Using the financing desk

What this is

And, more importantly, what it is not.

A register of receivables and the advances made against them. You record what your client is owed, get the company that has to pay to confirm it, and see everything already claimed against that invoice before you commit money to it.

It never holds money and never moves it. It does not decide whether a deal is good, does not verify anyone's identity, and does not tell anyone who you are or who your clients are. Another financier checking the same receivable sees what is claimed against it and nothing about the people involved.

What the words mean

In the order you meet them, not alphabetically. Each one is a thing you do or a thing you are shown.

Receivable

Money your client is owed for goods or services already delivered, payable on a date in the future. The invoice is the paper. The receivable is the debt behind it.

Face value

The full amount the debtor owes. Not what you advance: you decide that.

Client

The company you are financing. He is owed the money and wants it sooner.

Debtor

The company that owes the money and will pay it. Your client’s customer, not yours.

Debtor reference

The debtor’s own PO or contract number for the invoice, from the debtor’s own records. Your client does not control it, so it is the strongest detail the duplicate check compares on. Optional, and worth asking for.

Receivable ID

The 64-character fingerprint of the record, which is also its address. Unguessable, so holding it is the permission to look. Hand it to another financier and they can check the receivable without an account and without asking you.

Claim

Your record that you advanced money against a receivable. It is a statement of something that happened, not a reservation or a request.

Register a claim

Writing that record. It is signed, timestamped, and visible to anyone holding the ID, and it consumes headroom so the next lender to check sees it.

Headroom, or available

Face value minus every claim still standing. What is left to finance without duplicating an advance somebody else has already made. A claim over the remaining headroom is warned about first; if you record it anyway, that choice is signed into your claim.

Possible duplicate

A warning, not a finding: another record at Almstins matches this invoice, on the debtor and the debtor reference, or on the debtor, your client and the invoice number, at the same amount and currency. It may be the same invoice recorded twice, or another installment under one order. Check with the debtor before you advance. If registering a claim asks you about the match and you go ahead, that choice is signed into your claim. For a verified account it asks only when the match is recorded as financed.

Debtor confirmation

The paying company stating, in its own name, that the debt is real and the amount is right. This is the evidence that does not come from your client, which is what makes it worth the most.

Receipt confirmation

Your client stating that your money reached him. Registering a claim costs nothing and anyone with the ID can do it, so a claim is one firm’s word until this exists.

Attestation

Any signed statement by a named party about a receivable. Both confirmations are attestations. So is a witness statement, or anything else you choose to record.

Dispute

An answer that contradicts the record: the invoice is not theirs, the amount is wrong, the money never arrived. Filed separately from acknowledgments so a disagreement can never be read as agreement.

Discharge, or mark repaid

Closing your claim once you have been repaid. The headroom returns, so no dead claim outlives the payment.

Settle

The debtor has paid and the receivable is closed. Nothing further can be financed against it.

Contract

One open record against your plan: a claim you have registered and not yet discharged, or a project you have sealed and not yet closed. Recording a deal is not a contract. The Free plan holds one at a time; Standard holds ten.

Lapse

A claim left 180 days past its promised payment date, or 180 days untouched, with no settled, extended or unpaid update. It is recorded as a signed event on the claim, dated at the lapse, and the claim still holds its slot until you update it. Two lapses in a year close the Free plan to new contracts until the account moves to Standard.

Fingerprint

A SHA-256 hash of a document or a record. Two files with the same fingerprint are the same file. Change one character and it no longer matches, which is how a swapped document becomes provable rather than deniable.

Timestamp, or anchor

That fingerprint written into the Bitcoin blockchain. It fixes the date in a ledger nobody controls and nobody can rewind, so the record’s age cannot be forged or backdated. It says the record existed by that block. It says nothing about whether the record is true.

The flow, start to finish

Your client is across the desk with his paperwork. Everything below happens on one page.

1. 1
   Record the dealNew deal. Four required fields, then whatever else the contract says.
2. 2
   Attach the papersThe promissory note or contract. Fingerprinted on upload.
3. 3
   Ask the debtor to confirmCreates a link. Send it. They read the papers and answer. No account.
4. 4
   DecideHeadroom, the debtor's answer, and the paperwork are all on screen together.
5. 5
   Advance, and register the claimThis consumes the headroom, so the next lender to check sees it.
6. 6
   Ask your client to confirm receipt"Ask client" on the claim row. Until he answers, the claim is your word alone.
7. 7
   When the debtor pays, mark the claim settledThe headroom returns, so no dead claim outlives the payment.

The desk, card by card

Most of the page stays hidden until a receivable is loaded. Record one or paste an ID and the rest appears.

The two links you send

Neither person needs an account. Asking someone to register for software is how a step quietly never happens.

To the debtor. They see the amount, the invoice, and the papers. To confirm, they have to type their own reference for the invoice from their own records, and tick four separate statements: goods received, amount correct, no offsets, not already paid. "This invoice is not ours" and "The amount is wrong" sit beside the confirm button and are never greyed out. Disagreeing is exactly as easy as agreeing.

To your client. He confirms your money reached him. This is what stops a lender registering an advance he never made: a claim nobody has confirmed shows on the desk as not confirmed, and your client is the one person harmed by a false claim, so he is the one who will say so.

Each link works once and expires in seven days. The address you type is recorded as where the answer came from, so the record shows who was asked, at what address, and what came back.

Create & email sends the request for you. It goes out from Almstins, because we will not send as your domain, but replies come back to your address — which matters, because an unexpected email asking someone to confirm a debt looks exactly like a phishing attempt, and a careful clerk's first move is to reply and ask. The message leads with the invoice number, the amount and both company names so they can check it against their own records before clicking anything. Create link only copies it instead, if you would rather send it yourself. Resend chases a pending request without issuing a new link.

Reading the evidence

The rows under the record. Absence is stated as loudly as presence.

The paperwork, and why it disappears

The papers are fingerprinted when you upload them, and that fingerprint goes into the confirmation. So when the debtor confirms, they are confirming that exact document — change the file afterwards and the fingerprint no longer matches, which makes the change provable rather than deniable.

Then the file is deleted. A day after everyone you asked has answered, or a week after the last request expires unanswered, the bytes are dropped and only the fingerprint remains. Almstins witnesses the paperwork; it does not become its custodian. You hold your copy, your client holds his, the debtor holds theirs, and there is nothing left on our server to lose or leak. A fingerprint is useless to anyone who does not already have the document.

Tell the people you ask to save their copy while the link is open. It is how they check the document against the fingerprint later.

What this does not prove

Read this part twice. It is more useful than the rest.

It does not prove the goods shipped.

It proves what the parties put their name to, and when.

A confirmation proves someone holding the link answered.

Not that a particular officer of that company did. Signing uses the Almstins key, not each party’s own.

An unconfirmed claim still consumes headroom.

So a lender could register an advance he never made and block others until somebody notices. The desk shows you which claims are unconfirmed.

The duplicate check compares records at Almstins only.

It warns you when another record has the same debtor and debtor’s reference, or the same debtor, client and invoice number, at the same amount and currency, while you enter the invoice and again before you register a claim. A different amount or currency, or a debtor named differently, does not match. A client named differently, or a different invoice number, matches only through the same debtor reference. Records kept outside Almstins are not compared. The decision stays yours.

The registry only sees claims registered in it.

A prior undisclosed assignment, or a floating charge over all receivables, is invisible here.

A Bitcoin anchor proves a record existed by a given block.

That is an upper bound on its age. Legal priority is set by law, filing and notice; the anchor is evidence in that contest, not the thing that decides it.

That only the person you sent it to opened the link.

The link is the permission. It can be answered once and expires in seven days, but a forwarded message lets whoever receives it read the record and the paperwork, and answer first. Send it the way you would send anything else you would not want passed on.