---
title: "Managing investors programmatically"
slug: "setting-up-investors-programmatically"
status: "update"
updated: 2025-10-09T08:32:28Z
published: 2025-10-09T08:32:28Z
canonical: "support.lusid.com/setting-up-investors-programmatically"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://support.lusid.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Managing investors programmatically

You can manage investors:

- Using the API endpoints in the `InvestorRecords` and `InvestmentAccounts` collections.
- Using equivalent methods in the [LUSID SDK](/v1/docs/understanding-all-the-applications-in-the-finbourne-platform) in various languages.
- If you have a Luminesce license, using a set of providers (coming soon).

#### Step 1: Create an entity representing an investor

An investor can be represented in LUSID as either a [person](/v1/docs/representing-people-in-lusid-using-person-entities) or a [legal entity](/v1/docs/representing-institutions-in-lusid-using-legal-entities), whichever is more appropriate.

#### Step 2: Create an investor record to validate the investor in a particular jurisdiction

An [investor record](/v1/docs/how-do-i-create-an-investor-record) collates, in one place, all the information required to enable an investor to invest in a particular jurisdiction, for example address information, KYC status, payment details and tax records. An investor might have many investor records in different jurisdictions.

#### Step 3: Create one or more portfolios to store investments

You must create at least one [investment portfolio](/v1/docs/how-do-i-create-a-transaction-portfolio). You can create more than one to distinguish different investments, for example one in which the investor elects to receive dividends in cash and another dividend distributions for re-investment.

#### Step 4: Create an investment account

An [investment account](/v1/docs/how-do-i-create-an-investment-account) links an investor record (and its underlying investor) to the portfolio(s) storing their investments. Note all the other entities above must exist before you can create the account.