Core Concepts
The following core concepts define how the platform operates.
Customer
A Customer represents the merchant or end customer of our partners the entity that will ultimately receive and repay the financing.
A Customer can be either a person (a private individual) or a business (a commercial entity). Partners determine the customer type at creation time, and the distinction influences what information is collected during the application process and how underwriting is performed.
Partners create Customers in Slate using their own stable identifiers. Each Customer serves as the anchor for underwriting, offer generation, applications, and financing agreements.
In practical terms, this is the end user to whom financing is being offered.
Financial Data
Financial Data consists of the historical and ongoing financial information associated with a Customer.
This data is provided by partners and is used by Slate to:
- Perform underwriting and risk assessment
- Determine eligibility for financing
- Calculate offer amounts, terms, and pricing
Financial Data may include revenue history, transaction data, or other financial signals required to evaluate creditworthiness.
Pre-Approval
A Pre-Approval represents a financing offer generated by Slate after underwriting a Customer using its Financial Data.
Once a Customer and its Financial Data are submitted, Slate automatically evaluates the Customer and if eligible creates a Pre-Approval. This Pre-Approval defines the preliminary offer terms for a lending solution, such as:
- Approved amount
- Pricing structure
- High level repayment expectations
Pre-Approvals are not binding agreements; they are offers that the Customer may choose to apply.
Application
An Application represents the formal financing request submitted by a Customer after engaging with a Pre-Approval offer.
This is a form that collects the additional information required to validate eligibility, complete underwriting, and make a final credit decision.
An Application is evaluated by Slate and results in one of the following outcomes:
- Approved: the Application proceeds to the creation of a Financing Agreement with finalized terms.
- Rejected: the request is declined based on underwriting or risk criteria.
The Application serves as the decision point between a non binding offer (Pre-Approval) and a finalized, enforceable financing contract (Financing Agreement).
Financing Agreement
A Financing Agreement represents the finalized and executed financing contract.
When a Customer completes the application flow and is approved, a Financing Agreement is created. This entity captures the agreed upon financing terms, including:
- Final funded amount
- Term and duration
- Repayment structure
- Legal acceptance and execution status
At this stage, the financing is active and enforceable.
Finance Request
A Finance Request represents a partner-initiated request for a specific advance — the entity behind Early Wage Access.
Unlike Pre-Approvals, there is no offer waiting: the partner creates a Finance Request when a worker asks for a specific amount (a shift, a day, a pay period). The worker confirms through a short application, and on approval the request results in a financing agreement that is disbursed and repaid on the repayment date.
Finance Requests are built for high frequency: a Customer can have several active at once, each fully independent with its own status, application, agreement and webhook stream.
Credit Line
A Credit Line is a revolving spending facility backed by Slate. Once a credit line Application is approved, the partner activates the line with a facility limit, a currency, and an anchor date that sets its billing calendar.
The partner records the Customer's activity on the line in real time as transactions:
- Purchase — spend by the Customer against the facility
- Payment — money the Customer pays toward the line; payments are what count toward the minimum payment
- Rebate — a credit funded by the partner; it reduces the outstanding balance but does not count toward the minimum payment
- Fee — charges billed by Slate (such as the carried balance fee); these are created by Slate, not by the partner
A Credit Line is active, suspended, or closed. Suspension and reactivation are automatic: a line is suspended when a Statement's minimum payment is not covered in time, and reactivates on its own once the Customer's payments cover the missed minimum. While suspended, purchases are rejected but payments are still accepted.
See the Credit Lines guide for the full end-to-end flow.
Billing Period
A Billing Period is the unit of time a Credit Line's activity is grouped into. Periods run back to back from the line's anchor date — each one lasts 7 days, followed by a 3-day grace period in which the Customer must pay the Statement's minimum.
Every transaction belongs to the period its transaction date falls in. A period moves through three states:
- Open — the period is in progress and accepting transactions
- Grace period — the period ended and its Statement was generated; the Customer has until the payment due date to cover the minimum
- Finalized — the grace period expired; any unpaid balance carries into the next period and the line is suspended if the minimum was not covered
Statement
A Statement is the immutable snapshot of a Billing Period, generated the moment the period closes. It captures the period's totals (purchases, payments, rebates, fees), the statement balance, the minimum payment, and the payment due date.
Once generated, a Statement never changes — payments received afterward appear on the next period's Statement. Partners are notified through the credit-line.statement-ready webhook and fetch the Statement from the API to present it to the Customer.