What it does
Every person with benefits has one account per benefit category (vacation time, a conference allowance, and so on). Each account shows a current balance, a pending balance held by undecided requests, and the available balance you can actually spend, plus a full transaction history with a running balance.
Who it's for
Learners and other program members view their own balances and history in the personal portal. Program administrators and coordinators review everyone's accounts in the admin portal. Admins get separate views for financial accounts and time-off balances.
How it works
Your My Benefits page shows one card per benefit category on the Overview tab. Time-based benefits (vacation, sick leave) and financial benefits (allowances, reimbursement budgets) appear side by side.
Three numbers describe each account:
Current balance — what has been allocated to you, minus what has been deducted.
Pending balance — the amount reserved by your submitted requests that have not been decided yet.
Available balance — current minus pending. This is what you can request against right now.
Pending holds. The pending amount is reserved the moment you submit a request, and released if it's rejected or cancelled — so you can't promise the same balance twice.
Units. Time balances are tracked in minutes and displayed in hours or days, using the category's configured day length. Financial balances are tracked to the cent.
History. The Request History tab lists your requests with status. Each account's transaction ledger shows every entry, with the balance after it was applied.
Admin view. Administrators see the same balance model across everyone in their program or institution, with search, a category filter, status filter pills (All, Active, Depleted, Inactive), and pagination for large rosters.
Before you start
You need at least one benefit account. If your program has not assigned you one yet, the Overview tab shows an empty state instead of balance cards.
Do this
Open the Benefits page (
/benefits) → you should see the Overview tab with Your benefit accounts and a card per category.On a category card, check the Current, Pending, and Available balances → the available balance already accounts for any pending requests.
If a number looks wrong, select the refresh icon next to Your benefit accounts → confirm the toast Balances updated.
Select the Request history tab (or go to
/benefits/history) → you should see your requests with a status badge for each.Select a request in the list → the request details sheet opens, showing its transaction entries and any decision notes.
You're done when
You can see current, pending, and available balance for each of your benefit categories on the Overview tab.
You can find a past request under Request history and read its status and any decision notes.
Boundaries and limits
You only see your own accounts and history in the personal portal. Administrator views are permission-gated.
Available balance drops as soon as a request is submitted, not when it is approved. A rejected or cancelled request returns the reserved amount.
Posted transactions are immutable; corrections happen through new adjustment entries made by administrators, not edits to the ledger.
By default a deduction cannot take an account below zero, unless the category explicitly allows negative balances or the account carries a minimum balance floor below zero.
An account exists per person per benefit category. Balances do not pool across categories or transfer between people.
Admin account lists are paginated at 25 rows per page.
Transaction history loads the most recent entries first. Use "Load more transactions" at the bottom of the list to page back through older entries.
Common questions
Q: Why is my available balance lower than my current balance? A: You have one or more submitted requests awaiting a decision. Their total is held as pending and subtracted from what you can request next.
Q: When does my balance actually go down? A: The deduction is posted when the request receives final approval. Before that, the amount is only reserved.
Q: Can I see why my balance changed? A: Yes. The transaction history lists each allocation, deduction, and adjustment with a description, effective date, and the balance after each entry.
Q: Can my balance go negative? A: Only if your program configured that benefit category to allow negative balances, or set a minimum balance below zero for your account. Otherwise requests that would overdraw the account are refused at approval.
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