Finance & Money Movement
The Finance section of Orb Ledger covers everything that moves money — what the business is owed, what it owes, profit tracking, investor capital, crypto banking, and the permanent record of every transaction. All financial data is isolated to your organization; no other tenant can see it.
Every financial action (recording a payment, sending a distribution, approving a withdrawal) is written permanently to the ledger. Entries cannot be edited or deleted after the fact — corrections are made by posting a new offsetting entry. This is by design: it gives you a complete, tamper-proof audit trail.
Finance Overview (Capital & Partners / P&L)
What it is
The Finance workspace (/admin/financials) is the top-level hub for your organization’s money. It has two views selectable by tab:
- Capital & Partners — shows the equity structure of your business: founder equity shares, investor capital accounts, and the overall health of the company’s cash and allocated capital.
- Profit & Loss (P&L) — a period-selectable summary of every completed sale broken down by revenue, gross profit, company net profit, and broker/seller commissions. Available for year-to-date, last year, last 90 days, or all time. Includes a chart of cumulative profit over the period.
What you can do here
- View the capital and equity partner structure for your org.
- Review P&L across any time period.
- Navigate to the other Finance tabs (Money In, Money Out, Reconciliation) from the shared tab bar.
- Export reports via the Reports link.
Who can access
Owner and admin. The financials.view capability is required; it is not granted to manager, staff, seller, broker, or investor roles by default. Owners can grant it to specific members via per-member permission overrides.
Money In (Receivables)
What it is
Money In (/admin/money-in) is your accounts-receivable ledger — every payment you are waiting to collect. When a sale is recorded with partial or deferred payment terms, a receivable is created automatically. The page shows each open balance aged into buckets: Current, 1–30 days overdue, 31–60, 61–90, and 90+ days overdue.
What you can do here
- See who owes you, how much, and how long it has been outstanding.
- Record a collection against a receivable — full or partial, in any payment method (wire, e-transfer, check, cash, Zelle, card, crypto). Payments require a two-step review confirmation; large payments (above the high-risk threshold) require typing a confirmation phrase.
- Message the contact directly via WhatsApp from the receivable row.
- View the underlying sale or watch record.
- Write off a balance as uncollectable. Written-off receivables are removed from all aging totals but remain in the audit log.
Who can access
Owner, admin. The financials.view capability is required. Managers do not have this capability by default.
Money Out (Payables)
What it is
Money Out (/admin/money-out) is your accounts-payable ledger — every bill you owe. Bills are created automatically when you record a business expense as “owe later,” when a broker commission is released to payable, or when a supplier invoice is approved. The same aging buckets as Money In apply.
What you can do here
- See every outstanding bill by payee, amount, category, and due date.
- Mark a bill paid — full or partial — with payment method and reference number. Large payments require the high-risk confirmation phrase.
- View the source of each bill (commission, expense, supplier invoice).
- Message the payee via WhatsApp where a contact is linked.
Who can access
Owner, admin. Requires financials.view.
Commissions
What it is
The Commissions page (/admin/financials/commissions) tracks every commission obligation generated when a sale is recorded. Two types: seller/operator commissions (based on gross profit after direct costs) and broker commissions (based on distributable profit or sale price, depending on the policy). Each obligation goes through a lifecycle: pending → approved → payable created → paid.
What you can do here
- View all commission obligations across sellers and brokers, filtered by actor type and status.
- See summary KPIs: total obligations, open exposure, and count by actor type.
- Edit the default commission policy (basis and default percentage) for sellers and brokers. These defaults apply when a sale does not carry a deal-specific override.
- Request a commission release for a pending obligation — this triggers the approval workflow that creates the payable in Money Out.
- Navigate to the Approvals surface or directly to Money Out for released obligations.
Who can access
Owner, admin. Commission policy editing requires commission_policies.manage (owner only). Viewing and requesting releases requires financials.view.
Business Expenses
What it is
Business Expenses (/admin/financials/expenses) tracks one-time, non-recurring business costs: marketing spend, equipment, professional services, photography, authentication fees, shipping, and so on. Each expense is recorded as either “paid now” (immediate cash outflow) or “owe it” (a bill added to Money Out for later payment).
When an expense is recorded, it is posted to your P&L immediately using accrual accounting. If entered as “owe later,” it also appears on the Payment Calendar at its due date.
What you can do here
- Add an expense with a category, amount, payee, date, and (for “owe later”) a due date.
- Attach receipts (PDF, JPEG, PNG, WebP, up to 10 MB) to any expense.
- Edit the description, category, and due date on existing expenses (the amount is fixed once on the ledger).
- Void an expense to reverse it out of P&L. For unpaid bills, this also removes the bill from Money Out.
- Set and track monthly budgets per category. A progress bar shows actual spend against the budget for the current month.
Who can access
Owner, admin. Requires financials.view to view and payments.manage to record or void. payments.manage is an owner-only capability by default.
Recurring Bills
What it is
Recurring Bills (/admin/recurring-bills) holds templates for expenses that repeat on a schedule: rent, insurance, software subscriptions, utilities, monthly investor stipends. A recurring bill rule is the template; it does not create ledger entries on its own. When you mark a period as paid, a real payable is created in Money Out — so the ledger stays clean and no entries are duplicated.
What you can do here
- Create a recurring bill rule with a name, payee, amount, currency, category, and a schedule (weekly, biweekly, monthly, quarterly, annual, or custom interval in days).
- Set start and optional end dates. Rules with no end date run indefinitely.
- See the next occurrence date and the date it was last marked paid.
- Mark a period paid for a specific occurrence date and amount — this creates a payable immediately visible in Money Out.
- Edit or delete rules. Deleting a rule does not remove past payment records.
- View a run-rate summary: estimated monthly cost across all active rules, and how many are due in the next 30 days.
Who can access
Owner, admin. Requires financials.view to view, and payments.manage (owner-only) to create or modify rules.
Expense Tracker (Shared Expenses)
What it is
The Expense Tracker (/admin/expense-tracker) is a lightweight shared-expense splitter for team members. It is distinct from Business Expenses: while Business Expenses records the company’s costs, the Expense Tracker lets team members log who paid for a shared business cost and calculates the net balance each person owes or is owed. Suitable for trips, group lunches, shared supply runs, and similar intra-team costs.
What you can do here
- Log a shared expense with a description, amount, category, and who paid.
- Select which team members participated — the cost is split evenly among them.
- See the net balance for each participant (owes vs. is owed).
- Record a settlement between two team members to clear a balance, with a payment method and optional note.
Who can access
Owner, admin. Requires financials.view.
Refunds
What it is
Refunds (/admin/refunds) tracks partial refunds and goodwill credits given back to buyers without unwinding the original sale. Supported refund types include partial, shipping, service credit, goodwill, and other. A refund is first recorded as pending (the obligation), then processed once the actual payment goes out.
For a full sale reversal (returning a watch and voiding the sale entirely), use the “Reverse Sale” action on the sale detail page instead.
What you can do here
- Record a new refund obligation tied to a specific sale — specify the amount, type, reason, and planned payment method.
- Process a pending refund by recording the actual payment method and a reference number. Large refunds require the high-risk confirmation phrase.
- Cancel a pending refund request. Cancelled refunds remain in the audit trail.
- View totals: pending refund exposure, processed total, and cancelled count.
Who can access
Owner, admin. Requires financials.view and payments.manage (owner-only) to process.
Reconciliation
What it is
Reconciliation (/admin/reconciliation) is where you match what the CRM recorded against what actually hit your bank. The CRM side (the “expected” column) comes from your immutable ledger — every sale payment collected, every bill paid, every distribution sent. The bank side (the “actual” column) comes from two sources: your Orb Wallet feed (pulled automatically) and bank statement CSV files you upload manually.
The reconciliation engine suggests matches when a CRM entry and a bank entry share the same amount and fall within three days of each other. You confirm or override suggestions. At the end you can see whether the period is balanced and which transactions on either side remain unmatched.
What you can do here
- Select a calendar month to reconcile.
- Upload a bank statement CSV to import bank-side transactions.
- Review auto-suggested matches (high and medium confidence).
- Select a CRM entry and a bank entry manually and match them yourself.
- See the period summary: expected vs. actual inflows and outflows, difference, and balance status.
Who can access
Owner, admin. Requires financials.view.
Banking (Orb Wallet)
What it is
Banking (/admin/banking) is the embedded payments surface, Orb Wallet. It gives your organization a virtual bank account that can send and receive money on both traditional bank rails (ACH, wire) and stablecoin rails (USDC/USDT on supported chains). The account is set up once through a guided onboarding flow (enable your Orb Wallet profile → complete identity verification → open account).
Banking has five tabs:
- Overview — current balance and recent movements.
- Send — send a payment via bank wire, ACH, or crypto transfer; supports saved payment templates and batch sends.
- Receive — your deposit details (ACH routing/account numbers, wire details, wallet address) to share with payers; also shows incoming payment history.
- Activity — full transaction history across all rails.
- Account — KYC status, virtual account details, saved payees, and connected wallets.
In non-production environments (development and staging), banking runs in simulation or sandbox mode — no real money moves.
What you can do here
- Send payments by bank wire, ACH, or crypto transfer.
- Share deposit details so buyers or investors can send funds directly.
- View incoming and outgoing payment history.
- Manage saved payees and your wallet addresses.
- Monitor your stablecoin balance.
Who can access
Owner only. Requires banking.manage, which is an owner-only capability.
Payment Calendar
What it is
The Payment Calendar (/admin/payment-calendar) is a planning view that shows upcoming money obligations on a timeline. It aggregates receivables due, bills due (from Money Out and Recurring Bills), and upcoming capital call payments into one place so you can plan cash flow. Three views are available: Month calendar, Agenda list, and a Cash Flow chart that projects your running balance forward based on the filtered events.
What you can do here
- See all upcoming money-in and money-out events on a monthly calendar.
- Switch to Agenda view for a chronological list.
- Switch to Cash Flow view for a chart of your projected running balance.
- Filter by direction (in/out), status, source type, and counterparty.
- Add a one-time payment event directly to the calendar.
Who can access
Owner, admin. Requires financials.view.
Distributions (Investor Sale Credits)
What it is
Distributions (/admin/distributions) is where you manage how proceeds from completed sales flow back to investors. When a sale is recorded with investor participation, each investor’s share (principal return plus profit allocation) is calculated and staged as a pending distribution. You then send the actual distribution from this surface.
The page also shows partner distributions (equity partner payouts recorded manually) and the history of investor withdrawal requests.
What you can do here
- View pending sale credits (sales with investor participation that have not yet been distributed).
- Send a distribution for a pending sale — this writes to each investor’s account balance and to the ledger.
- Review completed (distributed) sale returns by investor and amount.
- See the history of manual partner distributions (by equity partner name, amount, date, and payment method).
- Monitor pending investor withdrawal requests.
Who can access
Viewing distributions requires financials.view (owner, admin). Sending distributions requires payments.manage (owner only).
Broker Distributions
What it is
Broker Distributions (/admin/distributions/brokers) is the payout control surface for brokers. It shows each active broker with a summary of their outstanding commissions, how much has been paid, and the per-deal commission breakdown. From here you can pay a broker’s outstanding commissions in one action.
The pay action runs through the established commission flow (commission obligations → payable → ledger entry), so the payment lands in Money Out and is reflected in all financial reports.
What you can do here
- See every broker’s outstanding balance, total paid, and deal-level commission breakdown.
- Pay a broker’s open commissions — the full confirmed-balance two-step flow is required before the ledger records the payment.
- See which commissions are ready to pay vs. blocked (e.g. pending sale payment).
- Navigate to the associated sale or contact from any commission row.
Who can access
Owner, admin. Requires financials.view to view; payments.manage (owner-only) to execute a payout.
Capital Calls
What it is
Capital Calls (/admin/capital-calls) manages LP (limited partner) commitments and the drawdown calls against them. A commitment is a formal agreement from an investor to contribute a specific amount of capital to the fund. A capital call is a demand for a portion of that committed capital by a due date.
Recording a payment against a capital call automatically writes a deposit to the investor ledger — no separate journal entry is needed.
What you can do here
- Create a commitment for an investor account, specifying the total amount and effective date.
- Issue a capital call against a commitment — by absolute dollar amount or as a percentage of the commitment — with a due date and reason.
- Save a call as a draft before issuing it.
- Record a payment received against a call (full or partial). The ledger is updated automatically.
- Cancel a pending or issued call with a stated reason.
- View summary KPIs: total committed, called, funded, and undrawn balance across all investors.
Who can access
Viewing requires financials.view (owner, admin). Issuing calls and recording payments requires payments.manage (owner-only).
Payout Requests (Broker Queue)
What it is
Payout Requests (/admin/payout-requests) is the owner’s queue for commission payout asks submitted by brokers from their portal. When a broker requests to be paid out, a notification is sent and the request appears here. This page is a review and routing surface — actual payment happens on the Commissions surface.
Declining a request closes the ask but does not cancel the underlying commission obligations; the broker’s commissions remain approved and can be paid later.
What you can do here
- See all open broker payout requests with the requested amount, number of commissions covered, and the broker’s note.
- Reveal the broker’s encrypted payout banking details (institution, routing number, account number, preferred method) — this view is logged in the audit trail.
- Route an open request to the Commissions surface to execute the actual payment.
- Decline a request with a reason that is shown to the broker in their portal.
- View the history of closed (paid, declined, cancelled) requests.
Who can access
Owner only. Requires financials.view.
Withdrawals (Investor Withdrawal Requests)
What it is
Withdrawals (/admin/withdrawals) is the approval queue for cash withdrawal requests submitted by investors from the investor portal. An investor can only request up to their available-to-withdraw balance. The page shows the requested amount alongside the investor’s available balance and any pending holds so you can make an informed decision.
Approving a withdrawal requires you to confirm that you have already sent the payment to the investor and to specify the payment method and a reference number. This gates against approving before the money has actually left.
What you can do here
- Review pending withdrawal requests with the requested amount, available balance, and pending holds for each investor.
- Approve a withdrawal — you must first confirm payment was made and enter the payment method and reference. Large withdrawals require the high-risk confirmation phrase.
- Reject a withdrawal with an optional reason.
- See the status history for all past requests (approved, rejected).
Who can access
Owner only. Requires payments.manage.
A Note on the Immutable Ledger
Every money movement in Orb Ledger — sale payments collected, bills paid, distributions sent, expenses recorded, capital calls funded — is written as a permanent entry in the financial ledger. Entries cannot be edited or deleted; the database enforces this with triggers that reject any attempt.
If you need to correct a mistake, the right approach is to void or reverse the original transaction, which posts a compensating (offsetting) entry. Both entries — the original and the correction — remain in the audit trail permanently. This design ensures a complete, audit-ready record of your business’s financial history.