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What is an Account?

An Account in Bluerails functions much like a digital wallet within your Organization. It’s the fundamental entity used to hold balances of various assets (like stablecoins such as USDC, EURC, or potentially fiat representations) and serves as the source or destination for all fund movements. Accounts provide a layer of abstraction, allowing you to organize funds, manage user balances, or segregate operational capital within your single Bluerails Organization.

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Key Characteristics

  • Belongs to Organization: Every Account must belong to an Organization. An Organization can have many Accounts.
  • Holds Balances: Accounts are where the balances of specific assets are recorded and tracked. A single Account can potentially hold balances for multiple different assets, allowing you to manage diverse funds efficiently
  • Supports Multiple Assets: Designed to handle various asset types, primarily stablecoins, facilitating seamless global operations.
  • Unique Identifier: Each Account has a unique account_id (prefixed with acct_...) assigned upon creation, used to reference it in API calls.
  • API Managed: You can create and manage Accounts through the Bluerails API or via the dashboard, giving you programmatic control over your financial structure.
  • Status: Accounts have a status (e.g., ACTIVE, INACTIVE) which determines if they can be used for transactions.

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Common Use Cases

The flexibility of Accounts allows for various implementation patterns:
  1. User Wallets: If you run a platform (e.g., marketplace, neobank), you can create an individual Account for each of your end-users to hold their funds within your system.
  2. Operational Segregation: Create distinct Accounts for different business purposes, such as:
  • An account dedicated to receiving customer payments (receivables).
  • An account used for making supplier payments or withdrawals (payables).
  • Accounts for different regional operations or currencies.
  • An operational expense account.
  1. Reconciliation & Tracking: Use separate Accounts to easily track funds related to specific projects, features, or promotions.

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Role in Transactions

Accounts are central to all financial operations on Bluerails:
  • Payments (Inbound): When funds enter your Organization (e.g., a crypto deposit or settlement from a virtual account), they are credited to the balance of a specific destination Account.
  • Payouts (Outbound): When you send funds externally (e.g., to a bank account or crypto address), the funds are debited from the balance of a specific source Account.
Organization Context
Payment In(via vIBAN/Crypto Addr)
Accounts
Account 1 (e.g., User Wallet)
Balance: 100.00 USDC
Balance: 50.00 EURC
Transactions
Deposit Addr.
Account 2 (e.g., Operations)
Balance: 500.00 USDC
Transactions
Deposit Addr.
Payout Out(to Bank/Crypto Addr)

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Managing Accounts via API

You can programmatically manage Accounts using the Bluerails REST API. Key operations include:
  • Creating: Provision new Accounts as needed.
  • Retrieving: Fetch details of a specific Account by its ID.
  • Listing: List Accounts within your Organization, often with pagination and filtering.
  • Updating: Modify certain properties of an Account (e.g., its description or metadata).
Refer to the Account API Reference for detailed endpoint specifications, request/response schemas, and examples.
With Accounts set up, you can start receiving funds via Payments (Inbound) or sending funds using Payouts (Outbound).