What is the difference between an agreement and a contract?
An agreement is the negotiated economics. A contract is the executed legal instrument that wraps a specific version of those economics. The agreement can be configured and re-configured; once the contract is executed it changes only through an amendment.
What states does a contract move through?
Draft, in review, approved, out for signature, then active. Every transition is logged, and only an active contract appears in Accruals, Payouts and the partner portal.
Can a contract accrue before it is signed?
No. Anything earlier than executed is quarantined from the books. Submitting from the builder creates a contract in review, which does not accrue, settle or show in the portal.
How is approval routed?
By projected liability. At or above the approval ceiling it routes to the executive; below it, to the CCO. Approval signs off the economics only and moves the contract to approved, not to active.
What is in the contract besides the economics?
Assembly attaches standard terms and conditions from a template library plus the commercial terms: effective date, expiry, cadence, scope and minimums. The commercial construct itself is rendered as Exhibit A from the engine configuration.
Can the legal terms be edited?
Yes. Individual clauses can be redlined before signature.
How do amendments work?
You choose which layers are changing, and each selection reveals an editor scoped to that layer, whether that is tier rates and bands, the commercial terms, or clause text. Editing the construct recomputes projected liability live, and the amendment diff is built from the fields that actually changed.
Can an amendment be drafted with no changes?
No. An amendment with no changed fields cannot be drafted, which keeps the version trail meaningful rather than noisy.