03 · Disbursement Rail

No release without verified proof.

Government programs disburse millions every month. Keystone's Disbursement Rail lets them release funds only when the registered module has actually hit the verified milestone — no invoice gymnastics, no trust gap, no over-disbursement.

How programs are set up

A program in Keystone carries:

  • Budget — total funding available
  • Fee in basis points — what the rail charges per disbursement
  • Funder — HUD, state HFA, LISC, Enterprise, county, etc.
  • Jurisdiction — where the modules must be located

The verification rule

The disburse Edge Function validates the registered module meets the requested milestone:

  • "Module certified" — inspection certified record required
  • "Completed" or "Installed" — state must equal "completed" or "in-structure"
  • Remaining-budget — disbursement amount cannot exceed remaining program budget

If the verification fails, the call returns 422 and no record is written. Audit trail captures the attempted release plus the reason for rejection.

The rail fee

On verified release, the rail charges the program a fee in basis points: amount × bps. A $250k disbursement at 25bps = $625 in rail fees. Program funders see the line item explicitly; the rate is set per program at creation.

The audit trail

Every disbursement attempt — released, denied, over-budget — is inserted into the immutable disbursement record. Auditors, inspectors general, and program funders see every cent.

Who pays for it

HUD program offices, state HFAs (TDHCA, FHFC, CalHFA, etc.), LISC, Enterprise Community Partners, county housing authorities, and federal disaster-recovery sub-grantees. Any program where disbursement timing has been a friction point (which is most of them).

The disbursement only releases when the registry says the milestone is real. The audit trail says so forever.
Next step

Watch a $250k disbursement release in real-time.

The sample workspace ships with a $8M HUD/TX program — three completed disbursements, immutable audit trail, $625 rail fee on the first release.