# Controls

Controls are programmatic checks that run continuously across your program. Each Control answers a single, specific compliance question — for example, "Does every entity have a physical address?" or "Is every account balance non-negative?" Increase checks each condition across all of the [entities](/documentation/entities) and [accounts](/documentation/accounts-and-account-numbers) in your program.

Controls create shared visibility across your obligations. You and your bank partner will be on the same page and controls automatically update as you discover and remediate gaps.

## How Controls work

Each Control is made up of two layers:

- The **Control** itself is the compliance question being asked. It tracks an overall status along with how many of your records are passing or failing the check.
- Within a Control, each **record** is one object being checked: an individual entity, account or transaction. Drilling into a record shows its history of evaluations over time, so you can see when it started passing or failing.

The dashboard always reflects an up-to-date situation rather than a point-in-time snapshot. Historical data is available to track changes over time.

## Results

Every record evaluates to one of three results:

|               |                                                                                                                   |
| ------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Passing**   | The record satisfies the check. No action is needed.                                                              |
| **Failing**   | The record does not satisfy the check and needs attention. Each Control explains what it means and how to fix it. |
| **Exception** | The record has been manually excluded from the check by your bank partner.                                        |

A Control as a whole is passing when none of its records are failing.

## Remediating a failing Control

When a Control is failing, you should update the associated object. For example, to handle the situation where an account has a negative balance, you should move funds into the overdrawn account.

Once you make the necessary change, the record is re-evaluated and, if the issue is resolved, the control resets to "Passing". Because your bank partner sees the same Controls and the same records, your remediation work is immediately visible to them, too.

## Notifications

When any Controls in your program are failing, Increase sends a weekly summary email including a link to the dashboard to see the details. This keeps failing Controls from going unnoticed and gives you and your bank partner a recurring, shared checkpoint.

## Questions

If you're not sure why a Control is failing or what's expected of you, reach out to support@increase.com.