Flexible spending is a Pockets setting that provides you with additional flexibility in how you spend using your Found debit cards.
Without flexible spending, you can spend up to the total amount in your Primary pocket. The upside is that this keeps the funds saved in your other pockets separate and protected. The downside is that transactions exceeding your Primary pocket balance will be declined—even if your total account balance is sufficient.
When you enable flexible spending in your pockets, you expand the pool of money that your debit card has access to. The benefit is that you aren’t limited to your Primary balance for card transactions—but be aware that you’re dipping into your savings.
For example, let’s say that you have $100 in your Primary pocket and $100 in your Taxes pocket, and you want to make a $200 purchase with your debit card:
Without flexible spending enabled in your Taxes pocket, the purchase will be declined because your Primary balance is insufficient.
With flexible spending enabled in your Taxes pocket, the purchase will be approved because your combined Primary and Taxes balances are sufficient. Then, in Found, you can rebalance your pocket balances.
When a transaction uses flexible spending, your Primary pocket balance goes negative. In the example above, your total balance will go from $200 to $0, your Primary balance will go to -$100, and your Taxes balance will remain $100.
Bring your Primary balance up by adding money to your account or transferring funds from your Taxes pocket or another pocket.
Flexible spending is used for card transactions. If you need to make a bank transfer or instant transfer and your Primary balance isn’t sufficient, be sure to transfer funds from another pocket to cover the difference before attempting the transfer.
If you’ve attached a debit card to your Taxes pocket or a custom pocket, you’re able to spend up to the balance of that pocket. Flexible spending is only used for transactions made with your Primary pocket.
Flexible spending is enabled by default, but can be turned on and off within each pocket’s settings:
Choose a pocket from the Overview page.
Select the gear icon to open the Settings menu
Select Flexible spending.
Uncheck the boxes next to the Pockets that you’d like to disable flexible spending for. Or, switch Use flexible spending to off to disable this feature for all of your pockets.
Keep in mind that when flexible spending is turned off, your debit card will only spend from your Primary pocket balance. To avoid declined transactions, turn on flexible spending in this or other pockets.
