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Saved recipients (also called external accounts) are external bank accounts that you save in Lemma for outbound transfers. They represent accounts outside of Lemma — such as a vendor, payroll provider, or another financial institution — that your organization sends money to. Saved recipients are the only way to transfer funds outside of Lemma. This is by design: requiring a pre-registered recipient prevents accidentally moving money to an account not associated with your entity’s funds. Every outbound transfer must target a saved recipient that belongs to your entity.

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Creating recipients

Lemma users can create an external account through the Lemma dashboard. Platforms create external accounts via the Create external account endpoint. Every recipient requires a nickname — a non-nullable text field that serves as a human-readable label in the dashboard. Choose something your team will recognize at a glance (e.g., “Owner’s personal account” rather than “Acct 4821”).

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Immutability

External accounts cannot be edited after creation. This is necessary for reconciliation and audit purposes. If account details could change, it would be impossible to reliably trace which bank account a historical transfer was sent to. If you need to correct a mistake, archive the existing recipient and create a new one.

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Archiving vs. deleting

External accounts are never deleted, only archived. When you archive a recipient, Lemma:
  • Sets the recipient’s status to archived
  • Rejects any new transfers targeting that recipient
  • Keeps the record in the database for reconciliation and audit trail
Archived recipients are excluded from the list endpoint but can still be fetched directly with the get endpoint. They also remain visible in transaction history so you can always trace past payments. As of now, you can only archive an external account by emailing our team.

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Ownership and access control

Every external account belongs to a specific entity. Lemma enforces this at the transfer level. You cannot send money to an external account owned by a different entity. This ensures each practice’s funds can only be sent to accounts they have explicitly registered.

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Using recipients in transfers

Pass a recipient ID as the destination_account_id when calling Move money externally. Transfers to saved recipients are sent via ACH and typically settle within 1-2 business days.