Onboard a merchant

Create a Chargeflow account entity for each merchant via the Accounts API - required and optional fields, plus enrichments for stronger evidence strategies.

Before Chargeflow can process disputes for a merchant, you need to create a Chargeflow account entity for them. This account serves as the anchor for all of that merchant's disputes, evidence, and integrations within your platform.

Create a merchant account

POST /public/2025-04-01/accounts

Required fields

Field	Type	Description
`owner_name`	string	The account owner's full name. Used in evidence narratives.
`business_name`	string	The merchant's business name. Used in evidence narratives and enrichment.
`business_url`	string (URI)	The public URL of the merchant's website. Chargeflow enriches this with metadata to strengthen evidence.
`email`	string (email)	The merchant owner's email address for login and contact purposes.

Optional fields

Field	Type	Description
`ext_account_id`	string	Your internal ID for this merchant. Store this to easily look up the Chargeflow account later without tracking two separate IDs.
`status`	`active` \| `inactive`	Account status. Defaults to `active`.
`enrichments`	object	Company-level context: industry, product types, payment models, policies, checkout flow, and buyer verification methods. More enrichment = stronger default evidence strategies.

Example request

Terminal

curl -X POST https://api.chargeflow.io/public/2025-04-01/accounts \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_PLATFORM_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "owner_name": "Jane Smith",
    "business_name": "Acme Store",
    "business_url": "https://acme.com",
    "email": "jane@acme.com",
    "ext_account_id": "your_internal_id_123"
  }'

Example response

Response

{
  "id": "66e6ea9ecd94925a9f8060d9",
  "ext_account_id": "your_internal_id_123",
  "created_at": "2025-01-15T09:00:00Z",
  "owner_name": "Jane Smith",
  "business_name": "Acme Store",
  "business_url": "https://acme.com",
  "email": "jane@acme.com",
  "status": "active",
  "enrichments": null
}

Warning

Store the returned id (the Chargeflow account_id) in your database. You will need it to submit disputes, generate evidence, and make all subsequent API calls on behalf of this merchant.

Enriching merchant profiles

Providing the enrichments object at creation time (or updating it later) significantly improves Chargeflow's ability to tailor evidence strategies for the merchant's specific business model.