funds
finite credit funds
available credit balances
credit holdings
finite principal resources
usable credit balances

None seems descriptive or natural sounding enough, and I need the word or term to be intuitively understandable and as unambiguous as possible.

Hall: If you haven't already been there, and if you have the patience,

http://onelook.com/?w=*&loc=revfp2&clue=gift+certificate+credit

Hi, haller; how about limited-use Somethings? Limited-use funds, maybe? Limited-use seems intuitively understandable to me--and I know nothing about finance.

What about 'Chips' or 'Tokens'?

What do you need this term for? If it's just a label in a program something like CashEquiv might work.

Thanks everybody.

dalehileman, interesting website. I didn't see the answer though.

Jackie, I too thought of the word "limited" but decided against it because 1)it's kind of a downer word, and 2) it's too ambiguous. I replaced it in my musings with "finite", which I decided was even more of a downer even it it might be a bit less ambiguous.

Olly, I don't think chips or tokens would be quite right. They're too ambiguous and unintuitive.

Faldage, the label must be intuitively understood by users and fit with the chemistry of the program. So it is important to get it right. Credit cards could also be considered cash equivalents, but they fall under the "credit accounts" category.

What about "spendable credit balances"?

For me that's not instantly intuitive, but familiarization with your program should render that point moot. I ran finite through thesaurus.com; I'll post what it gave me, in case any of these fit your bill:
bound, bounded, circumscribed, conditioned, confined, definable, definite, delimited, demarcated, determinate, exact, fixed, limited, precise, restricted, specific, terminable

belted, bordered, boundaried, circumscribed, compassed, contiguous, defined, definite, delimited, determinate, edged, encircled, enclosed, encompassed, enveloped, fenced, finite, flanked, fringed, girdled, hedged, hog-tied, limitary, restricted, rimmed, ringed, surrounded, walled

bound, bounded, checked, circumscribed, confined, constrained, controlled, curbed, defined, delimited, determinate, finite, fixed, hampered, hemmed in, local, modified, narrow, particular, precise, qualified, reserved, restrained, sectional, topical

animate, bipedal, corporeal, creatural, earthly, ecce homo, ephemeral, evanescent, fading, finite, frail, fugacious, impermanent, momentary, passing, perishable, precarious, sublunary, temporal, transient, weak, worldly

Voucher (or non-renewable voucher) is the most intuitive for me. Whatever you put someone will miss the meaning though, so can you use examples the first time? e.g. "using vouchers (ie credit balances, gift cards etc) will enable..."

Last night (before going to sleep), another idea occured to me:
"cash equivalents", or "cash equivalent vouchers"

Sorry, I only noticed now that this has already been suggested.

"dalehileman, interesting website. I didn't see the answer though."

Understandable and in fact likely. If you have the time and energy however, return to
the "reverse dictionary" page and change one or more of the words

Ha! you are back! I'm vouching for your option.

I'll add my 2 cents (ha ha): spend-only credit

Don't know exactly what spend-only credit means, but it seems to me that you're far too generous.

It's not the word you're looking for, but there is a word "lagniappe" that is related. It could be useful to you in the future.

It would seem redundant at first blush, but when considering the mechanics of credit financially, and the use of the word in common society, it isn't. What it means to me is some form of credit, such as those our petitioner mentioned, that can only be spent, and cannot (generally) be renewed with more "credit", distinguishing it from the unembellished term "credit", which is so strongly linked with "card", that most people think of it as something you may draw upon over and over. Does that make it any clearer, Bran? I would be curious to know what Haller thinks... :0)

I like it.

I made the comment on your 2 cents, which made me laugh.
The credit business is mystery world to me. I have a creditcard to buy some books and music online. I pay my bills quick as the devil, because I do not understand renewed credit, debet and such. No use explaining, I'm credit blind.

And undoubtedly that is a good way to be, considering the way
people are going into so much debt these days. Pay it off as
soon as possible.