Allowance — restricted-spend employee benefits, on-rails

Allowance is the Edenred shape — employer-funded restricted-spend benefits — rebuilt on Turtini's own rails, with the float removed. An employer funds a per-person benefit wallet that can only be spent on the merchant categories they choose; the employee owns the balance and spends it closed-loop at Turtini merchants.

**Two surfaces, one module.** Employers fund at /allowance (Org context); employees spend at /me/allowance (Personal context). Same module key, dual context.

**Four pillars on one wallet spine:**
- **Meal & Benefit** — daily meal allowances locked to restaurants, groceries, transit, wellness.
- **Fleet & Fuel** — fuel cards locked to gas stations, bound to a vehicle, capturing the odometer at every swipe.
- **Gift & Incentive** — reward balances that spend at your stores.
- **Corporate AP** — supplier-payment programs.

**Why it's different from a card processor.** A traditional benefits processor sits between the employer's funding and the merchant and earns on the money resting in between. Turtini already owns the merchants, so a swipe authorizes closed-loop in real time — the rule is checked, the balance decremented, the merchant paid in full — with no resting float and no per-transaction fee on benefit money. [[feedback_payment_rails_at_cost]]

**The benefit follows the person.** The wallet balance is server-authoritative (no client can self-credit it), and the first time a wallet is funded the employee gets a portable Verified-by-Turtini benefit-history credential they carry between employers.