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Who can use this feature?

DSPs, Supervisors, and Administrators, on the web and in the Kibu app. See Who can use Personal Finance.
Personal Finance is a ledger for each member’s money. When a DSP takes a member grocery shopping, they photograph the receipt, Kibu reads it, and a supervisor signs off. Everything stays in one place for audits and your annual Social Security report.
A member's finance ledger

A member's ledger: their accounts on the left, every transaction and its sign-off on the right.

What you need to know

Account

One place a member’s money is kept, such as a cash envelope, a prepaid card, or a savings account. Each member can have several.

Transaction

A Deposit (money in), an Expense (money out), or a Transfer between two of the member’s own accounts.

Sign-off

Every transaction starts as Pending. It counts as Approved once a Supervisor or Administrator signs off.
  • Nothing is ever deleted. A mistake is voided with a reason and stays on the record.
  • Personal Finance does not work offline in the Kibu app.

Who can use Personal Finance

Kibu turns Personal Finance on for each organization. If you do not see Personal Finance in the left sidebar or Settings, contact Kibu Support. Members do not use Personal Finance. Access to Personal Finance is separate from access to a member’s profile. Your role can hold any of these permissions: record transactions, approve transactions, review and report, and manage settings. If you do not see a Finance tab on a member’s profile, ask your administrator which ones your role holds.

Set up Personal Finance

1

Turn on your members

Go to Settings > Personal Finance and pick members in the Members card. Turning on your organization does not turn on its members, and new members are not added for you.
The Members and Approval threshold cards in Personal Finance settings

Personal Finance settings.

2

Add account types and categories

In Account types, add the kinds of accounts your agency uses, such as Cash, EBT, or Trust Fund. Categories, such as Groceries or Transportation, are optional tags for spending.
3

Set the approval threshold

Transactions at or below this amount need one sign-off. Above it, they need a second, elevated sign-off as well. The default is $200.
4

Open and approve each account

On the member’s profile, select Finance > Ledger, then click New Account. Enter a name, the type, the starting balance, and the date that balance was true. A new account is a Draft until someone clicks Approve Account, and nothing can be posted to it before then.
The New Account dialog

A card account can also have a spending limit and a link to the card's website.

For a benefit that arrives on a schedule, like SSI on the 1st, click Add Recurring Deposit under the account. Kibu posts the deposit on each due date as Pending, marked Auto-posted. Approving it confirms the money arrived.

Record a transaction

Every way of recording lands on the same ledger as Pending.
With the Member Purchase form, the fastest way when you have a receipt in hand:
1

Start the form

Open the member’s profile, tap the plus button at the top right, and choose Member Purchase.
2

Photograph the receipt

Tap Take Photo. Kibu reads the amount, vendor, date, and category.
3

Check, then sign

Under Review before signing, compare each field with the receipt and fix anything that is wrong. The amount you sign is the amount that posts.
From the Finance tab, open the member’s profile, tap Finance, then Record spending. You can record an expense, deposit, or transfer, and attach up to three receipt photos.
Kibu reads receipts automatically, but it can be wrong. Fields it filled in show From receipt, verify. Check each one before you save.

Split a receipt

One receipt can cover several members, like a shared pizza. On an expense, turn on Split this receipt and add up to nine more members. Split By amount, or By item to give each member the lines they bought. Each member gets their own expense, a copy of the receipt, and their own sign-off.
Split this receipt turned on, with three members sharing the total

One pizza receipt split three ways. Blank shares split what is left.

Edit a transaction

On the ledger, click on the row and choose Edit. In the app, tap the transaction. If it was already signed off, it goes back to Pending for a new sign-off.

Approve transactions

Supervisors and Administrators click Personal Finance in the left sidebar, then Approvals. In the Kibu app, the Approvals card on Home shows how many are waiting for you.
The Approvals tab, with Approve and Reject on each transaction

Transactions waiting for your sign-off.

  • Approve: check the receipt against the amount first. Transactions above the threshold need Approve Standard and Approve Elevated from two sign-off levels.
  • Reject: sends it back to staff with a written reason. They correct it, and it returns to the queue.
  • Void: on the ledger, click on the row and choose Void. Enter a reason. The transaction stays on the record but leaves the balance, and this cannot be undone.

Keep the records clean

The Needs Attention tab lists every expense with no receipt and every transaction not yet approved, across all members you can see.
The Needs Attention tab

Each row shows what is missing.

Two watchlists help protect benefits:
  • Resource Limits: members whose countable balances are near or over the SSI limit. Turn it on in Settings > Personal Finance > Resource-limit alerts.
  • ABLE Contributions: members near the yearly limit on deposits into an ABLE account, a savings account for people with disabilities. ABLE balances never count toward the SSI limit. This list appears when any member has an ABLE account.
A member’s balance counts every transaction that is not voided, including ones still waiting for sign-off.

Reconcile an account

Reconciliation is optional. Turn it on in Settings > Personal Finance > Reconciliation.
1

Record the period

On the account, click Reconcile Account. Enter the close date and the balance on the bank or card statement, and attach the statement. If the two balances differ, explain why.
The Reconcile Account dialog

The statement shows $5.00 less than the ledger, so the variance needs an explanation.

2

Have someone else close it

A different person reviews the period and clicks Close Period.
A closed period cannot be reopened. Nothing dated inside it can be added, edited, or voided. Post corrections in the current period.

Reports

On a member’s profile, select Finance > Reports, pick a report, and click Download Report.
The Reports page on a member's Finance tab

A member's reports.

Personal Finance > Reports has two reports across every member you can see: Unapproved Transactions and Account Reconciliations.