Creating and funding a benefit program

A program is the template every wallet is minted from. Create one on the Programs tab of /allowance.

**1. Pick a pillar** — Meal, Fleet, Gift, or Corporate AP. The pillar pre-selects sensible merchant categories you can adjust.

**2. Choose a funding model** (per program):
- **Employer-funded fringe** — you fund the wallet; it never reduces the employee's take-home pay. This is the classic meal-voucher model.
- **Employee pre-tax deduction** — funded from a pre-tax payroll deduction, lowering taxable income (the 401(k)/HSA model).
- **Split — employer match** — the employee contributes pre-tax and you match up to a set percentage.

**3. Set the budget, period, and MCC locks** — a per-period budget (weekly/monthly/annual), an optional per-transaction cap, and the merchant categories the wallet unlocks. Categories expand to merchant-category codes (MCCs) the closed-loop authorize checks against at every swipe.

**4. Enroll workers** — on the Enrollment tab, pick a program and a worker. The system mints their server-owned wallet and an employer-side grant mirror so you can watch funded / spent / balance per person.

**Funding happens automatically:** employer-fringe wallets top up each period; pre-tax and split wallets fund from each paycheck. Use "Fund now" on the Funding tab for an ad-hoc top-up. Every funding posts a journal entry to Accounting — employer share to benefit expense, employee share to a deduction clearing account, both crediting the benefit-wallet liability.