# Core concepts \[Team, Member, and Account: the three ideas everything else builds on]

* **[Team](/teams)**: the unit everything is scoped to. One team per set of books: a company, an individual, or a project.
* **[Member](/members)**: a person who belongs to a team, with a role and their own signing keys.
* **[Account](/accounts)**: where a team's assets live, at the same address on every network, controlled by signers at a threshold.

## Team

Everything in the app (accounts, balances, transactions, bank info) except personal settings is scoped to the current team, shown in the team selector (top left).

A team maps to one set of books, whether or not a legal entity exists yet: a company, an individual, or a project that hasn't incorporated. Where an entity does exist, the mapping is one-to-one: on/offramps and compliant payments require [entity verification](/banking), and each team can have only one verified entity. A tax ID is a useful litmus test: Alice belongs to the Splits Labs team (EIN) and her own personal team (SSN), two tax IDs, two teams. A pre-entity project runs as its own team from day one and can [verify through an individual](/introduction/personal-usage#no-entity-needed) until it incorporates.

When deciding between a new team and an existing one, ask "who are the owners?" Same owners, existing team; different owners, new team. This matters for Recovery: see [Change recovery signers](/teams/recovery#changing-recovery-signers). To create a team, see [Teams](/teams).

## Member

A member is a person who belongs to a [team](/teams). Members authenticate with email, and one member can belong to many teams. Every member has a [role](/teams/roles) (Owner or Member) that determines what they can administer, and holds **[signing keys](/members/keys)**: passkeys saved in the app, or EOAs [registered via the CLI](/introduction/agents#sign-locally-with-an-eoa).

A member's signing keys can become [signers](/accounts/signers) on accounts; membership alone grants no signing authority. Signing keys, email, display name, and avatar belong to the member, not the team, so they work across every team a member is part of ([Settings > Personal](https://app.splits.org/settings/personal/general/)). For roles, inviting, and removal, see [Members](/members).

## Account

An account is where a team's assets are stored, at the same address on every network it's active on. Every account has a [threshold](/accounts/thresholds): a transaction executes once that many [signers](/accounts/signers) approve it. Signers are keys held by members; the public key lives onchain, the private key stays with the member, and **Splits never has access to private keys**.

For account types and the ownership chain, see [Accounts](/accounts).