# Mercora > Trade operations for physical commodity traders: documents, matching, reconciliation, financials and the P&L. - [Welcome to Mercora](https://docs.mercora.io/index.md): Mercora runs trade operations for physical commodity trading firms: documents, matching, reconciliation, invoices and the P&L, with you approving every decision. - [Quickstart](https://docs.mercora.io/getting-started/quickstart.md): Accept your invite, set a password, sign in, turn on two-factor authentication and upload your first document. - [Walk through a trade](https://docs.mercora.io/getting-started/walkthrough.md): Follow one sugar trade from its first documents to its P&L, then see what happens when an aluminium trade's documents don't match. - [Mercora by role](https://docs.mercora.io/getting-started/by-role.md): What operators, finance, workspace admins and developers do in Mercora day to day, which areas and permissions they use, and what to read first. - [Navigating Mercora](https://docs.mercora.io/getting-started/navigating-mercora.md): A tour of the sidebar and the main areas of Mercora, and which ones depend on a workspace module. - [How Mercora works](https://docs.mercora.io/concepts/how-mercora-works.md): Follow a document from arrival to approval, and learn the trust model: Mercora reads, checks and recommends, and a person approves. - [Modules](https://docs.mercora.io/concepts/modules.md): Modules are the parts of Mercora your workspace uses. Admins turn them on and off for the whole workspace. - [Roles and permissions](https://docs.mercora.io/concepts/roles-and-permissions.md): Every member has one role. A role sets what the member can view and change in each area of Mercora. - [Uploading documents](https://docs.mercora.io/documents/uploading.md): Upload trade documents by hand: supported files, uploading several at once, multi-document packs, duplicates, and what happens after you upload. - [Email ingestion](https://docs.mercora.io/documents/email-ingestion.md): How documents that arrive by email reach Mercora: what is picked up, duplicates, who owns them in the Inbox, and what happens to the email itself. - [Document processing](https://docs.mercora.io/documents/processing.md): The stages a document goes through after it arrives, the statuses you see in the Inbox, the document types Mercora recognizes, and what to do when processing fails. - [The Inbox](https://docs.mercora.io/documents/inbox.md): Your work queue: the Needs you, Waiting and Done tabs, the rail and its filters, reviewing what Mercora read against the original, and approving, rejecting or requesting a correction. - [Matching documents to trades](https://docs.mercora.io/documents/matching.md): How Mercora links a document to its trade, how recommendations are shown, and how to match, move or unmatch a document yourself. - [Discrepancies](https://docs.mercora.io/documents/discrepancies.md): How Mercora checks a document against its trade, what it compares, how severe each difference is, and how to review and resolve discrepancies. Also covers the expected documents checklist. - [Trades](https://docs.mercora.io/trades/overview.md): Find a trade in the trade book, open it, and work through its contracts, documents, discrepancies, shipments and money. - [Shipments](https://docs.mercora.io/trades/shipments.md): Track the vessels, containers and trucks carrying your cargo, on a trade and across the whole book. - [Trade financials](https://docs.mercora.io/trades/financials.md): Work a trade's invoices, payments and adjustments, net AR against AP, and plan its costs and income on the Financials tab. - [Financials](https://docs.mercora.io/finance/financials.md): Find any invoice across the workspace, see what's outstanding by currency, and spot what's overdue. - [P&L](https://docs.mercora.io/finance/pnl.md): Read realized and open margin across your book by commodity, book and delivery month, in any currency, and know exactly which basis each number uses. - [Reports](https://docs.mercora.io/finance/reports.md): See what needs your attention and what Mercora processed, track realized cashflow, and chase overdue payments. - [Counterparties](https://docs.mercora.io/records/counterparties.md): Keep one record per buyer, supplier, broker and bank, with KYC, trading terms, contacts, open AR/AP and a printable statement. - [Contracts](https://docs.mercora.io/records/contracts.md): Keep purchase and sales contracts as their own records, pair them into deals, and draft new contracts from your own Word templates. - [Derivatives](https://docs.mercora.io/records/derivatives.md): Keep a ledger of your futures fills, see your open position by contract month, and allocate each fill to the physical contract it hedges. - [Copilot](https://docs.mercora.io/copilot/overview.md): Ask Mercora about your trades, documents and money in plain words. The Copilot reads what your role can see, and anything it would change waits for your Approve. - [Automations](https://docs.mercora.io/workflows/automations.md): Standing instructions that run on a schedule, when a document arrives, when a message comes in, or when another system calls. They read the data you allow and file what they find. Changes always wait for a person. - [Deal capture](https://docs.mercora.io/workflows/deal-capture.md): Turn deal recaps and contracts that arrive by email, WhatsApp, Teams or the Copilot into Inbox items you review, then create the contract in Mercora and, if connected, in your CTRM. - [Hedging](https://docs.mercora.io/workflows/hedging.md): Turn a trader's WhatsApp confirmation, or a hedge request from your own systems, into a broker order you approve in the Inbox, then record the broker's fill. - [Freight rates](https://docs.mercora.io/workflows/freight-rates.md): Send carrier rate sheets, emails and notices to Mercora. It proposes the exact changes to your freight master workbook, and you confirm them in the Inbox before anything is written. - [Integrations](https://docs.mercora.io/integrations/overview.md): Connect Mercora to the tools your team already uses: Microsoft 365, WhatsApp, Google Sheets, QuickBooks Online and your CTRM. Admins connect for the workspace; each member can connect their own accounts. - [Microsoft 365](https://docs.mercora.io/integrations/microsoft-365.md): Connect your Microsoft 365 organization once, then turn on Email, Files and Teams. The Copilot and automations read what you allow, and every send or change waits for an Approve. - [WhatsApp](https://docs.mercora.io/integrations/whatsapp.md): Ask the Copilot from your phone, hand in deals and documents, capture hedge requests from trader groups, and approve automations by reply. Mercora's WhatsApp number is set up for your workspace by the Mercora team. - [Google Sheets](https://docs.mercora.io/integrations/google-sheets.md): Connect a Google account and choose the spreadsheets Mercora may use. Today Mercora uses them as hedge sheets: it adds a row for each approved hedge and completes it with the broker's fill. - [QuickBooks Online](https://docs.mercora.io/integrations/quickbooks.md): Connect one or more QuickBooks Online companies to your workspace, check that the connection still works, and disconnect them. - [External systems](https://docs.mercora.io/integrations/external-systems.md): Connect Mercora to your CTRM, such as Agiblocks. Choose which pushes are on (invoices, B/Ls, contracts, captured deals, hedges), let the Copilot read Agiblocks reporting data, and see every push's outcome. - [Members](https://docs.mercora.io/admin/members.md): Invite teammates, share their invite link, change their role, and remove members from your workspace. - [Workspace settings](https://docs.mercora.io/admin/workspace-settings.md): Set your company profile and reporting currency, turn modules on, and configure books, legal entities, custom fields, invoice categories, contract templates and futures instruments. - [API keys](https://docs.mercora.io/admin/api-keys.md): Create, review and revoke the workspace API keys your own systems use to call Mercora. - [Introduction](https://docs.mercora.io/api-reference/introduction.md): Call Mercora from your own systems with a workspace API key: base URL, authentication, scopes, errors and idempotency. - [List hedge books](https://docs.mercora.io/api-reference/hedge-requests/list-hedge-books.md): What this workspace can hedge: its active hedge rules, each with the `id` a request sends as `book`. On a workspace that books hedges in Agiboo, also each book's position and every position a request may name. - [Request a hedge](https://docs.mercora.io/api-reference/hedge-requests/request-a-hedge.md): A physical contract needs covering. The request becomes a hedge in the Mercora Inbox for an operator to send to the broker; nothing is sent from the API. A request that cannot be planned is still recorded: 201 with `state: failed` and the `reason` (unknown book, no Agiboo position, contract already… - [Get a hedge request](https://docs.mercora.io/api-reference/hedge-requests/get-a-hedge-request.md): Where a request stands, by Mercora's `id` from the POST response. A caller that lost the response sends the POST again with the same `external_id`. - [Start an automation run](https://docs.mercora.io/api-reference/automations/start-an-automation-run.md): Starts a run of an automation whose trigger is the API. The run works in Mercora; anything it would change waits for a person's approval there. 201 a new run, 200 a retry of an external_id already used with the same body, 404 no such automation in this workspace, 409 the automation doesn't run from… - [Answer a run that waits for your system](https://docs.mercora.io/api-reference/automations/answer-a-run-that-waits-for-your-system.md): Hands a run whose Wait for step waits on another system what it waited for; the run carries on from there. 202 the run carries on, 404 no such run of this automation in this workspace, 409 the run isn't waiting for a callback (already answered, or past its time limit). ## OpenAPI Specs - [openapi](/api-reference/openapi.json) This documentation is built and hosted on [Mintlify](https://mintlify.com), a developer documentation platform.