# Platform implementation guide: Accounts and Entities

If you’re moving your customer’s money, you likely already know about some of the [compliance requirements](/documentation/compliance-overview). This guide addresses how to implement a few of these requirements.

This guide covers customer onboarding: collecting your customers' information and setting up their accounts. If you use Increase directly for your own business and don't serve end customers, see [Compliance programs](/documentation/compliance-programs) for what applies to you.

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## You’ll need to:

- Know whose money you’re moving.
- Keep track of what money belongs to each of your customers.
- Share these details with us.

Setting up your Accounts correctly makes this much easier. First you’ll need to determine what Account structure is right for you and who will legally own the Accounts.

## Account structure

We recommend spinning up an individual Account for each of your customers. This prevents the need to keep a separate ledger. It also gives you maximum flexibility for Account ownership. [Account creation](https://increase.com/documentation/api/accounts) is synchronous. There is no limit on the number of Accounts or [Account Numbers](https://increase.com/documentation/api/account-numbers) you can create.

## Account ownership

Every Account is owned by an [Entity](https://increase.com/documentation/api/entities). When moving money on behalf of customers, there are three common options:

- Option 1: Entities are created for individual customers, each of which owns their own Account.
- Option 2: Accounts are owned by the bank’s Entity for the benefit (FBO) of your customers. The beneficiary of the funds is also tagged to the Account.
- Option 3: Accounts are owned by your own Entity. The beneficiary of the funds is also tagged to the Account.

In order for you to own the Account, option 3, you’ll need to ensure you have the appropriate regulatory permissions (for example, money transmission licenses).

In some scenarios, it's not possible to have a separate Account for each of your customers. In that case, you can create "commingled" Accounts. It's best to avoid this, so we recommend chatting through this with [support@increase.com](mailto:support@increase.com).

## Who are your customers

Your bank partner keeps track of your customers using the information you provide about each of them. Regardless of the legal Account owners, we’ll need all of the required information for each of your customers. Each time you onboard a new customer, you’ll create a new Entity in Increase.

Funds in Increase belong to exactly one `Account`. Each Account can have two Entities associated with it, stored as pointers named `entity_id` and `informational_entity_id`.

| Account Ownership                                                      | Implementation                                                                                                                                                                               |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Individual customers own Accounts                                      | Each Account’s `entity_id` will be an Entity identifying your customer. There is no `informational_entity_id` in this situation.                                                             |
| Accounts are owned by the bank for the benefit (FBO) of your customers | Each Account’s `entity_id` will be an Entity identifying the bank partner. Each Account’s `informational_entity_id` will be an Entity for your customer who is the beneficiary of the funds. |
| You own accounts                                                       | Each Account’s `entity_id` will be your corporate entity. Each Account’s `informational_entity_id` will be an entity for your customer who is the beneficiary of the funds.                  |

## Customer information and identity verification

You're responsible for collecting the required information about each of your customers and providing it to Increase. You can create Entities yourself through the [`Entity`](/documentation/api/entities) API or in the dashboard. Alternatively, you can have Increase collect the information from your customers through [Hosted onboarding](/documentation/hosted-onboarding).

Depending on your [compliance model](/documentation/compliance-programs), identity verification may be performed by your own compliance program or by the bank as part of a managed compliance process. In either case, design your integration and onboarding experience so it can handle follow-up requests for additional information when needed.

To share verification evidence or supporting documentation, attach files using the `supplemental_documents` parameter on Entity creation. Pass the `id`s of one or more Files created via the [File API](/documentation/api/files). These can be unstructured content. For example, a PDF of an identity document or a JSON blob returned by a verification provider.

## Tracking customer balances

Accounts track how much money each of your customers is holding. We recommend tracking by creating individual customer Accounts with no funds commingled across multiple customers. Your customers’ balances stay in sync with their payment activity in Increase.