Advanced budgets make it easier to scale your reward initiative – especially if you need to manage budgets across departments, teams or locations.
What are advanced budgets? Advanced budgets let you create pots of Reward points for departments, teams, locations or any other structure that fits your needs. You can then hand those pots to managers, so they can reward their teams without coming to you every time. If you don’t have advanced budgets enabled, reach out to a member of our team to find out more.
Who can do what
Advanced budgets use three roles.
Role | What they can do |
Admin | Buys Reward points, creates budgets, assigns managers and users, and can see every budget across the company. Admins are automatically the budget manager of any budget they create. |
Budget manager | Gives and transfers points, and views team wallets and budget details. A good fit for the head of a department or site. |
Budget user | Gets points as a budget and gives them out as rewards. A good fit for team leads. |
Before you start
Your managers and teams need to be set up on Perkbox before you create budgets. If they aren’t:
Add your managers as people on the platform
Create a team for each department or site, and choose a manager for each one
You can learn more about setting up teams here.
Once that’s done, follow the steps below in order. You’ll create your budgets first, then assign managers to them.
Step 1 – Create your budgets
Points first: You’ll need Reward points in your wallet to assign to your budgets. If you don’t have any yet, select Buy points on the Reward Wallet page. You can learn more about purchasing Reward points here.
Go to Enter Admin > Rewards > Reward Wallet
Open the Create budgets tab
Select Download CSV template
Add one row for each budget: the budget column is the budget’s name (for example, “Marketing” or “Sales”), and the amount column is how many points to put in it
Save the file as a CSV
Select Upload a CSV file, or drag and drop it onto the page
You’ll see how many rows were detected and a table of the budgets and amounts you’re about to create. Check it over, then select Proceed. If there are any errors in your CSV, they’ll be flagged when you upload.
Your budgets will be created, and you’ll get an email once it’s done. It can take a few minutes. You’ll then see them under My reward wallet. You’re automatically the budget manager of every budget you create.
Step 2 – Assign budget managers
Now you can give each manager their budget, and choose how many points they start with.
Open the Manage Roles tab
Select Budget Manager
Select Download CSV Template
The template is already filled in with everyone who has a manager role on your platform, including their uuid, email, user_name and team_name. Don’t edit these columns.
Fill in the budget_name and points columns for each manager. The budget name needs to match a budget you’ve already created
Add one row per budget. If a manager looks after two budgets, they’ll need two rows
Delete the rows of any managers you don’t want to include
Save the file as a CSV, then select Upload a CSV file, or drag and drop it onto the page
You’ll see how many role assignments were detected. Select Proceed, and you’ll get a message confirming your upload was successful. It can take a few minutes to complete.
If you see an error: a message will tell you which rows couldn’t be imported, for example if a budget couldn’t be found. Select Download Error Report to see which rows need fixing, then upload a new CSV.
💡 Tip: Create your budgets before you assign managers. If a budget doesn’t exist yet, the upload won’t work.
Step 3 – Assign budget users (optional)
Budget users get points as a budget and give them out as rewards, but they don’t get a manager’s extra controls.
Follow the same steps as Step 2, but select Budget User on the Manage Roles tab before you download the template.
Step 4 – Check your budgets
Everything you need is on the Reward Wallet page:
My reward wallet shows the budgets you manage, with their balances. Use Search by budget to find one quickly
Company Budgets lists every budget across your organisation. Select a budget to see its total balance and which managers hold points in it
All Reward Wallets lists every person with a wallet, their budget role and their balance. Use Search by user name to find someone
Further down the page, Transactions shows the points you’ve bought and assigned. Every transaction is also captured in the Transfer summary report, so you’ve got a full record to download whenever you need it.
Step 5 – Move points between budgets
Plans change. Some people leave a team, another team grows, or points end up in the wrong place. You’ve got two ways to move them.
Adjust points between your own budgets
Use Adjust to move points between your budgets, or between a budget and your unassigned points. For example, you could take some points from Marketing and give them to Sales.
Open My reward wallet
Select Adjust next to a budget
Choose the budget the points are coming From and the budget they’re going To
Enter the adjust amount and select Adjust points
The From list includes your unassigned points, so you can also use Adjust to top up a budget or take points back out of one. You’ll see a message confirming the points have moved.
Transfer points between managers
Use Transfer to move points from any manager’s budget to any other manager’s or admin’s budget. It’s handy if a manager has left the company, because you can move their points back to your own wallet.
Select Transfer on My reward wallet, Company Budgets or All Reward Wallets
Add a note explaining why. You have up to 2000 characters
Choose the budget manager and budget the points are coming From
Choose the budget manager and budget they’re going To
Enter the transfer amount and continue
Check the details on the next step, then confirm
Step 6 – Let requests be approved automatically (optional)
Managers can ask for more points by selecting Request points in their reward wallet. They choose a budget, an approver, an amount and a reason. You can learn more about requesting additional Reward points here.
By default, you approve each request yourself. With auto approvals, requests up to a limit you choose are approved straight away.
⚠️ Important: If you want to use auto approvals, you must set a limit. Do this first, before you choose who’s included. Without a limit, your upload won’t go through.
1. Set your limit
Go to Enter Admin > Settings > Auto approvals
Open the Set limits tab
Enter the maximum number of points to auto-approve, then select Save
The same limit applies to everyone. It applies to each request on its own, not to a running total, so several requests under the limit will all be approved. You’ll see a message confirming your limit has been updated.
2. Choose who’s included
Open the People tab and select Upload auto-approved CSV
Select Download CSV Template. The file lists all your managers and admins, but leaves out anyone who’s already auto-approved.
Remove the rows of anyone you don’t want to auto-approve
Save the file, then drag and drop it onto the page or select Upload a CSV file
You’ll see a message confirming how many employees now have auto approvals enabled.