Accounts API: Place and Sync Debt Inventory in Slate

The Accounts API is currently a draft. Shapes, field names, and field sets may change before it is finalized.

An account is the primary entity Slate services against. Each account maps to a single debt account in your portfolio. It carries the consumer’s balance, creditor information, placement details, and legal status. Every other Slate resource (files, signatures, QC reviews) is ultimately associated with an account, either directly or through a matter. Before you can use any other Slate API, you need accounts in the system.

The Two-Identifier System

Slate uses two identifiers for every account, and understanding both are essential for a reliable integration. accountId is a UUID that Slate assigns when an account is first created. It is stable, canonical, and used in all Slate URLs and relationships (for example, GET /v1/accounts/{accountId}). You will not know this value before the account exists. Slate returns it in the create/upsert response. crid is the account number from your own system. You supply this value, and it must be unique within your owner. Use it as your lookup key when you do not yet have a Slate accountId. For example, on your first upsert or when reconciling records.

The Upsert Pattern

POST /v1/accounts is idempotent. Send an account by crid and Slate will create it if it does not exist, or update it if it does. The response always includes the Slate-assigned accountId. Identify the account’s creditor with either creditorId — the Slate UUID of a creditor you register beforehand via POST /v1/creditors (list them with GET /v1/creditors) — or creditorCode, one of your own partner codes registered to that creditor via POST /v1/creditors/{creditorId}/externalRefs. A placement identifies its firm the same way, with firmId or firmCode, against firms you register via POST /v1/firms.

curl --request POST \
  --url "https://api.slate.inc/accounts/v1/accounts" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer <your-token>" \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --data '{
    "crid": "ACCT-00123456",
    "creditorId": "3f9a1b2c-4d5e-6f70-8192-a3b4c5d6e7f8",
    "currentBalance": "4872.50",
    "status": "ACTIVE",
    "placement": {
      "firmId": "9c8b7a6d-5e4f-3210-9876-543210fedcba",
      "date": "2024-06-01"
    }
  }'

Response:

{
  "accountId": "a1b2c3d4-e5f6-7890-abcd-ef1234567890",
  "owner": "acme-collections",
  "crid": "ACCT-00123456",
  "creditorId": "3f9a1b2c-4d5e-6f70-8192-a3b4c5d6e7f8",
  "currentBalance": "4872.50",
  "status": "ACTIVE",
  "closedOn": null,
  "matterId": null,
  "placement": {
    "firmId": "9c8b7a6d-5e4f-3210-9876-543210fedcba",
    "date": "2024-06-01"
  },
  "createdOn": "2024-06-20T14:30:00Z",
  "lastUpdated": "2024-06-20T14:30:00Z"
}

Use the upsert endpoint as your daily inventory feed. Send your full current account state on each run. Slate handles the diff internally. You do not need to track which accounts are new versus existing. The upsert pattern takes care of that for you.

Targeted Partial Updates

When you need to update a single field on a known account without re-sending the full record, use PATCH /v1/accounts/{accountId}:

curl --request PATCH \
  --url "https://api.slate.inc/accounts/v1/accounts/a1b2c3d4-e5f6-7890-abcd-ef1234567890" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer <your-token>" \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --data '{
    "currentBalance": "3100.00"
  }'

Only the fields you include in the PATCH body will be modified. All other account fields remain unchanged.

Placement

The placement field carries three distinct states, and an omitted field is not the same as an explicit null. This holds on both POST /v1/accounts and PATCH /v1/accounts/{accountId}, so the same body means the same thing on either endpoint.

You send	Slate does
No `placement` field	Leaves the placement exactly as it is. Correct account-level details without touching placement.
`"placement": null`	Records that the account is not placed, recalling whatever it was placed with.
`"placement": { ... }`	Places or re-places the account with that firm.

A placement is identified by its firm and placement date. Re-sending the same firm and date is a no-op, so a daily snapshot does not accumulate placements.

curl --request PATCH \
  --url "https://api.slate.inc/accounts/v1/accounts/a1b2c3d4-e5f6-7890-abcd-ef1234567890" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer <your-token>" \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --data '{
    "placement": null
  }'

Legal Records

The legal field carries the account’s legal activity: the suit filed on it, the judgment entered on that suit, and the venue the suit sits in. It is null until a suit is filed, and a judgment always belongs to a suit — an account cannot carry a judgment without one. Every field on a suit and a judgment is optional. A record is written under whichever of them your source system knows, so you can send a filedDate alone or a full docket. The Upsert Account reference lists the complete set. Legal records merge; they never replace. This holds on both POST /v1/accounts and PATCH /v1/accounts/{accountId}. Only the fields you send are stored, and a field you leave out keeps the value it already has.

You send	Slate does
No `legal` field, or `"legal": null`	Leaves the stored record exactly as it is. Nothing here deletes legal activity.
`"legal": { "suit": { ... } }`	Merges those suit fields into the record, leaving every field you omitted alone.

Merging rather than replacing matters because legal records are shared with Slate’s legal systems, which populate fields this API does not expose. An omitted field means “leave it as it is”, not “clear it”, so a partial update cannot blank out a docket Slate’s own systems filled in.

curl --request PATCH \
  --url "https://api.slate.inc/accounts/v1/accounts/a1b2c3d4-e5f6-7890-abcd-ef1234567890" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer <your-token>" \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --data '{
    "legal": {
      "suit": {
        "caseNumber": "2026-CV-00481",
        "serviceDate": "2026-03-14"
      }
    }
  }'

venue is read-only. Venues are maintained by Slate’s legal systems; anything you send there is ignored, and it reads null until a venue has been recorded for the suit. Two writes are rejected with a 400:

A judgment on an account with no suit. Send legal.suit on the account first, or send the suit alongside the judgment in the same request.
A legal record on an account Slate holds no legal file for. Upsert the account via POST /v1/accounts first, which opens one.

Creditor Roles

creditorId is the account’s creditor — the one that holds it now, and the one that scopes it inside Slate. Alongside it, an account can carry three more creditors that describe the debt’s history:

Field	The creditor that
`originatingCreditorId`	Originated the account.
`chargeOffCreditorId`	The account charged off with.
`defaultCreditorId`	The account defaulted with.

All three are optional, and each is named by Slate UUID or by one of your partner codes — chargeOffCreditorId or chargeOffCreditorCode, and so on — exactly like creditorId. Every one must resolve to a creditor your owner manages. On paper that never changed hands, all four are the same creditor. Because POST /v1/accounts is a full snapshot, a role you leave out is cleared: send every role you know on every sync. PATCH /v1/accounts/{accountId} only changes the roles it names.

curl --request POST \
  --url "https://api.slate.inc/accounts/v1/accounts" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer <your-token>" \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --data '{
    "crid": "ACCT-00123456",
    "creditorId": "3f9a1b2c-4d5e-6f70-8192-a3b4c5d6e7f8",
    "currentBalance": "4872.50",
    "status": "ACTIVE",
    "originatingCreditorCode": "FNB-ORIG",
    "chargeOffCreditorCode": "FNB-ORIG",
    "defaultCreditorCode": "FNB-ORIG"
  }'

Filter the account list by any of them: filter[originatingCreditorId]=7e6d5c4b-3a29-1807-6f5e-4d3c2b1a0987. filter[creditorId] narrows on the creditor.

Account Lifecycle

Every account has a status field with two possible values:

Status	Meaning
`ACTIVE`	The account is live and being serviced. Default for newly placed accounts.
`CLOSED`	The account is no longer being actively serviced. No further placements or legal actions are expected.

Update status to CLOSED via upsert or PATCH when an account is paid, recalled, or otherwise resolved.

Money Format

All monetary amounts in Slate are expressed as US dollars with two decimal places, sent and returned as decimal strings — for example, "1250.75". Slate does not use cents, integers, or bare JSON numbers. Strings avoid floating-point rounding. Sending "125075" when you mean $1,250.75 will result in an incorrect balance nearly 100 times too large.

Always format currency values as a decimal string: "4872.50", not 4872.50, "487250", or "$4,872.50".

Key Account Fields

Field	Type	Description
`crid`	string	Your internal account number. Required on upsert. Unique per owner.
`creditorId`	uuid	The account’s creditor — the one it belongs to now. References a creditor you register via `POST /v1/creditors`; must be one your owner manages. Provide this or `creditorCode`.
`creditorCode`	string	A partner code registered to the creditor, resolved for your owner. An alternative to `creditorId`.
`originatingCreditorId` or `originatingCreditorCode`	uuid / string	The creditor that originated the account. Optional; same id-or-code rules as `creditorId`.
`chargeOffCreditorId` or `chargeOffCreditorCode`	uuid / string	The creditor the account charged off with. Optional.
`defaultCreditorId` or `defaultCreditorCode`	uuid / string	The creditor the account defaulted with. Optional.
`currentBalance`	string	Outstanding balance in US dollars as a decimal string (for example, `"1250.75"`).
`legalBalance`	string \| null	Read-only. A legal balance for the account in US dollars, as a decimal string, when one has been provided. Separate from `currentBalance`, and may differ from it. Null when none has been provided, which is the case for many accounts.
`status`	string	`ACTIVE` or `CLOSED`.
`accountNumber`	string	The current client/account number. May change over the life of the account.
`accountNumberHistory`	array	Read-only history of account-number changes, oldest first. Recorded automatically whenever `accountNumber` changes.
`portfolioId`	string	Identifier of the portfolio this account belongs to, when it is part of a purchased portfolio.
`productType`	string	The client’s product type for the account (for example, `"CONTRACT"`).
`chargeOffDate`	date	The date the account was charged off (ISO 8601 `YYYY-MM-DD`), if applicable.
`closedOn`	date	The date the account was closed; null while `ACTIVE`.
`matterId`	uuid	Read-only UUID of the current active matter for this account.
`metadata`	object	Custom key/value string pairs (Stripe-style) for attributes Slate does not model natively. Up to 50 keys.
`placement`	object \| null	Where the account is placed. Omit to leave the placement untouched, send `null` to recall it, or send an object to place or re-place it.
`placement.firmId`	uuid	The firm currently handling the account. References a firm you register via `POST /v1/firms`. Provide this or `placement.firmCode`.
`placement.firmCode`	string	A partner code registered to the firm, resolved for your owner. An alternative to `placement.firmId`.
`placement.date`	date	ISO 8601 date the account was placed with the firm.
`placement.feeStructure`	string	The fee arrangement for the placement.
`placement.feeRateType`	string	How the fee rate is expressed.
`placement.balance`	string	Balance at time of placement in US dollars, as a decimal string.
`legal`	object \| null	The account’s suit, judgment and venue. Null until a suit is filed. Merged, never replaced, on write — see Legal Records.
`legal.suit.filedDate`	date	Date the lawsuit was filed (ISO 8601 `YYYY-MM-DD`).
`legal.suit.venue`	object \| null	Read-only. The court the suit is filed in, with its address.
`legal.judgment.enteredDate`	date	Date the judgment was entered (ISO 8601 `YYYY-MM-DD`).
`legal.judgment.amount`	string	Judgment amount in US dollars, as a decimal string.
`createdOn`	datetime	Read-only ISO 8601 timestamp of when the account was first created in Slate.
`lastUpdated`	datetime	Read-only ISO 8601 timestamp of the most recent update to this account.
`lineOfBusinessName`	string	The account’s line of business.
`openDate`	date	The date the account was opened.
`delinquencyDate`	date	The date the account became delinquent.
`cycleDate`	date	The account’s billing cycle date.
`closureDate`	date	The account’s closure date.
`chargeOffAmount`	string	The balance at charge-off, in US dollars, as a decimal string.
`termsAndConditions`	string	The account’s terms and conditions text.
`lastCashAdvanceDate`	date	The date of the last cash advance.
`lastCashAdvanceAmount`	string	The amount of the last cash advance, in US dollars, as a decimal string.
`lastMerchandisePurchaseDate`	date	The date of the last merchandise purchase.
`lastMerchandisePurchaseAmount`	string	The amount of the last merchandise purchase, in US dollars, as a decimal string.
`daysPastDue`	integer	The number of days the account is past due.
`lastPaymentReceivedDate`	date	The date the last payment was received.
`lastPaymentAmount`	string	The amount of the last payment received, in US dollars, as a decimal string.
`placedWithOwnerOn`	date	The date the account was placed with its owner — for a debt buyer, the purchase date. Distinct from `createdOn`, the date it was loaded into Slate.
`purchaseBalance`	string	The balance when the owner purchased the account, in US dollars, as a decimal string.
`paymentTotals`	string	The total paid on the account since the owner purchased it, in US dollars, as a decimal string.

Get Started

Core Concepts

Guides

Accounts API: Place and Sync Debt Inventory in Slate

The Two-Identifier System

The Upsert Pattern

Targeted Partial Updates

Placement

Legal Records

Creditor Roles

Account Lifecycle

Money Format

Key Account Fields

​The Two-Identifier System

​The Upsert Pattern

​Targeted Partial Updates

​Placement

​Legal Records

​Creditor Roles

​Account Lifecycle

​Money Format

​Key Account Fields

The Two-Identifier System

The Upsert Pattern

Targeted Partial Updates

Placement

Legal Records

Creditor Roles

Account Lifecycle

Money Format

Key Account Fields