# Customer Data & Vault — Overview The Customer Data & Vault layer provides can be used by itself or in combination with other services. It is centered around the **Profile Service**, which stores non‑PCI customer data and relationships, and integrates tightly with payments, billing, invoicing, and settlement services. ## What This Layer Is For div strong Key idea: br The Profile Service is the source of truth for em who participates in commerce — not how money moves. The Customer Data & Vault layer enables you to: - Model billable entities (what is being billed) - Define accounts and payers (who pays) - Store people and organizations as payers and/or contacts for the account - Associate stored payment methods to payers - Reuse this data across multiple downstream services ## Standalone vs Platform Usage The Profile Service may be used: - **As part of the Billing & Invoicing Platform**, or - **Independently**, as a customer and payment-method vault div strong Key idea: br Billing and invoicing are optional. The Profile Service does not require Accounts or Billable Entities unless those services are used. When used standalone: - Merchants may create People or Organizations - Payment methods may be attached directly to those entities - No Accounts or Billable Entities are required - The service behaves similarly to a customer wallet ## How Other Services Use It div ul li strong Payments — identify who is paying and which token may be used li strong Billing & Ledger — determine responsibility for charges li strong Recurring Billing — attach payment methods to accounts li strong Invoices & Receipts — render customer-facing documents li strong Payment Widget — present payer choices and saved methods ## Tags The Profile Service supports custom tags on most entities. Tags may be used for: - Client-specific metadata - Audit and traceability - Reporting and downstream enrichment - Cross-service context propagation Tags are consolidated when referenced by downstream services (such as Billing and Invoicing). For details on tag structure, consolidation, and propagation, see the Tagging section. ## What This Layer Does Not Do To keep responsibilities clear, the Profile Service: - Does **not** store raw card or bank account numbers - Does **not** process payments - Does **not** enforce billing logic or pricing rules - Does **not** submit transactions to processors Those concerns live in other services. ## Core Concepts | Concept | Purpose | | --- | --- | | Billable Entity | The thing being billed (enrollment, subscription, service) | | Account | Who is financially responsible | | Person / Organization | A human or business | | Payer | A role assigned to a Person or Organization authorized to pay on the account | | Contact | A role assigned to a Person or Organization to receive comunications for the account | | Stored Payment Method | A reusable payment token & metadata for a payer | Each concept is explained in detail in the following sections. ## Summary - Customer Data & Vault provides shared customer context - The Profile Service is the authoritative data store - Data is reused across payments, billing, and UI experiences - Sensitive credentials are always tokenized elsewhere