Your credit line

How far below zero you can go, and how it grows.

What it is

Your credit line lets you spend more beans than you have, and go below zero. It is a promise to help others later. Being below zero costs nothing: there is no interest.

Where to see it

On the Ledger, under your balance, a bar shows where you are:

zero is in the middle;
the left end is your limit, the lowest you can go;
the marks on the left show how deep your Offers let you go;
past +200 on the right is where the circulation fee starts.

On the phone, tap the bar for Credit Slider Info, which explains each part.

How it opens

It starts at zero. It opens when you complete your first trade in the market (a trade of only 1 or 2 beans is too small to count), or when someone chosen to welcome newcomers vouches for you. Until then the Ledger says No credit line yet. You can still trade with beans you hold.

How it grows

Trust: completed trades build trust, especially with many different people. See "The 500-bean partner limit".
Ratings: stars can only lower the trust you earn. An average of 5 stars keeps it all; a lower average takes some off.
The deepest any credit line goes is 2,000 beans. A community that confirms its members can set a higher cap, up to 5,000 (see below).

Your Offers set how much you can use

You can only use as much of your credit line as your live Offers allow:

no Offers: none;
1 Offer: down to −200;
2: −500;
3: −1,000;
4: −1,500;
5: −2,000.

The line under the bar tells you, for example "Post an offer to open your credit line".

In a known community

Some communities have admins who know every member by name. A member an admin has confirmed gets a credit line straight away, the known floor: 1,000 Beans unless your community chose another amount. That is about 25 hours of work the community is trusting you for. It raises your limit, not your level: your trust badge still counts only what you have done. The known floor is on in every community with Beans unless its owner switched it off.

One live Offer lets you use all of it. With no Offers, you can't use it.
Trust you earn by trading adds to it, up to your community's cap (2,000 Beans unless it chose more, up to 5,000).
An admin can set a smaller limit for you, for example while you are new. That never takes Beans from you: if you are already below it, spending pauses until you are back above it.
If you are working off a debt from an earlier account, the Beans you receive above 0 go to the Commons until it is paid. Your Ledger says how much is left. You can also pay some or all of it yourself in Ledger → Pay the Commons: your pay-back code is filled in there (or enter the one an admin gives you). What you pay with the code comes off the debt at once, and when nothing is left the debt is settled: nothing more is taken, by a payment or from what you receive. A payment without the code goes to the Commons but not off your debt, and the app says so: to have it count, ask an admin to count it toward your debt with its reference. Until they do, the debt is still being worked off: the next time you receive Beans, what is left is taken from what you hold above 0. The amount in the admin's message is what was left when they shared it: if less is left now, your server refuses a larger payment and says how much is left, and nothing is paid. If the app says a payment may have gone through, tap Try again on the same screen: the same payment is never paid twice. If you left that screen, check your Ledger before you pay again.

A mixed community

In some communities any member can invite people, so the admins don't know everyone. The admins can confirm the members they do know, and those members start with a higher limit, the known floor, unless your community's owner switched it off. Everyone else starts at zero, and everyone's limit grows the same way after that as they trade and build trust.

Frozen by the admins

Your community's admins can freeze a member's credit line: all of it, or, in a known community, the part that comes from being a confirmed member.

If they freeze all of it, or the confirmed part is all the line you have, the Ledger says Your credit line is frozen: you can't spend into debit while it lasts, but you can still sell and receive Beans, and spend what you hold above zero. If you were in debit when they froze it, the Ledger also says how many Beans you are in debit: selling or receiving Beans brings you back up, and once you are above zero you can spend what you hold.
If they freeze the confirmed part and you also have credit from a vouch, from trading or from a grant, the bar stays, with a note under it that the confirmed part is frozen and the rest works as before. If you are below what is left, the Ledger says Spending paused too (below).

Your level doesn't change, on your profile and on your listings alike: it counts what you have done (a vouch, your trades and any trust an admin granted you), never the part of your line that comes from being confirmed, or any amount the admins set for it. To ask why, or to have it opened again, ask one of the admins.

Spending paused

If you go below what your Offers allow, for example because you took an Offer down, the Ledger says Spending paused. You can still earn and sell. Post an Offer, or earn back up, and it lifts. Nothing is taken from you.

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.