> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.kordless.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Accounts overview
> What the Accounts capability is, how it differs from your workspace, and when to use it.
Accounts is an optional capability that lets your workspace create, connect, integrate, and govern third-party business identities. It serves platforms, agencies, franchise holders, marketplaces, distributors, and other operators responsible for multiple businesses.
## What Accounts is
When enabled, the Accounts portfolio appears in your workspace navigation alongside Developers and Usage & billing. It shows every third-party Account your workspace may view, integrate, or manage — with each Account's access level, Book readiness, connection status, and last Live activity.
Each connected Account is an independent business identity with its own Book, Test and Live environments, and history. Your workspace holds a connection to it — it does not own or duplicate it.
## What Accounts is not
Accounts is not the OrganizationSwitcher. Use Clerk's OrganizationSwitcher at the sidebar foot to switch among your own directly operated workspaces. Accounts is for third-party businesses, not for workspace switching.
* Accounts is **not** a second direct workspace selector.
* Accounts is **not** a list of Clerk Organizations you belong to.
* Accounts does **not** imply billing responsibility — that is set explicitly per connection.
* Accounts does **not** grant ownership — access and ownership are separate facts.
## When to enable Accounts
Enable Accounts when your workspace operates as a holder, platform, agency, or multi-location operator that needs to govern pricing and quoting for third-party businesses. A single-business workspace that only quotes for itself does not need Accounts.
If you need to operate another directly owned business, create another Clerk Organization instead. Accounts does not add a second directly owned workspace inside your existing one.
## How access, billing, and ownership stay separate
| Fact | What it means | Where it is set |
| ---------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Access | What your workspace can do with a connected Account | Chosen per connection: view only, integration access, or full access |
| Billing responsibility | Who pays for the connected Account's active Book use | Chosen per connection: your workspace or the connected Account |
| Ownership | Who owns the Account's Book, environments, and history | Always the connected Account itself |
These three facts are never inferred from one another. A workspace with full access is not necessarily the billing Account. A workspace that pays is not necessarily the owner.
## How this fits together
```text theme={null}
Clerk Organization (your workspace)
└── Accounts capability
├── Create a new third-party Account
│ → independent identity + controller connection
└── Connect an existing Account
→ relationship to an existing identity
```
A connected Account may also be independently operated through its own Clerk Organization. That adds direct access without duplication.
## Start here
Turn on the optional Accounts portfolio for your workspace.
Create a new third-party Account identity in Kordless.
Connect a third-party Account that already exists in Kordless.
What view, integration, and full access mean for a connected Account.