Reading your balances: pool, prepaid, stipend reserve, spendable

Sponsorship is how a franchise network's leadership funds Intelligence Units (IU) so franchisees can keep working with Verinode IQ even after their own IU balance runs low. This article walks through every balance you will see on the Sponsorship screens: what each one means, where the numbers come from, and how to read the all-time totals on the full ledger page.

Verinode HQ never touches a franchisee's private business data here. Sponsorship only moves IU, a shared capacity for AI-driven work. Franchisees still own their data; HQ sees network-level balances and activity, not the content behind any single franchisee's calls.

Where to find it

There are two places to read your balances:

• HQ sidebar → Settings → Sponsorship. A compact "Network IU Economy" view with your four current balances, the funding actions (if you are a network admin), and a preview of the five most recent ledger entries.
• hq.verinode.ai/sponsorship. The full "Network IU Economy" history page, reached by clicking "See full history →" from the Settings tab. This page adds the hero stat row, the all-time totals row, and the complete ledger table. It is read-only. Funding actions live only in Settings → Sponsorship.

The four balances

Both screens show the same four numbers. They are not four ways of looking at the same money. They are four separate buckets that behave differently.

Network pool. IU that franchisees draw from automatically when their own balance can't cover an AI call. A franchisee always burns their own IU first. The pool only fills the gap when theirs runs out, so sponsorship expands what a franchisee can do without ever gating their access to AI work you have already sponsored. Every network admin can fund this bucket directly.

Prepaid. IU added to the network's account in a single one-time transaction, separate from the pool and separate from a recurring monthly refill. You may see a Prepaid balance if your network has purchased IU directly rather than (or in addition to) subscribing to a recurring plan.

Stipend reserve. IU set aside specifically for onboarding grants to new Contributor-tier franchisees joining the network. This bucket does not pay for day-to-day AI usage. It only draws down when a new franchisee is granted their one-time onboarding stipend. Network admins fund this bucket separately from the pool, using the "Earmark stipend reserve" action.

Spendable total. Pool plus Prepaid. This is the number that answers "how much sponsorship can actually cover a franchisee's AI call right now." Stipend reserve is deliberately left out of Spendable total, because those IUs are earmarked for onboarding grants only, not available for ordinary sponsorship draws.

The Settings tab: Current Balances

On the Sponsorship tab in Settings, each balance appears as a labeled figure with a short description underneath:

| Field | What it shows | |---|---| | Network pool | "Sponsors franchisee AI calls" | | Prepaid | "Stripe one-time purchases" | | Stipend reserve | "Earmarked for onboarding grants" | | Spendable total | "Pool + prepaid" |

Below the four balances, one more line tells you about your recurring funding:

• If your network has an active recurring subscription, you'll see: "Recurring refill: [amount] IU per cycle" and, when a next date is known, "next on [date]."
• If there is no active recurring subscription, you'll see: "No active recurring subscription. Fund the pool manually below."

If the pool is paused, a warning line appears above the balances: "Pool is paused as of [date/time]. New sponsored calls will not draw." A pool can pause for a few reasons: an admin paused it directly, the pool balance hit zero, or a linked subscription payment is past due. While paused, franchisees can still spend their own IU normally; only new draws against the network pool stop.

The full history page: hero stats and all-time totals

The full history page at hq.verinode.ai/sponsorship opens with the same "Network IU Economy" title and adds two stat rows above the ledger table.

Hero stat row (current balances, restated with slightly different labels):

| Card | Value shown | Subtext | |---|---|---| | Pool balance | current network pool | "Sponsors franchisee calls" | | Prepaid | current prepaid balance | "One-time purchases" | | Stipend reserve | current stipend reserve | "Earmarked for onboarding" | | Monthly refill | recurring per-cycle amount, or 0 | "Per recurring period" if a subscription is active, otherwise "No subscription yet" |

All-time totals row. These four cards are cumulative totals: every dollar of IU that has ever moved through each side of the ledger, added up since the network started using sponsorship. They do not go up and down like the balances above; they only grow.

| Card | What it counts | Sign shown | |---|---|---| | Pool funded | Every IU amount ever added to the network pool, across every funding event | + (green) | | Stipend earmarked | Every IU amount ever earmarked into the stipend reserve | + (green) | | Drawn by franchisees | Every IU amount franchisees have ever drawn down from the pool | − (red) | | Onboarding granted | Every IU amount ever granted out of the stipend reserve as onboarding stipends | − (red) |

The plus and minus signs describe direction, not that a total is a negative number. "Pool funded" and "Stipend earmarked" are money flowing in to a bucket over the network's history; "Drawn by franchisees" and "Onboarding granted" are money flowing out. All four totals are non-negative running sums.

Reading the ledger

Below the totals, the full history page lists every entry the network's sponsorship activity has ever recorded, newest first, in a table titled "Ledger ([count])." The Settings tab shows the five most recent entries in the same style under "Recent Activity."

Columns on the full ledger table:

• When. The date and time the entry was recorded.
• Reason. A plain-language label for what happened (see the table below).
• Bucket. Which balance the entry affected: "Network pool," "Prepaid," or "Stipend reserve."
• Operator. The franchisee this entry is tied to, if any. Left blank when an entry isn't tied to a specific franchisee (for example, an admin funding the pool, or a monthly refill). Shows a dash when a franchisee is attached to the entry but their name isn't available to display.
• Initiated by. Who triggered the entry: the admin's name when known, "Admin" when an admin triggered it but isn't resolved to a name, or "System" for automated entries like monthly refills.
• Delta. The signed IU change for that single entry. Positive amounts (IU added) show in green with a plus sign; negative amounts (IU drawn or spent) show in red with a minus sign. This is the change for that one row, not a running balance.

Reason labels you'll see in the Reason column:

| Reason label | What it means | |---|---| | Admin funded pool | A network admin manually added IU to the pool | | Stipend reserve earmark | A network admin manually set aside IU for onboarding stipends | | Monthly subscription refill | The recurring subscription added its per-cycle amount to the pool | | Stripe purchase | A one-time purchase added IU to the Prepaid balance | | Onboarding stipend grant | A new franchisee received their one-time onboarding stipend | | Franchisee drawdown | A franchisee's AI call drew IU from the network pool | | Refund | IU was returned to a balance | | Expired IUs | IU expired out of a balance | | Admin adjustment | A manual correction made by an admin |

Funding the pool or the stipend reserve (network admins only)

If you are a network admin, the Settings → Sponsorship tab shows a "Fund Pool or Earmark Stipends" section with two funding cards side by side:

1. 1Pick a card: "Fund network pool" ("IUs that franchisees draw from when their own balance falls short") or "Earmark stipend reserve" ("Reserved for one-time onboarding stipends to new Contributor-tier franchisees").
2. 2Enter a positive whole number of IU in the amount field (for example, 50000).
3. 3Optionally add a note, such as "Q3 FY2026 sponsorship top-up," so the reason for the top-up is easy to find later.
4. 4Click "Fund." The button reads "Funding…" while the request is in flight.

On success, you'll see a confirmation above the cards: "Funded [amount] IU into the network pool." or "Earmarked [amount] IU for onboarding stipends." The amount field and note clear automatically, and the balances refresh.

If you enter a non-positive or non-numeric amount, you'll see "Enter a positive whole number of IUs." and nothing is submitted. If the funding request fails for another reason, you'll see "Funding failed." and can try again.

If you are not a network admin, the section instead shows: "Only network admins can fund the pool or earmark stipends." You can still see all four balances and the ledger; you just can't move IU between buckets.

Empty states

Settings tab, Recent Activity, before anything has happened: "No pool activity yet. Once you fund the pool, every grant, draw and refund shows up here."

Full history page, Ledger, before anything has happened: "No pool activity yet. Once the pool is funded the first time, every grant, draw and refund shows up here."

Both are literal: until the first funding action or the first franchisee draw happens, both the recent-activity preview and the full ledger stay empty. Nothing to configure, nothing missing. Fund the pool once and entries begin appearing immediately.