A deal, step by step

From asking to getting paid, for an Offer and for a Need, and leaving a review.

The idea

When a deal starts, the person paying has their beans held in trust. Nobody can spend held beans. When the job is done, the person paying releases them and the other person is paid. The screens call the beans "credits" in a few places; they mean the same thing.

You can ask for, accept or approve up to 100 deals in any 24 hours. A deal you pay for counts as one of your 100 payments a day too (see "Sending a gift"). Releasing beans, cancelling and being paid are never limited.

Taking up someone's Offer

Open the Offer and tap Accept Offer.
If it is priced by the hour, say how many hours.
Tap Confirm. Your beans are held straight away, and the seller is told. There is no waiting for the seller to say yes.
A chat with the seller opens. Agree when and where.

You need to have posted an Offer of your own first. If you have not, the app offers Create an Offer.

Helping with someone's Need

Open the Need and tap Offer to Fulfill, then Confirm.
The person who posted it decides. Until then you can tap Withdraw Request. If they do not answer in 7 days, the request ends by itself and you are both told.
They see your request under Fulfillment Requests, and can Message you, Deny it or Approve & Commit.
When they approve, their beans are held. Unless the post is Repeatable, anyone else who offered sees their request marked declined.

While the beans are held

Both of you see a Message button to talk, and Cancel Trust Hold to call it off.

Do the job, or hand over the thing.
The person paying taps Release Credits, then Release Credits again to confirm. For hourly work they first enter the hours actually worked. If it was less, the rest goes back to them. If it was more, the extra is taken from them. Every hour is paid at the rate the deal was made at.
The seller is paid at once, less the 1.5% market fee, which goes to your community's Commons.

Only the person paying can release the beans. There is no time limit: beans stay held until they are released or the deal is cancelled. After a week, and every week after that, the person paying gets a reminder.

The price on the post cannot change while someone is asking for it or their beans are held. The deal keeps the price it was made at. To change the price, the person who posted it declines or cancels the deal first.

A Repeatable post

A Repeatable post goes back up after each deal, and several people can be in a deal on it at once. Any other post is marked finished.

Reviews

After releasing, the person paying is asked to rate the deal: 1 to 5 stars and a short, optional comment. Tap Submit Rating, or Skip for now.

Both people can rate later: tap Rate and the name on the finished post (not on a Repeatable post, which goes back up), or Review in My Deals, History. You can change your rating; the new one replaces the old.

Stars matter. A low average reduces how much trust the other person earns from their trades. Be fair.

The same guide is in the BeanPool app, and works there without a connection: open Settings, then "Help & how it works" under BeanPool. Every other rule, guide and manual is in the Help Centre. Guide version 112.