An Aid Request From Intake to Decision
Take assistance requests for rent, utilities, food or zakat, review each one against your fairness rules and prior aid, and approve and disburse in one motion.
Somebody asks for help with rent. You need to know what they asked for, what they have had before, whether your own fairness rules allow it, and then decide, without opening five screens to do it.
When you’d use this
- A family applies for rent help through your public form and you have to decide this week.
- A caseworker needs to see what a household has already received this quarter.
- You are the only person who approves aid and want the decision and the payout in one step.
- The board asks how many requests you turned down and why.
See what came in
- Go to Nonprofit > Aid & Assistance > Requests.
- The list shows Recipient, Class (what kind of help), Requested, Approved, Status and Submitted.
- Tabs along the top filter by status: All, Under review, More info, Approved, Waitlisted, Disbursed, Denied.
- Click a row to open it for review.
A request sitting in a two-signature band carries Awaiting second approval next to its status, so you can see at a glance that it is not stuck on you.
The statuses
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Submitted | Received, not yet picked up |
| Under review | Somebody is working on it |
| More info | You asked the applicant a question |
| Approved | Decided yes, not yet paid |
| Waitlisted | Yes in principle, no funds right now |
| Disbursed | Paid out |
| Receipted | Proof of what was spent is on file |
| Denied | Decided no |
| Cancelled | Withdrawn |
Review one request
Nonprofit > Aid & Assistance > Review Queue is the worklist of everything Under review. Open a request and you are in the review cockpit, which puts the whole picture on one screen: Recipient, Household size, Email, Phone, Requested, Approved, Fund and Request type, plus Their full record and Recipient record if you need to go deeper.
In the Review decision panel:
- Approved amount: leave it blank to approve the full requested amount; enter a lower number to approve part of it.
- Note: the reason for the decision.
Then one of five actions:
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Approve & disburse… | Approves and pays in one motion |
| Record decision only | Approves without paying yet |
| More info | Asks the applicant a question and holds the request |
| Waitlist | Says yes in principle but defers for funds |
| Deny | Declines |
Approve & disburse opens one dialog that covers the whole payout: Payout method, Approved amount, Gift-card reference (optional), Charge to grant, an Allowability override reason for the case where grant rules block it and you are overriding deliberately, and Notify the recipient on their best channel: WhatsApp, email or SMS, whichever reaches them.
Once a request reaches a terminal status, the cockpit offers View all requests instead of the decision panel.
Who is allowed to approve
Who may approve what follows your organization’s approval settings, under Settings > Approvals. A small organization can be set up so one person decides everything. A larger one can require a second signature above an amount, and can forbid approving a request you submitted yourself. When a rule blocks you, Muin opens a dialog that names the rule and links to the setting, rather than flashing a message you might miss.
What it affects
- Approve & disburse creates the disbursement record that appears on Aid Disbursements, and a gift-card payout creates the card on the Gift Cards screen.
- Approving against a grant charges that grant, which is why the allowability check runs and why overriding it requires a written reason.
- Every decision counts toward the household’s limits, so the next request from the same household is checked against it by your fairness policies.
- Approved and disbursed amounts appear in Aid Stewardship and impact and in the aid impact charts.
- Notifying the recipient sends on their best available channel, so a household with no email still hears from you.
When it goes wrong
| What you see | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Couldn’t load aid requests | The list failed to load | Press Retry. Check your connection if it repeats. |
| No aid requests yet | Nothing has come in | Publish your aid application form so people can apply. |
| No requests in this status | The tab is genuinely empty | Switch to All to see everything. |
| Couldn’t load this request | That one request failed to open | Go Back to review queue and open it again. |
| Nothing awaiting review | Nobody is waiting on you | Nothing to do. New submissions land here automatically. |
| A dialog says a note is required before you approve | You are approving a request you submitted, and your settings allow it with a note | Write why. The note stays on the audit record. |
| A dialog says you may not approve this | Your settings forbid approving your own request | Have somebody else approve it, or change the setting under Settings > Approvals. |
| A dialog refuses the payout | Your organization separates the approver from the payer | A different person records the payment. |
| The approval is blocked by grant rules | The cost is not allowable under the grant you chose | Pick a different fund, or write an Allowability override reason if you are overriding deliberately. |
Next step
To pay an approved request, go to Disbursing aid: payment, gift cards and proof.