---
title: "Account structure"
description: "Understand account structures to design an integration that suits your business needs."
url: "https://docs.adyen.com/business-accounts/account-structure-resources"
source_url: "https://docs.adyen.com/business-accounts/account-structure-resources.md"
canonical: "https://docs.adyen.com/business-accounts/account-structure-resources"
last_modified: "2021-11-03T13:15:00+01:00"
language: "en"
---

# Account structure

Understand account structures to design an integration that suits your business needs.

[View source](/business-accounts/account-structure-resources.md)

Before you start building your integration, you need to understand the account structure of Adyen business accounts as well as the general [account structure of Adyen for Platforms](/platforms/account-structure-resources).

## Adyen for Platforms structure

Adyen business accounts are usually used with an Adyen for Platforms integration. With Adyen for Platforms, your merchant accounts are connected to your **balance platform**. The balance platform is an accounting system that manages the flow of funds within your business. You must have a separate balance platform for each region in which you acquire payments.

In your **balance platform**, you can:

* [Onboard users](/business-accounts/onboard-users) of your platform and [request capabilities](/business-accounts/manage-account-holders#request-capability) for them.
* [Authenticate your account holders](/business-accounts/implement-sca).
* [Send funds to third parties](/business-accounts/send-funds).
* [Receive funds from third parties](/business-accounts/receive-funds).
* [Integrate with the Adyen Open Banking Platform](/business-accounts/open-banking)

To enable your users to use business accounts, you must create the following resources for them:

* **Account holder**: specifies what your user can do in your platform, for example, receive fund transfers to their balance account and payouts to their verified transfer instrument (bank account). An account holder must be linked to your user's balance account and [main legal entity](/platforms/account-structure-resources/legal-entity-management).
* **Balance account**: holds the funds of your user. All financial activities in your platform, such as paying out to a bank account, happen through balance accounts. If your user is using an Adyen business account, you must create two balance accounts for them: one to hold their funds, and one to link to their business account (payment instrument).

## Structure with business accounts

Business accounts allow you to make business-related transfers to third parties using Adyen-issued bank accounts (business accounts). When you start using business accounts, we create the following resource in your balance platform:

* **paymentInstrument** (business account): an externally-facing resource for interacting with funds on the associated balance account. Creating a payment instrument generates an account number. Each balance account can have only one payment instrument of type **bankAccount**.

Here are two examples of a setup:

* Example 1: an account holder with one balance account linked to a payment instrument of type **bankAccount**.
* Example 2: an account holder with two balance accounts, each linked to a respective payment instrument of type **bankAccount**.

![](/user/pages/docs/07.business-accounts/02.account-structure-resources/business-bank-accounts.svg?decoding=auto\&fetchpriority=auto)
