Cash Advances

This feature manages the temporary provision of cash to experimenters conducting laboratory experiments.

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1. Description

When participants are paid in cash immediately after a laboratory session, experimenters must receive physical cash in advance. The cash advance workflow tracks the amount of cash handed out to the experimenter, how much was paid to participants, and ensures that the remaining cash is returned and accounted for.

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2. Configuration

• Enable Vorschüsse/Budgets aktivieren (feature_advances) in Site Settings -> Finance (/admin/options/finance_settings).
• When configuring an experiment session, set the payment type to a cash category and request an advance for the estimated total payout.
• Once approved, the advance is logged as "issued".
• After the session has concluded, the experimenter goes to the session report to input the actual cash payouts and settles the remaining balance.
• Unprocessed Sessions Widget: If an advance is issued but the session report has not been finalized and balanced, the session is flagged as "unprocessed" on the central administrator dashboard.

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3. Typical Use Case

An experimenter is scheduled to run a session on Monday with 10 participants, each receiving 15 EUR.

• The experimenter requests a cash advance of 150 EUR.
• The administrator approves and hands over the 150 EUR cash.
• During the session, 9 participants show up and receive 15 EUR each (135 EUR total). One participant does not show up.
• On the session completion page, the experimenter marks the session as finished, logs the payouts (135 EUR), and returns the remaining 15 EUR to the treasury. The administrator checks the report and marks the advance as settled, clearing the session from the "unprocessed sessions" widget on the dashboard.