> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.trdrs.co/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# How your traders get accounts
> Either we create the account on the trdrs venue, or you register one that already exists at yours — two paths, one partner key, and a firm may run both.
A firm has two ways to get a trader trading on trdrs, and the whole choice turns on one question:
does the account already exist?
| | We create the account | You register one that already exists |
| ----------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **What exists first** | A trader who has signed up to trdrs. No venue, no account, nothing else. | An account at your own venue, and the login name your venue issued for it. |
| **Who issues the credential** | Nobody. There is no venue credential in this path. | Your firm, through your own onboarding. It never passes through trdrs. |
| **What the trader does** | Signs in. The account is already in their account list. | Signs in, finds the registration waiting, and enters their own venue credential on a pre-filled connect screen. |
| **The call** | [`POST /api/partner/accounts`](/api-reference/firm-accounts/create-evaluation-accounts) | [`POST /api/partner/connect/accounts`](/api-reference/connect/create-an-account-registration) |
| **Pick it when** | You sell evaluations and have no venue of your own to issue from. | The account is already at your venue and you want the trader on the trdrs front end. |
Both paths are plain HTTP calls with your partner key. A firm onboarding ten traders can click
through a console. A firm onboarding ten thousand needs an API — so either path runs from your own
back office, at whatever scale your business runs.
## We create the account
[Create evaluation accounts](/api-reference/firm-accounts/create-evaluation-accounts) creates
accounts on the trdrs venue for traders who already hold a trdrs sign-in. There is no venue, no
credential, no connect screen, and nothing to email: the trader signs in and the account is in
their list, with a `provision` row on the balance ledger. Up to 20 accounts per call, each carrying
your own `referenceId`, so a batch that crashed is safe to re-run.
Your firm owns the lifecycle from there — the risk controls, halt, resume, reset, and the ledger
your payouts land on.
[Issue evaluation accounts](/guides/issue-accounts) carries the depth: the batch shape, the
per-item results, and what balance means.
## You register one that already exists
[Create an account registration](/api-reference/connect/create-an-account-registration) tells trdrs
an account exists at your venue and names the trader who should see it. The registration carries
the trader's sign-in email, the account number, and the login name you issued — and nothing else.
It grants no access on its own, and it has no password field, ever.
The trader signs in, finds the registration waiting, and finishes the connect screen with the
credential your firm already delivered to them. That credential travels from you to the trader
through your own onboarding, then from the trader into the engine's encrypted vault. trdrs sends no
customer handoff email.
[Register an account](/guides/register-an-account) carries the depth: the four statuses, the 30-day
window, and revoking one that is still pending.
Nothing makes you pick one. A firm may issue evaluation accounts on the trdrs venue and register
venue accounts of its own, on the same partner key. Billing does not care which:
[usage](/guides/read-your-usage) counts the distinct accounts that actually traded, and the meter
is one meter however the account arrived.
## Why the second path needs a credential at all
The first path has nothing to authenticate to. The account is on the trdrs venue, the trader's
trdrs sign-in is the whole of it, and no second login exists.
The second path has a credential because the account sits at a venue with its own login, and that
login is a username and password on a login frame. Rithmic has no OAuth — there is no token to
delegate and no consent screen to send the trader through, so a username and password is the
ceiling of what the venue offers. Given that, the credential goes to the only person who should
hold it: your firm delivers it to the trader, the trader types it themselves, and trdrs never asks
you for it because [there is no field to put it in](/guides/register-an-account). The registration
pre-fills everything else — your firm, the connector and system it resolved to, the account number,
and the login name you issued — so the one thing left for the trader is the one thing only they
should have.
## Where to go next
Issuing on the trdrs venue: accounts, risk, the ledger, and the usage meter.
Registering accounts that already exist, for a broker or a prop firm alike.
What a broker can do today, and what is still on the roadmap.
Keys, a first call, and a first order — after you know which path you are on.