Customers

The customer object

A customer object represents a unique customer in the Helcim system, which could be either an individual or a business.

The customer stores a number of the core attributes that apply to customers, including:

• A unique customerCode value to be used as a reference for your customer in the Helcim system.
• A required contactName and / or businessName, as well as an optional cellPhone contact number for your customer.
• A billingAddress and shippingAddress sub-object to store your customers billing and shipping details.

// Example customer object

{
  "id": 24332090,
  "customerCode": "CST1049",
  "businessName": "Helcim",
  "contactName": "John Doe",
  "dateCreated": "2024-09-18 15:26:25",
  "dateUpdated": "2024-09-18 15:26:26",
  "cellphone": "1234567899",
  "billingAddress": {
    "name": "John Doe",
    "street1": "123 Test Street",
    "street2": "Suite 2",
    "city": "Calgary",
    "province": "AB",
    "country": "CAN",
    "postalCode": "H0H0H0",
    "phone": "1234567899",
    "email": "[email protected]"
  },
  "shippingAddress": {
    "name": "John Doe",
    "street1": "123 Test Street",
    "street2": "Suite 2",
    "city": "Calgary",
    "province": "AB",
    "country": "CAN",
    "postalCode": "H0H0H0",
    "phone": "1234567899",
    "email": "[email protected]"
  },
  "cards": []
}

📘

Retrieving objects in the cards array

To retrieve card objects associated with a customer in the Helcim system, you can use the following endpoints.

• Get customer card
• Get customer cards

Creating a customer

There are a few different ways to create a customer in the Helcim system, including:

• Using the Create customer endpoint in the Customer API.
• Using the customerRequest object in your HelcimPay.js initialize request.
• Using the default Helcim system functionality that will create a basic customer object for any payments processed where an existing customer is not linked to the transaction.

Either a contactName or businessName parameter (or both) are the minimum required body parameters when creating a customer object.

The optional body parameters can include the following values.

🚧

Setting the billingAddress and shippingAddress province and country values

• The province and country values for a customer object are used for tax calculation purposes, when tax is calculated using customer location in the Helcim system.
• It is optional to send these values, but if you send either a province or country value for the United States or Canada, the other value becomes required and must also be sent.

Associated objects

A customer object created in the Helcim system can be linked to invoice, transaction, and subscription objects, allowing for a history of customer payments and records.

You can link an existing customer to the following types of objects.

• Transactions created through the Payment API or HelcimPay.js using the customerCode.
• Transactions created through the ACH Payment API using the customerId.
• Invoices created through the Invoice API using the customerId.
• Subscriptions created through the Recurring API using the customerCode.

Customer settings

Your Helcim account Customer Settings will impact the customerCode created for any default customer object created by payments through the Payment API or HelcimPay.js.

These settings, located under All Tools and then Settings, control the default Prefix and Number Length of your customerCode values.