Sorry, if this topic is too unspecific, but actually I did not know where ask else. If this question is not ok, please feel free to close it.
My question is, if it is possible to execute / approve multiple billing agreements from one user at one purchase at paypal?
We created a shop where the user can buy different virtual products for different periods. If a user buys 2 or more products we want to create for each product a billing agreement (i.e. 12 months). If I understand the paypal API correctly, every product (subscription / billing agreement) has to be approved independently.
Is there a way to let the user approve the billing agreement once for all products at all? Or can we create a billing plan with multiple products in it?
Thanks for your help in advance.
According to PayPal, it is not possible to accomplish this using the latest version of the SDKs. It should be possible, however, to accomplish this using the currently-deprecated SOAP version of SDKs. There are several API calls related to the creation of Billing Agreements, but two calls that are required for basic situations: SetExpressCheckout and CreateRecurringPaymentsProfile. All of the supporting documentation for this calls using the SOAP API clearly state that there is a limit of 10 billing agreements per transaction. For example, this is taken from the documentation from CreateRecurringPaymentsProfile:
RecurringPayments | ProfileDetails
(Required) You can include up to 10 recurring payments profiles
per request. The order of the profile details must match the order
of the billing agreement details specified in the SetExpressCheckout
request.
I am in the process of attempting this with the PHP SDK using Express Checkout specifically and I will provide an update on whether I can in fact get this working.
I apologize that this is not as clear an answer as it should be, but the documentation surrounding this question provided by the developers is directly conflicting and IMO there should be some explanation of that here.
Related
I want to implement a pay as you go with Paypal, as I read the subscriptions API we need to create a plan and product, and as I understand it, it works based on the regular payments which obviously we don't want that we want if the user's budget is below a certain amount we recharge the user by a fixed amount again, can anybody guide me how to approach and implement pay as go using Paypal?
You are correct, subscriptions bill on a regular schedule whereas what you are describing is the ability to bill an arbitrary amount at any time.
That feature is called "reference transactions", or sometimes "billing agreements". It is not enabled for PayPal business accounts by default. To request the feature, the owner of the PayPal account should contact PayPal's general business support (note: not technical support) and explain the business need for this reference transactions feature.
If it's approved for the account, PayPal can then guide you on which API integration to use; potentially something like the newest v2/vault.
Im trying set up recurring payment on my site by using Paypal Express Checkout. I did read through the official docs and I couldnt find anything useful related to recurring payment.
https://developer.paypal.com/docs/integration/direct/express-checkout/integration-jsv4/add-paypal-button/
Im just wondering does Express Checkout support recurring payment? If so, how can I achieve that or Where can I get some good example to start with?
Thank you for your help in advance. Much appreciated
Cheers
We have a similar issue before. You might wanted to take a look at this thread.
I'm trying to understand the use case here. When you say recurring payment for express checkout,it has to be something a customer is buying regularly like restocking an item, in that case it's not an express checkout, it's a recurring purchase by a returning customer. They must have opted to restock at a regular interval like every 30 days, 2 months etc. They also must be registered users on your website.
So your logic must include — Checking all the customers who have set up an automatic purchase for an item.
—Check their frequency of purchase and charge them for the amount of the item at that frequency.
—For this purpose PayPal has a REST API :
This is the accurate place to look for to implement PayPal recurring payments:
https://developer.paypal.com/docs/api/payments/#payment_create
In case they also allow you to authorize payments through the following API
https://developer.paypal.com/docs/api/payments/#authorization
you could use it as well.
But at least this narrows down your choices in terms of regular payment authorization.
This API will allow you to request PayPal services to authorize payment on a regular basis for that customer. You will still have to have your own logic to check the 'subscription' for your products and the intervals.
—The CreateRecurringPaymentsProfile API Operation (NVP) at the link below looks to be for personal payments. For example something an Inventory Management System will do.
https://developer.paypal.com/docs/classic/api/merchant/CreateRecurringPaymentsProfile_API_Operation_NVP/
It's an API specific to adding recurring payments functionality.
Since you're a developer, PayPal Developers' Resources will answer any queries you have regarding the API functionality and usage. You will have to just know what to ask for. You are their B2B customer trying to understand their API system. You can also file a bug on their Developer portal if you're not getting proper answers.
This is my first time using the PayPal API so go easy on me.
The case I am trying to handle is as follows:
My customers can purchase software licenses that can either be one time payments, or yearly payments.
They can multiple products to the cart, and each product can have either one of the pricing plans mentioned above.
If I understand correctly, "payments" in the API handle one time transactions, and "billing plans" are used for recurring payments.
Is it possible to processes both in one call to the API? If not, is there a different way to achieve this?
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! TIA!
Not one API call, but you can do it in one checkout flow with multiple API calls.
For PayPal wallet payments (logging in to PayPal and paying) I would recommend using Express Checkout w/ Recurring Payments.
With that you would be using SetExpressCheckout, GetExpressCheckoutDetails, and then either DoExpressCheckoutPayment, CreateRecurringPaymentsProfile, or a combination of both of those depending on the products in the card and whether they need one-time payment or recurring.
The CRPP call will allow you to setup a recurring profile and include an "initial payment" which would be charged when the profile is created. This could be used as the one time payment if you want, and then you wouldn't need the DECP call.
Alternatively, you could use DECP to process the one time payment and then follow that up with CRPP to create the profile. There are advantages and disadvantages to the different methods depending on your business needs.
For setting up profiles with direct credit cards you'll need PayPal Payments Pro. In this case you would either use the same CRPP call mentioned above, but it would be used by itself and include the credit card details. Or, depending on the version of Pro they put you on, which depends on the version of PayPal account you have, you might end up using PayFlow instead.
If you're working with PHP this PayPal PHP SDK will make all of those API calls very quick and easy for you.
I know that's a pretty broad answer, but that's because it's a pretty broad question. :)
I am testing the PayPal REST API for subscriptions in the sandbox environment, and have noticed that, when going to the approval URL returned after creating an agreement, no price is shown under the order summary pane on the left of the page. A description is shown but no price/tax etc.
The plan id is passed to the call to create an agreement, which contains the information that I would expect to see as a user when approving the payment. Is this a bug or is there something that I am supposed to enable in the merchant account, or perhaps something additional that needs to be sent when creating the agreement? I've read other posts regarding this on stack overflow (although they predate the creation of the subscriptions REST API) talking about passing a transaction field, but this isn't valid in the subscriptions create agreement schema.
Your observations are (currently) correct. As REST API based Billing Plans are based on Express Checkout Recurring Payments, you're going to see a similar behavior.
Right now, there are two options:
You populate the description with more agreement details.
You pass a regular description and make sure the customer is aware of the billing terms before your execute the agreement.
Going forward, we're likely going to include this info in some later updates. I'm following up with that to make sure a user story is filed for this.
Well, I didn't really know how to call this...
I have been surfing PayPal's developer documentation for a while now, but there is nothing that speaks to me with direction as to achieving what I am looking for.
It's probably well documented, but I don't grasp it well enough yet to make sense while reading each part separately.
I have read about Preapproval, though it seem to require that I send the customer's browser to the designated PayPal address.
I have thought about creating a database with credit card information, but that is too scary -- so I am looking to see if there is a way for a customer to allow me to do unattended charges to their PayPal account, much like I would be able to do if I had a database with customer credit card information.
Any direction would be appreciated.
Yes, this is possible. There are two options:
PayPal Express Checkout with a Billing Agreement
This works similarly to Preapprovals (which is Adaptive Payments, a different set of API's). You would need to redirect the buyer to PayPal in order to accept the billing agreement, and from then on you can bill the user using to DoReferenceTransaction API.
PayPal DoDirectPayment (Website Payments Pro) with Reference Transactions
You would need to have an existing transaction, and instead of a billing agreement ID, you would submit a prior transaction ID to the DoReferenceTransaction API. You can then re-bill the user on the card details which are stored with PayPal (up to 1 year. assuming the card details are still valid).
Do note that both options require you having access to the DoReferenceTransaction API, which you will not have access to by default.
For further information on the API itself, see https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=developer/e_howto_api_nvp_r_DoReferenceTransaction
Important: You will need to call in to get Billing Agreements activated. Good luck finding someone that knows what you need (no really) :-)
You will eventually find someone who knows what DoReferenceTransaction is and then once you've finally found them they'll probably tell you they can only activate it in the sand box and transfer you to someone in the Business Office. They'll have to then submit it to approval with someone else. Est. Total call time 59 minutes 8 seconds.
The guy I just spoke with said he's probably handled only 2 call in a year about DoReferenceTransaction - so you may need to ask around. They have other subscription billing and that's not what you want.
Also realize that approval is not instant and you may need to have established history. The guy who helped me said this is the best number
888 215 5506. Be sure to explain why you need them carefully and try to reassure them you're legitimate. A reputable website behind the domain for your paypal email will probably help.
Good news: I applied for Reference Transactions Friday and was approved today (Sunday). This was for two accounts - one which had only been established the day before.
Thank you for contacting us about enabling reference transactions on
your PayPal account.
I am pleased to inform you that your request has been approved. You
can begin using this feature immediately.
If you have further questions regarding this email, please contact a
Merchant Services Specialist at 1-888-221-1161.
Sincerely,
AJ Merchant Risk Operations
I was trying to do this recently and I found this question with no luck because the Express Checkout with a Billing Agreement method is deprecated since January 1, 2017.
There is a new REST method called Vault payment methods that recently entered open beta and it's not in the official documentation (to this date), so I leave the link to Create transactions when your buyer isn't present, in case someone needs it.
The process it's explained in the documentation but basically, you need to create a payment token (the source can be a PayPal account or a credit card), and then use that token to capture the payment.