Guides
Getting Started
The Lunch Partner API lets your platform offer government vendors early payment on their invoices. Lunch advances funds to the vendor. The city pays the invoice on its normal schedule, Lunch recovers the advance and fees from that payment, and the remainder goes to the vendor.
The API accepts JSON request bodies (CSV for invoice imports), returns JSON, and uses standard HTTP verbs and status codes. Requests authenticate with a bearer token. All API keys are live. See Authentication.
Key Terms
| Term | Description |
|---|---|
| Payee | The organization owed the money, typically the vendor. |
| Payor | The organization that owes the money, typically a city or agency. |
| Face value | The invoice's full amount. |
| Advance | The amount Lunch pays the payee up front. |
| Fees | The cost of the advance. Deducted from the payor's payment, not the advance. |
| Organization | A payee or payor. Error codes use "business," for example business_not_found. |
Core Calls
| Action | Call |
|---|---|
| Sync an organization | PUT /v1/organizations/{externalId} |
| Sync an invoice | PUT /v1/invoices/{externalId} |
| Quote an advance | POST /v1/quotes |
| Request an advance | POST /v1/advances |
Vendors must complete onboarding before receiving an advance.
Conventions
| Convention | Detail |
|---|---|
| Identifiers | Your own externalId. No Lunch identifiers to store. See External IDs. |
| Idempotency | Writes keyed on your identifier are safe to retry. See Idempotent Requests. |
| Amounts | Integer cents. 100000 is $1,000.00. |
| Invoice dates | ISO date-times. |
| Errors | { error, code }. See Errors. |
What's Next
- Quickstart: request a first advance in seven steps.
- Requesting an Advance: the full sequence of calls.
- API reference: every operation.
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