How to create personal allowance items
Last updated: May 11, 2026
Overview
Personal allowance is part of the Pro billing module in Found. It lets you track money held and spent on behalf of service users — recording deposits, expenses, and withdrawals against their bookings.
Each transaction is linked to a specific booking and includes fields for amount, date, type, payment method, and optional supporting documents. Balances are calculated in real time and can be exported or printed as a statement.
Note: Personal allowance is a beta feature and must be enabled for your workspace before it is accessible. Contact your Found account manager if you do not see this module.
Prerequisites
Your workspace must have the Personal allowance feature enabled (Pro billing module).
You must have an active booking for the service user you want to record a transaction against.
Your user role must have permission to create personal allowance transactions.
How to add a personal allowance transaction
From a booking
Open the relevant booking.
Navigate to the Funding tab.
Select Personal allowance from the funding section.
Click Add transactions.
Select the transaction type:
Deposit — money added to the service user's allowance.
Expense — categorised spending against an expense type.
Withdrawal — funds drawn from account.
Complete the transaction form:
Amount — enter the value in pounds (must be greater than zero).
Transaction date — the date the transaction occurred.
Description — optional free-text description.
Payment method — Cash, Bank transfer, Cheque, or Card.
Reference — optional reference number.
Notes — optional additional notes.
Type (expenses only) — select the relevant expense type to categorise the transaction.
Transaction by — optionally link the transaction to a contact or organisation.
Document — optionally attach a supporting file (e.g. a receipt).
Click Save to create the transaction.
If the transaction would result in a negative balance, an overdraft warning is displayed before saving.
From the workspace-level personal allowance view
Navigate to Operations > Personal allowance.
Click Add transactions.
Search for and select a booking using the booking search field.
Complete the transaction form as described above.
Viewing balances
The Transactions tab shows a full transaction history with filters for location, date range, and expense type.
The Service user balances tab shows a summary of each service user's current balance grouped by location. You can filter by effective date to see balances as of a specific date.
Quick filters let you hide zero balances or show only negative balances.
Crediting (reversing) a transaction
If a debit transaction was recorded in error:
Locate the transaction in the table.
Open the row actions menu and select Credit.
Confirm the action. A reversal transaction will be created, restoring the deducted amount to the balance.
A transaction can only be credited once.
Generating a statement
Locate a transaction for the relevant booking.
Open the row actions menu and select Statement.
A PDF statement is generated covering the booking period, including opening and closing balances and a full transaction list.
Frequently asked questions
Q: What is personal allowance used for? A: Personal allowance tracks money held on behalf of a service user and records how it is spent. Common uses include managing cash deposits and logging purchases made on a service user's behalf.
Q: What transaction types are available? A: There are three types — deposit (money in), expense (categorised spend linked to an expense type), and withdrawal (uncategorised spend).
Q: What payment methods can I select? A: Cash, bank transfer, cheque, and card.
Q: Can I attach a receipt or document to a transaction? A: Yes. You can attach one file per transaction row when adding or editing a transaction.
Q: What happens if a transaction puts a service user into negative balance? A: Found will display an overdraft warning. You can still save the transaction, but the warning flags that the balance will become negative.
Q: Can I edit a transaction after saving? A: You can update the reference, notes, and attached document on a saved transaction. The amount, date, and type cannot be changed — use the credit action to reverse a transaction recorded in error, then create a new one.
Q: Can I reverse a transaction? A: Yes. Debit transactions (expenses and withdrawals) can be credited once. This creates a reversal transaction that restores the amount to the balance.
Q: Can I add transactions for multiple service users at once? A: Yes. Use the Bulk add option from the workspace-level personal allowance page to add transactions across multiple bookings in a single step (up to 100 at a time).
Q: How are balances calculated? A: The balance is the sum of all deposits minus the sum of all expenses and withdrawals for a given service user and location. Reversal transactions are included in the calculation.
Q: Can I export transaction data? A: Yes. Use the Export option on the transactions or service user balances view to download a CSV file of the current filtered view.
Q: Why can't I see the personal allowance section? A: Personal allowance is a Pro billing module feature. It must be enabled for your workspace by your Found account manager.
Q: Who can create and view personal allowance transactions? A: All user roles (admin, manager, staff) have access to view, create, edit, and delete personal allowance transactions, provided the feature is enabled for your workspace.