Open Loop Card Funding Sources

Open-loop cards are funded from your account, not the recipient’s. When someone claims a hosted card link and spends it, the money comes out of a spend account you nominate at the moment you generate the link.

The funding options here are narrower than on createVirtualCard.The open-loop path exposes exactly one funding control: userCashBalanceId. There is no primaryFundingSource, no bankAccountId, no usePrepaymentBalance, and no useRewardsBalance. External bank accounts cannot fund an open-loop card — the spend account must be funded first.If you are porting an integration from createVirtualCard, do not assume the same fields carry over. See Differences from standard cards.

Setting the funding source

Pass userCashBalanceId on generateVCShareLinks. It applies to every card generated in that request.

mutation GenerateVCShareLinks($input: GenerateVCShareLinksInput!) {
  generateVCShareLinks(input: $input) {
    shareRequestId
    generatedShareLinks {
      linkUrl
      status
    }
  }
}

{
  "input": {
    "offerId": "ed669305-5e43-40a0-9a25-7a15ed174628",
    "userCashBalanceId": "b1155504-ad30-4b2f-873d-b8795277b128",
    "shareMethod": "GENERATE_URL",
    "spendLimit": 50.00,
    "daysUntilExpiration": 30
  }
}

userCashBalanceId is marked optional in the schema, but treat it as required.Omit it and the cards fall back to a default balance on your account. For a payout or rewards program that is almost never what you want — it makes spend unattributable and puts campaign disbursements against general account funds. Always set it explicitly, on every request.

Restricted Access

This mutation requires a Bearer token with the CREATE_SHARE_LINK scope. Basic auth is rejected.

Per-card funding across a batch

userCashBalanceId is set per request, not per link. Every card in one generateVCShareLinks call draws from the same spend account. To fund different cards from different accounts, issue one request per funding source:

// One request per campaign, each pointed at its own spend account.
const campaigns = [
  { name: 'Q3 referral',  cashBalanceId: 'b1155504-...', limit: 25, count: 200 },
  { name: 'Q3 win-back',  cashBalanceId: 'c2266615-...', limit: 50, count: 50  },
];

for (const campaign of campaigns) {
  await graphql(
    `mutation GenerateVCShareLinks($input: GenerateVCShareLinksInput!) {
       generateVCShareLinks(input: $input) {
         shareRequestId
         generatedShareLinks { linkUrl status }
       }
     }`,
    {
      input: {
        offerId,
        userCashBalanceId: campaign.cashBalanceId,
        shareMethod: 'GENERATE_URL',
        spendLimit: campaign.limit,
        daysUntilExpiration: 30,
      },
    },
  );
}

Use one spend account per program, not one shared pot. A dedicated spend account per campaign gives you a clean balance to reconcile against, an obvious place to see remaining exposure, and a natural stopping point if something goes wrong — draining one account cannot touch another. It also means getSpendAccountVirtualAccountNumbers gives that campaign its own routing and account number for direct funding.

Funding the spend account

Because open-loop cards cannot pull from an external bank at spend time, the spend account has to hold funds before recipients start claiming. Three ways to get money in:

Method	Use when
Deposit from an external account	Standard top-up from a linked bank account or card.
Virtual account numbers	You want to push funds in by ACH, wire, RTP, or FedNow. Each spend account gets its own routing and account number.
Transfer between spend accounts	Moving budget from one program to another.

Check the balance before a large batch with getUserCashBalances, reading availableCashBalance rather than totalCashBalance.

Differences from standard cards

Control	`createVirtualCard`	`generateVCShareLinks`
Specific spend account	`userCashBalanceId`	`userCashBalanceId`
External bank account	`primaryFundingSource: BANK_ACCOUNT` + `bankAccountId`	Not available
Prepayment balance	`usePrepaymentBalance`	Not exposed
Rewards balance	`useRewardsBalance`	Not exposed
Change funding after issuance	`editVirtualCard`	Not available

The practical consequence: open-loop programs are prefunded. You cannot run them off an external bank account the way you can run a standard corporate card, so treat spend account balance as an operational requirement and monitor it. For the full picture on standard cards, see Manage Virtual Card Funding Sources.

Common mistakes

Passing primaryFundingSource or bankAccountId

Neither field exists on GenerateVCShareLinksInput. Open-loop cards are funded from a spend account only. Fund the spend account first, then generate links against it.

Omitting userCashBalanceId because the schema says it is optional

It is optional in the type definition but effectively required in practice. Without it your cards draw from a default balance, and campaign spend becomes impossible to attribute or cap.

Assuming funding can be changed after the link is generated

There is no edit path for an issued share link’s funding. If you nominated the wrong spend account, deactivate the links with deactivateVCShareLinks and generate a new batch.

Generating a large batch without checking the balance

Confirm availableCashBalance covers the batch — spendLimit multiplied by the number of links — before generating. A batch that outruns its funding fails at the recipient, not at your API call, which means your support team hears about it before you do.

Open Loop Cards Overview

Generating, listing, and deactivating hosted card links.

Delivery Methods

The four ways to get a card link to a recipient.

Virtual Account Numbers

Give each program’s spend account its own routing and account number.

Virtual Card Funding Sources

The fuller set of funding controls on standard cards.

​Setting the funding source

Restricted Access

​Per-card funding across a batch

​Funding the spend account

​Differences from standard cards

​Common mistakes

Open Loop Cards Overview

Delivery Methods

Virtual Account Numbers

Virtual Card Funding Sources

Setting the funding source

Per-card funding across a batch

Funding the spend account

Differences from standard cards

Common mistakes