---
title: "Get started"
description: "An overview of the steps from signing up for an Issuing account to going live."
url: "https://docs.adyen.com/issuing/get-started"
source_url: "https://docs.adyen.com/issuing/get-started.md"
canonical: "https://docs.adyen.com/issuing/get-started"
last_modified: "2022-10-26T10:54:00+02:00"
language: "en"
---

# Get started

An overview of the steps from signing up for an Issuing account to going live.

[View source](/issuing/get-started.md)

## Step 1: Get in touch with us

Find out more about building a card program with Adyen by [filling out this form](https://www.adyen.com/issuing#form). We'll get in touch with you to learn about:

* Your business model.
* Which card type you intend to use (physical cards, virtual cards, or both).
* Your estimate for the number of cards that you'll issue and the expected number of payments.

We'll help you determine whether our current platform capabilities are a good fit for your use cases.

## Step 2: Design your implementation

After we identify your use cases, your Adyen contact will work with you to design your implementation. You'll need to decide on the following:

* [**The account structure in your platform**](/issuing#example-account-structures)\
  Decide on who your account holders will be and how you want to group together balance accounts and payment instruments (cards). For more information, refer to [example account structures](/issuing#example-account-structures).

  The account structure determines the onboarding and verification processes, and the flow of funds.

* [**The card type**](/issuing/create-cards)\
  Decide on the type of card that you want to issue: virtual cards, physical cards, or both. Virtual cards have no physical form, and can only be used online. Physical cards are cards that are printed and shipped to the cardholder.

  For physical cards, we'll provide you card design and personalization guidelines. Your Adyen contact will help you set up physical cards.

* [**How to authorise payments**](/issuing/authorisation)\
  Decide on how you want to approve or decline payments. You can evaluate each payment through what we call [relayed authorisation](/issuing/authorisation/relayed-authorisation), create [transaction rules](/issuing/authorisation/transaction-rules) to automatically approve or decline payments based on conditions, or combine both.

* [**How to add funds to balance accounts**](/issuing/add-manage-funds)\
  Decide on how you want to add funds to your liable balance account. One way to do this is to wire funds. If you already have an existing integration with us aside from Adyen Issuing, reach out to your Adyen contact for additional options.

## Step 3: Get your test accounts and generate API credentials

After you have designed your implementation, you will receive your Adyen test credentials by email.

##### Adyen APIs Postman collections

![](/user/pages/reuse/pfs-general/link-to-postman-collections/postman-icon.svg?decoding=auto\&fetchpriority=auto) Fork our [Postman collections](https://www.postman.com/adyendev/workspace/adyen-apis/overview) in your private workspace to start testing API calls with your own credentials.

Your test credentials include usernames and passwords to the [Customer Area](https://ca-test.adyen.com/) dashboard, where you can:

* View insights into all payment activities and configurations for your merchant account.
* View the resources in your balance platform such as account holders and their balances.

In your [Customer Area](https://ca-test.adyen.com/), [create API credentials](/issuing/manage-access/api-credentials-web-service?tab=create-ws_1#create-an-api-credential) for the following APIs:

* [Legal Entity Management API](https://docs.adyen.com/api-explorer/legalentity/latest/overview), to create and manage legal entities that contain the information required for verification checks.
* [Configuration API](https://docs.adyen.com/api-explorer/balanceplatform/latest/overview) and [Transfers API](https://docs.adyen.com/api-explorer/transfers/latest/overview), to create account holders and balance accounts, schedule payouts, transfer funds, and make one-off payouts.
* [Checkout API](https://docs.adyen.com/api-explorer/Checkout/latest/overview), to process payments for your users.

## Step 4: Create users in your Customer Area

Create users in your [Customer Area](https://ca-test.adyen.com/) to allow members of your organization to [manage different functionalities in your Adyen account](/account/users).

## Step 5: Build your integration

When you have your Issuing test account, start building your Adyen Issuing integration. Refer to our [integration checklist](/issuing/integration-checklist).

## Step 6: Apply for your live account

After you have built and tested your integration in the test environment, you are ready to go live.

Reach out to your Adyen contact to take your account live.

## Step 7: Configure your live account

The setup and configuration from your test Adyen Issuing account is *not* replicated to your live Adyen Issuing account. You need to replicate your test account setup in the live environment.

Follow our [go-live checklist](/issuing/integration-checklist#going-live) to make sure your integration is ready.
