Settlement

Direct (the default)

Invoicing, payment, and make-goods settle directly between buyer and seller on the terms of the order. Switchboard moves state and charges sellers a published tech fee; your money never touches us. Existing relationships keep their paper, their terms, and their billing.

Cleared (optional)

Where buyer and seller have no relationship, or both prefer it, trades can settle through Simulmedia: the buyer pays Simulmedia under one agreement, and Simulmedia pays each seller on its terms. One agreement unlocks every cleared seller on the platform.

• Credit, managed: cleared orders are subject to credit limits and exposure caps enforced at order creation; new buyers start on prepay. An order that would breach a cap fails fast with CREDIT_LIMIT.
• Make-goods, back-to-back: the seller's make-good policy travels with the package. On cleared trades, what the seller owes is exactly what the buyer receives, linked line by line in the make-good ledger. Simulmedia never owes a make-good it has not received.
• One truth either way: settlement mode changes who invoices whom, and nothing else. The order lifecycle, the audit trail, and the state layer are identical.

settlement_mode is set on the agreement and echoed on every order. Cleared invoices and credit standing are readable over the API: buyers at GET /settlement/invoices and GET /settlement/credit, sellers at GET /me/settlement/invoices. Cleared settlement is rolling out with design partners; see cleared onboarding or ask about availability.