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.

In the web app, Withdraw Request is Cancel Offer and Approve & Commit is Approve & Hold in Trust. The person who posted the Need can only Deny or approve there: a request has no Message button.

While the beans are held

Both of you see a Message button to talk, and Cancel Trust Hold to call it off. In the web app, the button to call it off is Cancel Hold.

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. Before they confirm, the app says how many beans will go and to whom, such as Transferring 100 B to Kofi.
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.

What the post says while it is under way

The post itself shows your deal, so you never need to go looking for it. It says the same in the phone app and the web app.

You took up someone's Offer: You took this up on 24 Oct · 45 Beans held in trust, with Release Credits and the button to call it off.
You are helping with someone's Need, and they said yes: You're helping with this · 20 Beans held for you, or no Beans held on a free Need, and Pending Release by their name. Do the job; they release the beans.
You offered to help, and they have not answered: You offered to help · waiting on their name, and the button to withdraw.
You posted it: Deals under way, one line for each deal, such as Ana · 45 Beans held · since 24 Oct, or no Beans held on a deal for nothing, such as a thing you lend for free. A Repeatable post can have several. Where you are paying (a Need you posted), each line has Release Credits and the button to call it off; where you are paid, it says Pending Release by their name. Each line has Message for the person in that deal, and All your deals › sits under them.
Someone else took it up: Taken up by someone else for now. You see nothing of their deal.
You finished a deal on a Repeatable Offer: You've had this before · done 20 Oct, with ⭐ Review if you have not reviewed it yet, and you can take it up again.

An alert about a deal, and a deal on Home or in the top bar, opens the post at that deal. On a Repeatable post you posted, that deal's line comes first. If that deal is over by then, the post opens as it is now, with one line on what became of it: That request was declined., That deal was cancelled. or That deal is done. Whatever you can do on the post, such as take it up again, is there as usual. If you take it up again, that line goes as soon as your new deal is asked for or held.

A post of an enterprise you keep

If you are a keeper of an enterprise, its posts show its deals to you as if you had posted them, with You act for the enterprise's name here. above them.

Where the enterprise pays (a Need it posted), you can Release Credits for it. You cannot release your own pay: if you are the one doing the job, another keeper releases it.
You can Approve or Deny the requests on its posts, except your own. If you asked to borrow its thing or offered to help with its Need yourself, that request shows as yours, with the button to withdraw it.
You cannot call off a deal for the enterprise. The other person in the deal can, as anyone can on their own deal.
You do not see Accept Offer on its posts.

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.

If you open a Repeatable Offer that you have already taken up, it shows your own deal instead of the Accept button: the date you took it up, the beans held in trust, and the button to release them once it is done. Everyone else's deals on it stay theirs: you see only your own.

Each person can be in one deal on a Repeatable post at a time. Taking it up again while yours is under way starts nothing new: the app says You already have a deal under way on this. Finish or cancel it first. Once yours is released, cancelled or declined, you can take it up again straight away.

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 Your deals, History (Leave Review in the web app). You can change your rating; the new one replaces the old.

Everyone in your community can read the stars and words of a review. Only the two people in the trade can see who wrote it and which deal it was about.

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 162.