FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Clear answers about wallet credit, usage, subscriptions, and how Tycoon charges for work.
How is this different from using Brex or Ramp's built-in vendor management?
Brex and Ramp store vendor records for THEIR payments — what card, what limit, what category. They don't redline MSAs, they don't validate EINs against the IRS, and they don't track COI expirations. Their vendor management is really spend controls. Tycoon handles the legal, tax, and operational side: the paperwork that makes a vendor audit-ready and tax-compliant. Most founders use Brex/Ramp for cards and Tycoon for the onboarding file — they complement, they don't overlap.
My legal MSA terms are non-negotiable — does redlining even matter?
'Non-negotiable' usually lasts until the vendor's legal team sends their standard MSA and it's full of things you'd never agree to (unlimited liability, IP ownership of your inputs, perpetual terms, arbitration in Delaware). Tycoon's redline isn't negotiating on your behalf — it's surfacing the 4-8 clauses that deviate from your standard so you can decide: accept, push back, or ask legal. For most SaaS vendors under $10K ACV the vendor accepts 90% of your redlines without escalation. For bigger contracts, the redline becomes the starting point for your lawyer instead of a blank-page review.
What about international contractors — 1099 doesn't apply, so is any of this relevant?
Very relevant, and in some ways more important. International contractors collect W-8BEN (or W-8BEN-E for entities) instead of W-9, and that form protects you from US withholding requirements. Tycoon's intake form branches automatically based on vendor country. It also handles data processing addendums required for EU/UK contractors (GDPR), currency setup (USD vs vendor-local), and payment rails (Wise/Mercury international wire vs ACH). Getting this right saves 30% US tax withholding on every invoice.
Can it handle vendors I'm paying via Stripe, PayPal, or other non-ACH rails?
Yes, but the verification is different. For Stripe/PayPal the 'banking' is really the vendor's platform account, so AI COO verifies the vendor's email owns the payment account (via a small $0.01 test charge) and stores the account ID. For crypto payments, it stores the wallet address with an on-chain verification signature. The same onboarding file applies — tax forms and MSAs don't care how you pay — just the payment-method field changes.
We have 40 existing vendors with incomplete records. Can it clean those up retroactively?
Yes, and this is usually the first thing we run. AI COO pulls your QuickBooks vendor list, cross-references against collected W-9s/ACH/COIs in Google Drive, and builds a gap report: 'These 17 vendors are missing W-9s. These 8 have expired COIs. These 5 are paid >$600/yr and you'll owe them a 1099 that you can't generate.' Then it runs an outreach campaign to close the gaps — branded emails from your domain, reminders at day 3/7/14, and a dashboard so you can see progress. Most founders close 80% of gaps in 2 weeks.