Managing your child's school pocket money

Why a fixed allowance works

Cash given in the morning is often gone by the first break, and nobody can say where it went. A fixed amount for each school day changes that. Your child knows what they have to spend, learns to choose within it, and cannot go past it.

On STUTAP the family has one wallet that you top up, and each child has their own pocket. Your child pays at the canteen by tapping a tag or wristband, and the sale goes through only if their own pocket covers it. The rest of the family's money is out of reach, and the cashier sees your child's photo and name, never the balance.

Pocket money that sends itself on school days

You can send money to a pocket by hand at any time. Most parents set up a scheduled send instead, once, from the child's page in the app:

1. Pick the days. Sunday to Thursday is one tap, or choose any days you like.
2. Choose the amount. Enough for a normal day at the canteen.
3. Choose how it sends. "Top up to the amount" sends only what is missing to bring the pocket up to the amount. "Send the full amount every time" adds the whole amount on top of what is left.
4. Choose when it stops. When you turn it off, or on a date you pick.

The money moves from the family wallet early on the morning of each day you picked. Days with no school are skipped automatically: holidays, the weeks between terms and closures, as the school records them in its calendar. You can pause the schedule and resume it later without setting it up again, and with more than one child you can give them all the same rule in one step.

Seeing every purchase, with receipts

Every purchase, top-up and refund shows in the app the moment it happens.

The app's Activity lists everything that moved, day by day, and you can narrow it to one child or one period. Sends that ran on their own are marked, and when more than one parent shares the wallet, each move shows who made it.

The canteen view shows each purchase as a receipt: which child, which counter and when, every item with its price, and the total. A refunded purchase stays on the list, marked, and its money is back in the pocket.

Keeping the family wallet topped up

You top up the family wallet by card (Visa, Mastercard or Meeza), mobile wallet or InstaPay, through Kashier, so STUTAP never sees your card or bank details. If you save a card on Kashier's payment page, the next card top-up asks only for its three-digit security code, and STUTAP keeps only the last four digits.

If the family wallet cannot cover a send that morning, the send is skipped, not queued, and the pocket stays as it is. To avoid that, the app warns you the evening before and says how much to add. If a send is skipped anyway, the app says so, and you can top up and send it by hand.

Pre-orders you place in the app are paid from the family wallet too, never from a child's pocket. Money in STUTAP is spent only at school and cannot be withdrawn or paid back to your card, so top up what you expect your children to spend.

Read next: Pre-ordering school meals, how it works

When a tag is lost

Tags and wristbands get left at home or dropped in the playground. The app gives you two steps, depending on how sure you are that it is gone.

• Freeze it if it might turn up. Taps are refused at the till straight away, before any money moves, and the money stays in the pocket. Unfreeze it from the same screen when the tag turns up.
• Report it lost if it is gone for good. The tag is frozen at once and you cannot switch it back on yourself. Ask the school office for a replacement, then pair it from your child's page by tapping it on your phone. From then on the old tag is refused.

While the tag is frozen, your child can still collect a bag you pre-ordered: the cashier finds it by its code, your child's name or class. Anything else at the canteen needs the tag, or cash.