Bank Accounts & Setup

Advance moves money on your behalf: it collects premium and fees from your insureds, then distributes that money to the parties it belongs to — your agency, your producers, and your carriers. Because the money belongs to different parties at different points in that journey, it doesn't all sit in one place. Several accounts work together, each with a specific role.

Some of these accounts are managed by Advance and set up when you onboard. Others are external accounts — the bank accounts belonging to your producers and carriers — that you register as payout destinations. This page explains both, so you understand where money sits at each stage and what you're responsible for setting up.

The Two Groups of Accounts

The key idea: Advance-managed accounts are waystations money passes through. External accounts are the final destinations — owned by your producers and carriers — that you point payouts at.

Advance-Managed Accounts

These accounts are opened and connected when you onboard with Advance. You'll see their balances, but you don't create them through the API — they exist to keep collected money correctly separated until it's distributed.

Transitory Account

The landing pad. When an insured pays, the money first arrives here. It's temporary — funds should flow through to their destination rather than accumulate. A high transitory balance usually means payments have been received but not yet distributed.

Money here belongs to no one yet — it's in transit.

Operational Account

Your agency's operating account. This is where your revenue lands — agency commissions, and producer commissions before they're paid out to producers.

Money here is your agency's money.

Fiduciary Accounts

Trust accounts holding net premium on behalf of your carriers. Each carrier has its own fiduciary account. This separation is a regulatory requirement: the money in a fiduciary account is held in trust for the carrier and is not your agency's money to use.

Money here belongs to the carrier — you're holding it in trust until it's remitted.

Surplus Lines Account

An escrow account for Surplus Lines taxes and fees (also called Excess & Surplus, or E&S) collected on non-admitted business. These taxes are collected as separate line items on invoices, held here, and later paid to the appropriate government authorities. Not every agency has this account — only those writing non-admitted business.

Money here is held in escrow for tax authorities.

External Accounts

External accounts are the bank accounts of your payout recipients — your producers and carriers. They're not owned by your agency and they're not held by Advance; you register them so Advance knows where to send money after it's collected and separated. Configuring these destinations is the part of account setup you're responsible for.

Each producer's commissions are sent to the external account you assign to that producer, and each carrier's premiums to the external account you assign to that carrier. If a producer and carrier share the same destination bank account, you can register it once and assign it to both.

External accounts are configured through the Advance dashboard, then referenced by their account_id when you set up producers and carriers:

• Producers — point a producer's commission payouts to an external account via external_account_id (see Producers).
• Carriers — point a carrier's premium remittances to an external account the same way.

For the full list of fields, account-number masking behavior, and the GET /v1/external-accounts endpoint, see External Accounts.

How Money Flows

                  Insured Payment
                        │
                        ▼
              ┌──────────────────────┐
              │  Transitory Account  │   (landing pad — temporary)
              └──────────┬───────────┘
                         │
            ┌────────────┴────────────┐
            ▼                         ▼
   ┌──────────────────┐    ┌────────────────────────┐
   │   Operational    │    │   Fiduciary Account(s)  │
   │   Account        │    │   (one per carrier)     │
   │ (agency + producer│   │   net premium in trust  │
   │  commissions)    │    │                         │
   └────────┬─────────┘    └───────────┬─────────────┘
            │                          │
            ▼                          ▼
   ┌──────────────────┐    ┌────────────────────────┐
   │ Producer's       │    │ Carrier's external      │
   │ external account │    │ account                 │
   │ (commission      │    │ (premium remittance)    │
   │  payout)         │    │                         │
   └──────────────────┘    └────────────────────────┘

Collected money lands in the transitory account, splits into the operational account (your agency's commissions) and the per-carrier fiduciary accounts (net premium held in trust), and is finally paid out to the external accounts registered for the relevant producers and carriers. Surplus Lines taxes, when applicable, are held separately in the Surplus Lines account until remitted to tax authorities.

What You Need to Set Up

1. Connect your Advance-managed accounts during onboarding. Advance works with you to open and connect the transitory, operational, and fiduciary accounts (and a Surplus Lines account if you write non-admitted business). This is a one-time setup.
2. Register at least one external account. In the dashboard, add the recipient bank account(s) where producer commissions and carrier premiums should be deposited. You'll need the account number, ACH routing number, account owner name (the producer or carrier), and bank name (wire routing and other details are optional). See External Accounts.
3. Assign external accounts to producers and carriers. Set external_account_id on each producer and carrier whose payouts you want to automate.
4. Enable automatic payouts (optional). On a producer or carrier, set recurrence_payout_enabled: true and a recurrence_payout_day to have Advance send payouts on a recurring schedule. For producers, you can also set a minimal_monthly_threshold to avoid small, frequent transfers. See Producers for the full payout configuration.

A Note on Balances

Because money is separated by who it belongs to, "total balance" rarely answers a real question on its own:

• What's my agency's money? Your operational account balance — fiduciary balances are carrier funds, not yours.
• How much do I hold for carriers? The sum of your fiduciary account balances.
• Why is my transitory balance high? Payments have been received but not yet distributed.
• How much do I owe in Surplus Lines taxes? Your Surplus Lines account balance, if you have one.