The points are PENDING until you approve them. You can set it up to approve them automatically, but the only way I managed to do that is by changing the Sunrise Period to 1 instead of 0.

In admin, go to Configuration / Reward Point Configuration. Look for "Reward Point Sunrise Period" and set this to 1.

All pending points will move to EARNED after 24 hours.

You can see the pending points by going to Customers / Reward Points and sorting by Points Pending.

Hope this helps!