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Allowance

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tempus2016 edited this page Jun 26, 2026 · 1 revision

Allowance turns saved-up points into a real-money pocket-money payout. When a child cashes in their points, you record the payout: TaskMate deducts the points and writes a cash entry — in your currency — into a payout ledger you can review later. It is parent-controlled and uses a fixed conversion rate (no variable or "smart" pricing): a point is always worth the same amount.

Allowance is opt-in and configured in Settings → Integrations → TaskMate → Configure → Settings, in the Allowance section of the Admin Panel.

Settings

Setting Key Default Description
Enable allowance payouts allowance_enabled off Master toggle. While off, the payout service is rejected
Points per unit allowance_rate 10 How many points equal one unit of currency. With 10, 50 points pays out 5 units (e.g. £5.00)
Currency symbol allowance_currency (blank) A short symbol shown against the cash amount, e.g. £ or $ (up to 8 characters)

The rate is a whole number from 1 to 100,000. Leave the toggle off and no payouts can be recorded.

Setting it up

  1. Open the Admin Panel and scroll to the Allowance section
  2. Switch Enable allowance payouts on
  3. Set Points per unit — the conversion rate. For example, 10 means every 10 points is worth one unit of your currency
  4. Type a Currency symbol such as £ or $

The rate is fixed: 50 points is always the same payout. TaskMate never adjusts the conversion based on demand, timing, or balance.

Recording a payout

When a child wants to cash in points — say a weekly Friday pocket-money — record the payout from an automation or a dashboard button using the record_allowance_payout service.

# Pay out 50 points as allowance for one child
service: taskmate.record_allowance_payout
data:
  child_id: <child id>
  points: 50
Parameter Required Description
child_id ✅ ID of the child being paid
points ✅ Points to convert to cash and deduct (1–100,000)

What happens when it runs:

  • The points are deducted from the child's balance (logged as Allowance payout)
  • A cash amount of points ÷ rate (rounded to 2 decimal places) is recorded in the configured currency. With a rate of 10, paying out 50 points records a payout of 5.00
  • A ledger entry is stored capturing the child, the points, the cash amount, the currency, and the date
  • A taskmate_allowance_paid event is fired — handy for triggering a notification or logging the cash you handed over

The service is admin-gated and recorded in the Admin Audit Log. It is rejected if allowance is disabled, the child is unknown, or points is below 1.

A weekly payout

To pay out a fixed allowance every Friday, trigger the service on a schedule:

alias: Friday allowance
triggers:
  - trigger: time
    at: "17:00:00"
    # add a weekday condition for Fridays
actions:
  - service: taskmate.record_allowance_payout
    data:
      child_id: <child id>
      points: 50

The payout ledger

Every recorded payout is appended to a ledger stored as allowance_payouts (capped at the most recent 500 entries). The Allowance section of the Admin Panel lists the most recent payouts — child, cash amount, and date — so you have a running record of what has been paid out. There is no separate ledger sensor; the history is surfaced in the panel.

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