Understanding Billing Customers
The unified payment identity behind every charge in Edge
What It Is
A billing customer connects a contact in your CRM to a specific payment method and gateway. Instead of storing Stripe customer IDs in one place and PayPal vault tokens in another, Edge centralizes all payment identity in one record.
Each billing customer has:
- A gateway preference (Stripe or PayPal)
- Payment method data (card details or vault token)
- Trigger billing permissions (whether condition-driven charges are allowed)
- An initial charge requirement (verification that the payment method works)
- A status (active, suspended, or pending)
One contact can have one billing customer record per organization. That single record handles invoices, subscriptions, and trigger billing.
Why It Matters
Without billing customers, you would manage payment methods separately for each billing mode. A billing customer is the single record that says "this contact can be charged, here is how, and here is what they have authorized."
For trigger billing specifically, the billing customer must have `bc_allow_trigger` set to true and the initial verification charge completed before any trigger can fire. This two-step authorization protects both you and the customer — the payment method is proven to work before automated charges begin.
How It Works
Creation: Attach a payment method and optionally process an initial verification charge. The initial charge (default $15) confirms the card or vault token is valid. If the initial charge succeeds, status moves to `active`.
Active: The customer can be invoiced, subscribed to plans, and enrolled in trigger items. All charges go through the stored payment method on their preferred gateway.
Suspended: All billing activity is paused — triggers do not fire, Pay Now links are disabled, new enrollments cannot be created. Enrollments are frozen, not cancelled.
Restored: Returns to active, all frozen enrollments resume.
The gateway-agnostic design means you interact with billing customers the same way whether they pay via Stripe or PayPal.
Examples
A consulting firm creates a billing customer for a retainer client
They select the client contact, choose Stripe, enter the client's corporate card, and enable trigger billing. The $15 initial charge processes successfully, confirming the card works. Now they can enroll the client in a retainer trigger item for variable monthly billing — and also send one-off invoices for out-of-scope work using the same billing customer record.
An agency switches a client from Stripe to PayPal
The client wants to pay via PayPal instead of credit card. The agency updates the payment method on the billing customer record, changing the gateway to PayPal and completing the vault authorization. All existing trigger enrollments continue working — they reference the billing customer, not the specific payment method. The next trigger charge goes through PayPal instead of Stripe.
