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Setting Up a Flex Allowance

This guide walks you through how to configure Flexible Allowances in the Happl platform, including reimbursement settings, virtual and physical cards, spend controls, rollover rules, and employee management.

Written by Sandy

What Are Flexible Allowances?

Flexible Allowances allow companies to give employees controlled spending budgets for things like:

  • Wellbeing

  • Learning & Development

  • Work-from-home expenses

  • Team budgets

  • Employee benefits

  • Company spend

You can customise:

  • Allowance amounts

  • Frequencies

  • Payment methods

  • Spend restrictions

  • Rollover rules

  • Employee access

Watch The How-To Guide Here:

Step 1: Decide Which Payment Methods to Offer

Before creating an allowance, decide which payment methods employees can use.

Happl supports:

Payment Method

Requires KYC?

Notes

Reimbursements

Only requires the opening of the Stripe account

Employees submit claims manually

Virtual Cards

Yes

Recommended option

Physical Cards

Yes

UK only, £10 replacement/setup fee

You can enable:

  • Reimbursements only

  • Cards only

  • Or both together

Important: Stripe KYC Verification

If you want to use virtual or physical cards, you must complete a KYC (Know Your Customer) process with Stripe.

This creates a dedicated company card account that:

  • Belongs fully to your company

  • Can be funded and withdrawn from by your business

  • Is separate from Happl platform fees

The KYC process usually only takes a few minutes once submitted. You can read more about this here:

Step 2: Complete Your Stripe Setup

To begin the KYC process:

  1. Go to Settings

  2. Select Company

  3. Open the Country Card Accounts section

You’ll be prompted to provide:

  • Basic company information

  • Shareholder information

  • Verification details requested by Stripe

Once approved, you’ll be able to create card-based allowances.

Step 3: Create a Flexible Allowance

To create an allowance:

  1. Go to the Admin Area

  2. Select Allowances

  3. Click Create Allowance in the top-right corner

You’ll then see several allowance types available:

  • Company-Wide Allowances

    • Applies to all employees across the company

  • Entity-Wide Allowances

    • Available if your organisation uses multiple entities

  • Custom Allowances:

    • Targeted allowances based on:

      • Employee groups

      • Individual employees

If you set an allowance to be company-wide but with to restrict it to certain groups after, you'll need to get in touch with us directly!

Step 4: Configure the Allowance

Add the Allowance Name

Choose a clear, employee-friendly name such as:

  • Wellbeing Allowance

  • Learning & Development

  • Home Office Budget

Select the Allowance Type

You’ll choose between:

  • Employee Benefit

  • Company Spend

This helps categorise expenses correctly for:

  • Reporting

  • Accounting

  • Tax purposes

Choose Currency

Select the appropriate currency based on your Stripe account setup.

If you operate internationally, you may have multiple currency accounts available.

Set Amount and Frequency

Configure:

  • Allowance amount

  • Refresh frequency

    • per authorisation, day, week, month, quarter, all time

Select Payment Method

Choose whether the allowance will support:

  • Reimbursements

  • Cards

    • Virtual or physical

      • if you want to disable physical cards, this is an option in a later step

  • A combination of methods

Remember:

  • Reimbursement-only allowances do not require the full KYC

  • Any card-enabled allowance requires Stripe verification

Step 5: Add Guidance and Policies

The About section allows you to provide employees with:

  • Spending guidelines

  • Policy details

  • Eligible expense information

You can also link directly to:

  • Notion policies

  • SharePoint documents

  • Internal guidance pages

This is strongly recommended, especially for card-based allowances.

We can't host documents for you when it come to allowances but you can link to anything hosted by your organisation even if it's just on a drive

Step 6: Configure Spend Controls

Block Spend Categories

Happl uses Stripe merchant categories to control spending. You can also manually block additional categories but by default, Happl already blocks high-risk categories such as:

  • Gambling

  • Wire transfers

Example

To prevent clothing purchases:

  1. Search for “Clothing”

  2. Select the clothing-related categories

  3. Apply the block

Some Stripe categories can appear very niche or highly specific — this is expected behaviour.

Step 7: Decide Whether to Enable Physical Cards

Physical cards are:

  • Available in the UK only

  • Subject to a £10 setup/replacement fee per card

We generally recommends using virtual cards because they:

  • Are safer

  • Can be added to mobile wallets

  • Reduce operational costs

Step 8: Configure Advanced Rules

Allow Negative Reimbursements

This setting allows employees to submit reimbursements above their available balance.

This can be useful for:

  • Learning & Development budgets

  • Pre-approved larger purchases

Configure Rollover Rules

You can allow unused balances to roll over - the amount you enter here will be the maximum balance that an employee can have.

You can also choose to:

  • Reset balances annually

  • Wipe rollover balances during a chosen month

Override Daily Spend Limits

By default, Happl blocks card transactions above £5000 but you can override this limit if your allowance requires larger purchases.

Step 9: Configure Employee Categories

You can control which categories appear to employees within the allowance.

For example, you may only want employees to see:

  • Mental Health

  • Benefits

This helps simplify:

  • Expense coding

  • Employee experience

  • Accounting workflows

Step 10: Manage Employees and Transactions

Once your allowance is created, you can:

  • View all assigned employees

  • Access employee cards

  • Freeze cards

  • Adjust balances

  • Send receipt reminders

  • Review transactions

This gives admins full visibility and control over allowance usage.

What this looks like

Best Practice Recommendations

Use Virtual Cards Where Possible

They are:

  • More secure

  • Easier to manage

  • Compatible with digital wallets

  • More cost-effective

Always Add a Policy Link

Clear guidance reduces:

  • Misuse

  • Expense confusion

  • Admin overhead

Block Unnecessary Spend Categories

Especially for:

  • Wellbeing allowances

  • Employee benefits

  • Lifestyle budgets

Use Rollover Strategically

Rollover works well for:

  • Learning & Development

  • Annual wellbeing budgets

  • Long-term employee savings goals

Need Help?

If you have any questions about configuring Flexible Allowances, the Happl team is happy to help support your setup and optimisation.

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