# Concepts

The Cashlink Issuer API is based on the following concepts:

* Investors will be able to invest into different financial products issued by different entities. In the APIs they are called [products](https://docs.cashlink.de/issuer-api/concepts/products).
* Products need to have a legal representative which we call [issuer](https://docs.cashlink.de/issuer-api/concepts/issuers).
* To  distribute your product you need to list your product to our Distributor API, so that an investment platform can distribute the product. We call such a platform a [distribution platform](https://docs.cashlink.de/issuer-api/concepts/distribution-platforms).
* To assign units of a product to a distribution platform, you need to create a [campaign](https://docs.cashlink.de/issuer-api/products#campaigns).
* An [investment](https://docs.cashlink.de/issuer-api/concepts/investments) is created after the investor has signed the investment contracts through the distribution platform where your product is listed. You can see here investment and investor information.