A shared reference for Catalyst and ProteaByte, so we describe the platform, its users and its workflow in the same way.
| Party | Who they are | Their part |
|---|---|---|
| Catalyst | Commissioned the platform | Owns the Trigger Matrix and the service provider relationships. Catalyst staff run the platform day to day. |
| ProteaByte | The builder | Builds and supports the platform under contract. Holds no rights in the data. |
| Accounting practice | An accounting firm using Catalyst Platform | Connects its clients, reviews what Catalyst Platform finds, approves and sends the report. |
| Client (SMME) | A business the practice looks after | Receives the approved report. Decides whether any of its information may be shared with a service provider. |
| Service provider | A financial adviser such as Aurora Capital or ACC Consult, or another provider such as a finance provider | Sets its criteria (an adviser also its own opportunity rules). Receives only what a client has agreed to share, then makes an offer. |
In the dashboard, "client" always means the practice's client, the SMME. Anyone Catalyst Platform introduces clients to, such as a financial adviser or a legal practice, is called a service provider. Aurora Capital is a financial adviser; its rules are not written yet and wait on its answers to our questions.
Practice users see only their own practice. Catalyst staff use a separate staff console and can't see any practice's client data unless they ask for time-limited access. Staff accounts are created outside the dashboard by a platform administrator, and an email that belongs to a staff account can't also be used for a practice user.
| Role | Usually | Can do |
|---|---|---|
| Partner | Owns or leads the practice | Everything in the practice. The only role that approves sensitive report content (going concern, tax, compliance), manages the team, changes the practice's checks and scoring, uploads the practice logo (Settings → Branding), and sees or ends access by Catalyst staff. Signs in with a passkey. |
| Advisor | An accountant working with clients | Reviews findings (approve, change, dismiss with a reason). Prepares, edits, approves (except sensitive content) and issues reports. Records or withdraws a client's consent to share with a service provider. |
| Practice manager | Looks after data and connections | Manages the Xero connections, account classification and client identifiers. Can read findings and service provider matches. |
| Read only | Anyone who only needs to look | Sees clients and issued reports. |
| Catalyst staff | Platform team at Catalyst | Staff console: sets up practices and invites their partner, suspends or offboards a practice, sees practice health as counts only, runs the service provider desk, the service provider library and the rule library. A change in either library needs a second staff member to approve it; in prod, for now, the author may approve alone. Signs in with a passkey. |
| Catalyst staff in a practice | Support, for up to 4 hours | Sees one practice as Read only or Practice manager, with a visible banner. The practice's partners are told immediately, and everything is recorded. |
"Temporary" means Catalyst staff can do it only during time-limited access to one practice, as Read only or Practice manager, which the practice's partners are told about. Staff never act as Partner or Advisor, so they can't decide findings or approve reports. Clients (SMMEs) have no login.
| What | Partner | Advisor | Practice manager | Read only | Catalyst staff |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The practice's clients | |||||
| See clients and issued reports | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Temporary |
| Read findings, service provider matches, checks and scoring | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | – | Temporary |
| Connect Xero, look after syncs and data quality | ✓ | – | ✓ | – | Temporary |
| Classify accounts; record client identifiers and source links | ✓ | – | ✓ | – | Temporary |
| Review findings; prepare, edit and issue reports | ✓ | ✓ | – | – | – |
| Approve reports | ✓ | ✓ | – | – | – |
| Approve sensitive content (going concern, tax, compliance) and decide high-risk findings | ✓ | – | – | – | – |
| Record or withdraw a client's consent to share; work service provider offers | ✓ | ✓ | – | – | – |
| The practice itself | |||||
| Invite the team, change roles, reset a member's passkey | ✓ | – | – | – | – |
| Practice settings, logo and branding | ✓ | – | – | – | – |
| Change the practice's checks and scoring | ✓ | – | – | – | – |
| See and end Catalyst staff access | ✓ | – | – | – | – |
| The platform (staff console) | |||||
| Set up a practice, set its Xero connection limit, invite its first partner | – | – | – | – | ✓ |
| Suspend or offboard a practice; see practice health as counts | – | – | – | – | ✓ |
| Reset a partner's passkey, or another staff member's | – | – | – | – | ✓ |
| Service provider desk, service provider library and rule library (a second staff member approves each change; in prod, for now, the author may approve alone) | – | – | – | – | ✓ |
| Sign-in | |||||
| Passkey | Required | Optional | Optional | Optional | Required |
Every month, for every client. The service provider path at the bottom is optional and only starts when a service provider's criteria fit.
These three are often all called "triggers". They are different things with different owners.
| Check (rule) | Trigger Matrix | Service provider criteria | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | A standard test run on every client each month | Catalyst's specification of which checks should exist | One service provider's conditions for which clients they'd consider |
| Example | "Customers paying more slowly": debtor days up at least 5 days and 15% on last month | A row defining "debtor deterioration", its threshold and severity | Turnover R20–50m, at least 12 months of figures, and "customers paying more slowly" found, but not "going-concern risk" |
| Owned by | The platform; Catalyst staff change it in the rule library | Catalyst | The service provider; Catalyst staff enter it in the service provider library |
| Produces | A finding for the accountant | New versions of checks | A service provider match: "service provider name may be a fit"; for an adviser, the opportunities that matched |
| Seen by | The accountant, and the client in the report | Catalyst and ProteaByte | The accountant. The service provider sees nothing until the client consents. |
| How it changes | A new version, approved by a second staff member (in prod, for now, the author may approve alone) | Loaded through the rule library | A new version, drafted in the service provider library and approved by a second staff member (in prod, for now, the author may approve alone). It names the exact check versions it relies on. |
| Can a practice change it? | It can hide it from its own findings; going concern is always on | No | No |
Trigger Matrix → becomes checks → run monthly → findings → reviewed by the accountant · Service provider criteria may use checks and figures → service provider matches → client consent → service provider
| Term | Means | Not the same as |
|---|---|---|
| Client file | One client's workspace: position, findings, report, service provider matches, data and sync | — |
| Position | The client's health in one sentence, the five headline figures and the trend | — |
| Health score | 0 to 100 summary of profitability, liquidity, working capital, revenue quality, payroll and debt. The practice sets the weighting. | Data reliability |
| Data reliability | 0 to 100: how far the month's books can be trusted, with the reasons | Health score |
| Check | A standard monthly test, such as "Customers paying more slowly" | Finding; service provider criteria |
| Finding | What a check found for one client this month, waiting for review | Check |
| Recommendation | A suggested action with an estimated effect, such as "could release R0.4m–R1.1m cash" | Service provider match |
| Report | The monthly client report: draft, sent for approval, approved, issued (locked) | — |
| Sync | The nightly reading and tidying of a client's Xero books | — |
| Linked systems | Connections to the client's own systems, such as Xero | — |
| Account classification | Telling Catalyst Platform what an unusual Xero account is, such as a director's loan | — |
| Identifiers | Company registration, income tax, VAT and PAYE numbers that tie one client across systems | — |
| Service provider match | A service provider the client may fit, with the criteria met and why | Recommendation |
| Service provider criteria | A service provider's conditions (sometimes called service provider triggers). An adviser also has opportunity rules: its own named conditions, each leading to one of its products | Check; Trigger Matrix |
| Signals for service providers | 21 facts about a client that service providers' criteria can read, such as insurance spend against turnover. Never scored and never in the report. The accountant sees them in a separate panel in the client file | Health score; finding |
| Client consent | The client's recorded agreement to share named information with one named service provider, for one purpose | — |
| Service provider desk | Where Catalyst staff review what will be shared, send it and record offers | — |
| Service provider library | Where Catalyst staff set up each service provider: what it receives, its criteria and its opportunity rules. A second staff member approves each new version before it is published (in prod, for now, the author may approve alone) | Rule library |
| Rule library | Where Catalyst staff draft, preview, approve (second person; in prod, for now, the author may approve alone) and publish new versions of checks | Checks and scoring |
| Checks and scoring | A practice's own settings: hide or show a check, and set the health score weighting | Rule library |
| Branding | The Settings page where a partner uploads the practice logo (PNG, JPEG or WebP, at most 256 KB; no SVG). It appears on reports and in the dashboard | — |
| Access by Catalyst staff | Time-limited support access to one practice; partners see it and can end it | — |
| Sample client | Made-up demonstration data | Xero's own Demo Company |
| Prod | The one hosted environment: the platform the practices use, with their real data. A change is tested on a developer's machine and in automated checks, then put live by hand; there is no staging copy. It is served at test.platform.catalystholdings.global, which is only an address, not the environment's name | Local |
| Local | A developer's machine running the platform against its own database and file store, with made-up data only. The automated checks run the unit tests and the database tests; the tests that need the file store run locally | Prod |
| Pilot (environment) | Former name of prod. Say "prod" | The pilot practice and the Phase 1 pilot, which keep the word |
| Test (environment) | A hosted environment that ran in October 2026 as the hosted demo. It is gone, and what is left of its configuration is to be removed | Local testing; the address test.platform.catalystholdings.global, which serves prod |
| POC (hosting) | Former name for the hosting prod runs on until the move to Cape Town. Say "prod" | The micro-POC |