How to edit a smart approval rule

Spending habits shift — a child who only bought snacks near school in your city might start requesting larger amounts for transport or group contributions. When a rule you set up no longer fits the reality, editing it is faster than deleting and rebuilding. Before you make changes, it helps to view your existing smart approval rules so you know exactly what you’re working with.

What you can change

Editing a rule lets you adjust:

  • Spend cap — the maximum your local currency amount the rule will auto-approve per transaction or per period
  • Merchant or category scope — which businesses, school-linked vendors, or campaign types the rule applies to
  • Time and frequency conditions — days of the week, time windows, or how many approvals can fire within a rolling period
  • Verification requirements — whether the child needs to present a transaction code or complete an additional step before the approval triggers

Note: You cannot change the child the rule is assigned to after creation. If you need to reassign, create a new smart approval rule for the correct child and archive the old one.

Steps to edit a rule

  1. Open your family dashboard. Tap the family name from the home screen to enter the family management view.

  2. Navigate to Smart Approval. From the family menu, select Smart Approval. You’ll land on the rules list for your family.

  3. Select the rule you want to edit. Tap the rule name to open the detail view. You can also go directly using your rule’s URL — it follows the pattern https://kiddy.cash/family/:family_id/smart-approval/:smart_approval_id — useful if you’ve bookmarked specific rules or are working from a notification link.

  4. Tap Edit. The edit form opens with all current values pre-filled. Nothing changes until you save.

  5. Adjust the spend cap. Enter the new your local currency amount. If the child has an mobile money-linked wallet and the rule triggers auto-funding, make sure the cap stays within the wallet’s inbound transfer limits to avoid failed approvals.

  6. Update scope conditions. Toggle merchant categories on or off, or search for specific businesses by name. If the child attends a school connected to KiddyCash, school-affiliated vendors will appear under a School filter for quick selection.

  7. Modify verification requirements. If you want the child to confirm with a transaction code before the rule fires, enable that toggle here. For a fuller picture of how verification works across the platform — including recent changes to how codes are generated — see what’s new in verification in KiddyCash and a closer look at verification in KiddyCash.

  8. Review the rule summary. Before saving, the form shows a plain-language summary of what the rule will do — read it carefully, especially if you’ve changed multiple conditions at once.

  9. Tap Save. The rule updates immediately. Any pending requests that were already queued before your edit will still process under the old conditions.

A few things worth knowing

  • Edits take effect for new requests only — they don’t retroactively change approvals already granted.
  • If you lower a spend cap, children with active subscriptions or recurring requests may start hitting the approval queue instead of being auto-approved. Review those requests promptly to avoid disrupting habits they rely on.
  • Badge progress tied to a rule is preserved across edits — changing a cap doesn’t reset any streaks or milestones the child has earned.