Terminology

Glossary of terms used throughout the API

Types of data

Custodian data refers to information that comes from a traditional custody of financial assets that are directly managed by an advisor. For example, an IRA account on TD Ameritrade would be passed into Atlas as custodial data.

Heldaway data refers to information that is typically beyond the direct management of an advisor. Atlas typically receives this information through a data aggregator, which will require account login credentials. An example might be a savings account at a bank or a 401k.

Firms

Firms are financial services providers, typically a RIA (registered investment advisor) utilizing Atlas to automate billing, reporting, account management and other core functionality.

Types of users

Firm users are people employed by a registered investment advisor or other financial services provider. These users are engaged in the management and administration of client users. They include financial advisors, client services representations, business owners and other such stakeholders.

Client users are clients of a firm, or financial services provider. They are consumers of the firm's financial services.

Accounts

An account is a single entity on a financial custodian that is directly managed by an advisor. This is different from a heldaway account. An example is an IRA account on TD Ameritrade.

A household is a collection of accounts that has no representation at a financial custodian. It's purely a construct within Atlas, typically corresponding to a client relationship.

A heldaway account is similar to a regular account, but the data comes to Atlas through an aggregator (not a direct integration). These accounts may or may not be managed. They may also be managed by a competing advisor.

Accounts and Households
Accounts and Households are two separate resources that may be used to reference another resource associated with that Account or Household. For example, a Position resource will either have an Account ID or a Household ID assigned to that object. There is a one-to-many relationship between a Household and its Accounts where a Household can contain multiple Accounts, but an Account is only associated to a single Household.