Run your community's currency
The Finance site is where a roleplay community sets up its IC currency, issue it into the treasury, see every account, and send, track and waive fines and fees.
You need permission to see the economy (economy.view) to read the page, to manage the economy's settings (economy.manage_settings) to set up or change the currency and reverse a mistake, to issue currency (economy.issue) to make more, and to pay from the treasury (economy.pay_treasury) or manage team accounts (economy.manage_departments) to pay out of them, to invoice (economy.invoice) to send invoices, to waive invoices (economy.waive) to waive what's left, and to manage fees (economy.manage_fees) to keep the list of fees. To set up the actions that run by themselves you need economy.manage_settings, and to charge a fee from one you also need economy.invoice.
A roleplay community can have one IC currency: points that have no cash value. It can't be bought with L$ or Wallet credit and it can't be cashed out. Characters hold it in accounts, and everything they do with it is written to a ledger that is never edited.
Currency and the economy are for roleplay communities, so the Economy page shows only while the Roleplay suite is on. If you turn the suite off, the currency, accounts and history are kept and can still be read on the Finance site, but nothing in them can change: no issuing, paying, invoicing or fees, and automations that charge a fee skip. They all work again when you turn the suite back on.
Set up the currency
- Go to Economy, under Administration. It opens your community on the Finance site (you can also open Finance from the app launcher). On Overview, press Create currency.
- Type a Name, like Harbor dollars.
- Type a Symbol: one to five letters and a $, like H$ or HD$. No two communities share one, and nobody can use L$. A symbol with a single letter is premium and isn't available yet.
- Choose Amounts: Whole units or Two decimal places.
After that, open Currency to change it: every change saves as you make it. You can also set:
- Starting balance: what each new account is paid from the treasury when it opens. An account opens the first time it's used. If the treasury can't cover it, the account opens empty.
- Accounts can go below zero: off by default, so a payment that would take an account below zero is refused. The treasury never goes below zero.
Issue currency
New currency only ever comes into the treasury.
- On Overview, in Issue currency, type the Amount and a Reason.
- Press Issue into the treasury.
Money supply on Overview shows how much has been issued and what the treasury holds. Every issue is in the audit log with its reason.
See accounts and statements
Accounts (a page of its own in the list at the left) lists the treasury, each team, and every active character. Search by name, or filter by kind. Press Statement to open an account's statement: every line, newest first, with the balance after it. A retired character's account is kept and can only be read.
Pay out of the treasury or a team
Press Pay on the treasury (you need Pay from the treasury) or on a team (you need Manage department accounts). Find who to pay, type the Amount, add a Note if you like, and press Pay. Sending it twice pays once.
Characters pay from their own accounts on the Finance site, in My money. Their membership page shows a short card with their balances and what they owe, and a button that opens My money. See See your own membership.
Put a mistake right
Entries are never edited or deleted. To put one right, open the account's statement, press Reverse on the line, type why, and press Reverse it. The line stays, marked Reversed, and a new line puts it back. A line is reversed once. You need permission to manage the economy's settings. A conversion to or from C$ can't be reversed here, because half of it is in C$, which no community controls: ask Civitas for help and staff can reverse it.
Convert to C$ and back
C$ is one currency for every roleplay community. It has no cash value: it can't be bought with L$ or Wallet credit, and it can't be cashed out. It only comes to exist when a character converts their community's currency, and it is what a character uses in other roleplay communities.
A character converts on the Finance site, in My money: press Convert on the character's account, choose into C$ or C$ into the community's currency, and type the amount. Before you confirm, the panel shows what the character receives and the conversion fee, and how much they can convert now. It never shows the rate.
- Into C$: the amount leaves the character's account and is destroyed, so it leaves the community's supply. It doesn't go to the treasury.
- Out of C$: the character's C$ is destroyed and the community's treasury pays them in the community's currency. The treasury never goes below zero, so a conversion is refused when it holds too little.
- The conversion fee is a small share of every conversion that nobody keeps.
- A limit that grows: a new account can't convert for its first days, then can convert a share of its balance that grows until there is no limit. Currency that came straight from the treasury, like a starting balance or pay, waits longer. Converting a little at a time doesn't get round it.
- Paused: conversions pause for a community's currency while its rate is moving sharply, or if Civitas staff freeze them. People see only that conversions are paused.
Converting needs no permission: a person converts their own characters' money. A department's account never converts. Every conversion is in the community's audit log, and Civitas keeps its own record.
Fines and fees
An invoice asks an account to pay an amount to the treasury or a team by a due date, with a reason. It is Open, Overdue, Paid or Waived. Invoices come from citations, from the community's list of fees, from a manager who sends one for any amount, and from automations.
Keep the list of fees
Fees (a page of its own) is your community's own list, like "Impound release, HD$ 250, Police, 7 days".
- Press Add fee.
- Type its Name and Amount, choose who it Pays to (the treasury or a team) and how many Days to pay someone has.
- Press Add fee.
To change one, press Edit: each change saves as you make it. Remove takes it off the list. Invoices already sent keep what they were sent for, because a fee is copied onto the invoice when it's sent. You need permission to manage fees.
Send an invoice
- On Invoices, press Send invoice.
- Find who is invoiced: a character or a team.
- Under What for, choose a fee, or Any amount and give the Amount, who it Pays to, the Days to pay and a Reason.
- Press Send invoice.
The person is told under the bell, and by IM or Discord DM if their notifications say so. Sending the same invoice twice sends it once. You need permission to invoice.
Waive what's left
Press Waive on an invoice that still has something owed, type why, and press Waive it. It's marked Waived, and the reason is in the audit log. You need permission to waive invoices.
How people pay
People pay on the Finance site, in My money under What I owe: press Pay, then pay all of it or part now and the rest later. Paying in full marks the invoice Paid on both sides. On the due date an unpaid invoice becomes Overdue and the person is told once. Overdue adds nothing to what's owed: no interest and no late fees. Paying in L$ at an in-world terminal comes later.
Actions that run by themselves
Press Actions at the top of Overview (you need permission to manage the economy's settings). It opens Economy actions on the community's page on cmty.app. Each list runs for the person the money is about, the same way the actions on other pages do:
- When a payment is received: someone paid the treasury or a team, including paying an invoice.
- When an invoice is sent: someone was invoiced.
- When an invoice is paid: someone paid an invoice off in full.
- When an invoice is overdue: an invoice passed its due date with something still owed, once.
Along with the usual actions (giving a role, sending an IM and so on) you can Charge them a fee: choose a fee from the fee list, and the person is invoiced for it like any other invoice. It needs you to hold the permission to invoice. It invoices their character, so it skips anyone with no character or more than one. An invoice an action charged doesn't run When an invoice is sent, so a list can't set itself off.
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