Documentary Evidence

In addition to passing Column explicit data points on person and business entity objects, Column may require you provide us the documentary evidence you collect when you onboard your customers. Requirements vary with the financial products you offer and to what type of customers you offer these products. We will work directly with you to define these requirements based on your onboarding process and procedures.

File Based Evidence

You may be required to provide the file based evidence you collect to verify information provided by your customer during onboarding. Examples of file based evidence include but are not limited to:

Proof of address documents
Business formation documents
Identity verification documents
Tax ID confirmation documents
Active status certificates

File based evidence may be passed to Column in two ways. You can upload a document and then link it to an entity or you may upload a document for an entity directly.

Signature Based Evidence

Signature based evidence should be used when there is no physical document to upload, but rather some sort of attestation or signature is collected, such as attestation of beneficial ownership. These are most commonly collected when you require your customer to “check a box” and attest agreement to something.

Third Party Evidence

Third party evidence should be used when a third party service is used for a verification. For example, if you use a third party service is used to facilitate KYC, you may upload the JSON response of the third party service directly to Column as evidence.

Upload, then link to entity

Upload a document:

curl 'https://api.column.com/documents' \
  -u :<YOUR API KEY> \
  -F file=@<YOUR FILE> \
  -F type="identity_license"

Link evidence to entity:

curl 'https://api.column.com/entities/enti_2dk2oXqPcB5Xb5wFpnrg50F7BeD/evidence' \
  -XPOST \
  -u :<YOUR API KEY> \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "evidence_type": "file",
    "purpose": "business_formation",
    "data": {
      "document_id": "docu_2zEuexQ1tYgBO92ZHLZa7YV3F0i"
    },
    "description": "Articles of incorporation for business formation verification"
  }'

Upload and link to entity

curl 'https://api.column.com/entities/enti_2dk2oXqPcB5Xb5wFpnrg50F7BeD/evidence' \
  -XPOST \
  -u :<YOUR API KEY> \
  -F "file=@utility_bill.txt" \
  -F "evidence_type=file" \
  -F "purpose=identity_verification" \
  -F "document_type=other" \
  -F "description=Utility bill for address verification"

Get evidence uploaded for an entity

This API can be used to retrieve all evidence associated with a specific entity, with filters included to specify evidence types and and purposes

# Get all evidence
curl 'https://api.column.com/entities/enti_2dk2oXqPcB5Xb5wFpnrg50F7BeD/evidence' \
  -u :<YOUR API KEY>

# Filter by evidence type  
curl 'https://api.column.com/entities/enti_2dk2oXqPcB5Xb5wFpnrg50F7BeD/evidence?evidence_type=file' \
  -u :<YOUR API KEY>

# Filter by purpose
curl 'https://api.column.com/entities/enti_2dk2oXqPcB5Xb5wFpnrg50F7BeD/evidence?purpose=business_formation' \
  -u :<YOUR API KEY>

Sample response:

{
  "evidence": [
    {
      "id": "evid_2zEueyHBVWyPjzAm8h1Hn3pV4et",
      "entity_id": "enti_2dk2oXqPcB5Xb5wFpnrg50F7BeD",
      "evidence_type": "file",
      "purpose": "business_formation",
      "data": {
        "document_id": "docu_2zEuexQ1tYgBO92ZHLZa7YV3F0i"
      },
      "description": "Articles of incorporation",
      "created_at": "2024-01-15T10:30:00Z"
    }
  ],
  "has_more": false
}

Customer files

A customer file is a complete, centralized, auditable record of everything you gather and verify when you onboard a customer and update when a customer’s information changes. For certain programs, Column may require you send us a customer file for each entity to which you offer financial products.

Your Column team will work directly with you on customer file requirements and expectations given your current onboarding process and procedures.