Write a business case for distributing prepaid value
A one-page proposal is enough for a small airtime or data pilot. Tell the approver who qualifies, what the benefit should let them do, what the trial will cost and what you’ll measure. Budget for the time it takes to send and reconcile the orders as well as their face value.
| Put this on the approval page | Answer it in one line |
|---|---|
| Purpose | Which business problem will the prepaid value solve? |
| Audience and channel | Who qualifies and how will value reach them? |
| Spend cap | What is the maximum approved cost, including fees and exceptions? |
| Evidence | Which records prove issue, fulfilment and spend? |
| Pilot decision | When will the team continue, change or stop? |
By Freepaid · Published
Start with the business problem
A field team could ask for enough mobile data to upload job records each day of a four-week trial. A rewards team could ask for R20 airtime for each customer who completes a qualifying action. The first pilot can track completed uploads. The second can track how many eligible customers received the reward.
State the delivery choice in plain terms. Direct recharge works when the team can verify the intended number and product and needs to send value to that number. A redeemable voucher can suit an audience that can receive and use a PIN. Record the biggest assumption. That might be the accuracy of the staff roster or the ability of recipients to redeem a voucher without help.
Show the approval calculation
Take a pilot with 150 allocations at R30 each. Add R300 for delivery or processing and set aside R450 for approved exceptions. These amounts are for illustration. The requested ceiling is R5,250. The face value accounts for R4,500 of that amount. Have the pilot owner check the supplier’s quote and approve any use of the reserve against that same ceiling.
Include staff time even when it comes from an existing salary budget. If preparation, approval and reconciliation take four hours each week, compare that requirement with the team's capacity. Ask who will cover the work while the regular owner is unavailable. A pilot with a clear purchase cap can still fail if nobody owns the follow-up.
Make the pilot auditable
Use a short approval record with a named owner for each decision.
- The business owner signs off on eligibility, product and timing.
- Finance verifies the quoted price, funding method and spend cap.
- Operations holds a reviewed list and issues the approved value once.
- Support uses the original order or issue reference to investigate exceptions.
- Finance reconciles the total issued, held, failed or unresolved.
Agree what is sufficient to proceed before the first order. A field team might require the upload task to complete on schedule. An incentive programme might measure verified handovers and support cases per 100 participants. Keep the standard high enough to reveal recurring problems and small enough that staff can record the results accurately.
End with a decision and date
Specify when the pilot closes and who reviews the evidence. Continue if recipients could use the benefit, spend reconciled and exceptions were manageable. Adjust the channel or roster if the delivery method caused avoidable work. Stop if the business outcome did not improve or the team could not account for spend. Use your own measured results and current supplier terms for the next approval. Freepaid bulk airtime