Customers

Every billable model can be linked to a Vatly customer. The customer is created automatically when needed, or you can create one explicitly.

Creating a customer

// Create a Vatly customer for this user
$user->createAsVatlyCustomer();

// Create with extra data
$user->createAsVatlyCustomer([
    'locale' => 'nl_NL',
    'metadata' => ['internal_id' => $user->id],
]);

Checking customer status

// Check if the user has a Vatly customer ID
$user->hasVatlyId(); // bool

// Get the Vatly customer ID
$user->vatlyId(); // string|null

Retrieving customer data

// Get the full customer object from the Vatly API
$customer = $user->asVatlyCustomer();

How it works

The vatly_id column on your billable model stores the Vatly customer identifier. When you call createAsVatlyCustomer(), it:

1. Sends a POST request to the Vatly API to create a customer
2. Stores the returned customer ID in the vatly_id column
3. Returns the customer response

If the user already has a vatly_id, calling createAsVatlyCustomer() will throw a CustomerAlreadyCreatedException.