Step 1: Creating your Customer #

Choose the Customer Type for your Funds Flow #

Before your end user can send funds, they must be created as a Customer via the Dwolla API. The pay-ins funds flow is flexible in terms of choosing a Customer type to onboard, as both the unverified Customer and verified Customer types are eligible to send funds. To learn more on the different Customer types and the capabilities of each, check out our customer types resource article.

Step 1A. Create the Customer #

While you can use the verified Customer type in this funds flow, we will be creating an unverified Customer in this guide.

Request Parameters - Unverified Customer

POST https://api-sandbox.dwolla.com/customers
Content-Type: application/vnd.dwolla.v1.hal+json
Accept: application/vnd.dwolla.v1.hal+json
Authorization: Bearer pBA9fVDBEyYZCEsLf/wKehyh1RTpzjUj5KzIRfDi0wKTii7DqY

{
  "firstName": "Jane",
  "lastName": "Doe",
  "email": "janeDoe@nomail.net",
  "ipAddress": "99.99.99.99",
}

HTTP/1.1 201 Created
Location: https://api-sandbox.dwolla.com/customers/FC451A7A-AE30-4404-AB95-E3553FCD733F

When the Customer is successfully created by your application, you will receive a 201 HTTP response with an empty response body. You can reference the Location header to retrieve a link that represents the created Customer resource. We recommend storing the full URL for future use, as it will be necessary to complete additional actions, such as attaching a bank or correlating webhooks that are triggered for the end user in the Dwolla system.

Step 1B. Handle Webhooks #

If you have an active webhook subscription, you will receive the customer_created webhook immediately after the resource has been created.