I've implemented PayPal recurring payments following this guide.
All seems to be working, the subscription is created when the sandbox customer purchase it, but the problem's that I reiceve on the webhook only this event: BILLING.SUBSCRIPTION.CREATED, I should receive also: PAYMENT.SALE.COMPLETED but I haven't
I also logged in to the sandbox customer account and I don't see any transaction, seems that the subscription is only created but not paid for. What could cause this? The sandbox customer has available balance.
What could cause this?
It is normal. You need to wait for the first payment in the billing cycle to actually occur.
Related
I was searching a while and also read the paypal docs but I am unable to find an answer to my question. I created a recurring payment with Paypal Express Checkout. Everything is working fine, but now I need to know a little bit more about webhooks.
Assume a user registered and created a recurring subscription. The set-up fee is 0,00€ and the first payment will be in one week. After the first payment, the billing cycle will be every week. Now about my webhook question: I guess I need to use the PAYMENT.SALE.COMPLETED webhook am I right? As soon as I get paid every week, the PAYMENT.SALE.COMPLETED webhook will fire for every successfull payment and therefore add a new entry inside my database. Am I right? Or do I need to use another webhook for recurring payments?
Is there someone who uses this webhook in combination of a recurring subscription? Would be great if someone can help me out understanding if PAYMENT.SALE.COMPLETED is the correct webhook for recurring subscriptions.
Yes, PAYMENT.SALE.COMPLETED is sent after every successful billing event for a subscription.
Here is an example timeline of a subscription sale on my website:
2021-07-30 13:17:13.143: PAYMENT.SALE.COMPLETED - first payment
2021-07-30 13:17:10.679: BILLING.SUBSCRIPTION.ACTIVATED
2021-07-30 13:16:15.032: BILLING.SUBSCRIPTION.CREATED - this came after the one above, so make sure you can handle that
2021-08-30 11:13:05.321: PAYMENT.SALE.COMPLETED with "state"=>"completed" - second recurring payment
2021-09-08 14:34:44.816: PAYMENT.SALE.COMPLETED with "state"=>"completed","payment_hold_status"=>"RELEASED" - this is the release of the second recurring payment
If the recurring payment fails, you will receive BILLING.SUBSCRIPTION.PAYMENT.FAILED. Paypal retries the payment 3 times. See the attribute next_payment_retry_time which is set to null after the 3rd and final failed payment attempt.
You can configure your billing plan to automatically suspend a subscription after x number of failed payments (note: set this to be 1+ because 0 keeps is always active) and/or automatically add the outstanding payments to the next billing cycling.
Screenshot below:
I don't believe you have any choice for which webhook PayPal will send you. I am fighting with this right now because PAYMENT.SALE.COMPLETED is the one they send me, but it doesn't contain enough data for me to match it up with a customer or a shopping cart. I want them to return CHECKOUT.ORDER.COMPLETED instead, but there doesn't seem to be a way to make that happen.
I'm not a developer, but a project manager. So please excuse my lack of proper language.
We are trying to figure out how to handle subscription refunds and then limit account access on the site.
Here's a scenario. Member signs up for an annual subscription to gain certain capabilities in the account. 3 months into it member decides to cancel and requests a refund. Normally, if no refund is issued, subscription is good until the end of the billing period, at which point account is deactivated.
In our case, if a refund is issued, account should be deactivated immediately. Question: is it possible to set this up as part of PayPal Subscriptions? Some type of call from PayPal to our system that will trigger account deactivation.
Thank you.
We recommend using IPN (Instant Payment Notifications) to be asynchronously notified of any events, in this case of those related to existing subscription/recurring payments.
https://developer.paypal.com/webapps/developer/docs/classic/ipn/gs_IPN/
If you enable IPN notifications you will receive a POST of PayPal in the following events (among others):
When a recurring profile is cancelled.
When a refund has been made to a previous completed transaction.
This way, you can set up your IPN script to keep the subscription “open” in your side for the remainder of the month even if the profile has been cancelled, or to deactivate it if the last month has been refunded.
For more information about IPN variables:
https://developer.paypal.com/docs/classic/ipn/integration-guide/IPNandPDTVariables/
I am setting up a Paypal IPN for a subscription service. After reviewing the documentation and speaking with Paypal, I'm still unsure as to whether the IPN feature will send out notifications before a subscription is renewed. I've got it to where it will notify a user when their account is charged for the renewal, but there is no prior notification that this transaction will take place.
Does anyone have any experience with setting this up and if it's possible?
Thanks!
IPN only notifies you when a payment is made or its status changes. For subscriptions you won't get one prior to renewal.
If you're using the Recurring Payments API, you can get that via GetRecurringPaymentsProfileDetails, which will tell you when the next billing cycle is.
Hi I'm setting up paypal pro for a client. I need reference transactions to work as we would have to bill the customer each month and sometimes the amount may vary.
Credit card payment
The code flow has been tested with paypal sandbox and it completely works. But with the real account we get the following error.
"This transaction cannot be processed. Please contact PayPal Customer Service."
Paypal Account Payment/Express Checkout
It did not work with paypal sandbox too owing to reference transactions not being enabled. i'm facing a similar situation with the paypal pro account too. I get the error
"Merchant not enabled for reference transactions"
We sent a request to paypal asking them to enable reference transactions. They replied back assuring they did but I still get the same error. I even tried removing the current api signature and recreating a new one. But I still get the same error.
Has anyone faced a similar situation ?
Is there any sure way of verifying if reference transactions is enabled?
If it is not, is there a way to enable it other than going through paypal's customer service (it's appalling) ?
Yes it's easy.
Just try to make a payment with a billing agreement.
Just above the confirmation message on the PayPal website it will show:
Use PayPal for future payments to XXX Inc. Payments will be made with
your default payment method unless you select a preferred payment
method. To make changes, go to My money in your Profile, and update
the My preapproved payments section.
If you don't see that message they're not enabled (or your request is wrong). But of course you can check in the sandbox to make sure the request is correct.
I'm using the Paypal "Subscription" button. I have an IPN handler and overall I think I've got it all figured out. My last problem is that apparently there's no good way to test a recurring payment (except to wait for the cycle to occur). This issue is discussed here: [question]: Testing Paypal subscription IPN
I don't really need to test this recurring payment but I do need to know if every recurring payment will have it's own txn_id or if every payment in a subscription shares the same ID.
Thanks!
Yes, each recurring payment cycle will create a new transaction with its own transaction ID.
You'd link these transactions together via their recurring payments profile ID.