PayPal Subscriptions / Recurring Billing


This guide will explain how to setup your STORE Enterprise website to sell products where a recurring amount will be taken automatically from your customer.

NOTE: Your website will be able to sell subscription/recurring products ONLY. It is not possible to sell subscription and non-subscription products on the same website. This is a limitation of the Paypal Subscription service.

NOTE: The product you are selling can only be a single item/service

For example, if you have 3 items that are part of the same service/package, each of the 3 items have to be setup individually and purchased separately.

This is because it is not possible for the customer to 'unsubscribe' from one of those items specifically. Paypal treats each product as one item.

1) STORE Enterprise Setup Instructions (part 1)


1.1) Site Admin > Payment Setup > PayPal and PayPal Subscription

1.2) Force Payment Type (drop down) = PayPal Subscription

1.3) Enter your PayPal account details

NOTE: PayPal PDT Token can be located by following steps below (2.2) under the 'Payment Data Transfer' settings.

1.4) Site Content > Pages - create a new page with a 'filename' of callback.html

2) PayPal Setup Instructions


2.1) My Account > Profile > My Selling Preferences > Website preferences - Update

2.2)
  • Auto Return = On
  • Return URL = FULL URL of the page you created in step 1.3 e.g. http://www.yourwebsite.co.uk/callback.html
  • Payment Data Transfer = On
  • Leave all other settings as they are

2.3) Turn ON 'Instant Payment Notifications' (IPN) - My Account > Profile > My Selling Preferences > Instant Payment Notifications

3) STORE Enterprise Setup Instructions (part 2)


3.1) Site Admin > Ordering Setup

3.2) Locate 'Basket Limit' and set value in this box to '1' - this limits the amount of products a customer can put in the shopping basket and is essential.

3.3) Create a product in the normal way under Products > Products, HOWEVER when you create the product, ensure that the 'Unit' is either 'per month' OR 'per year'

Thats it! Once your customer places an order, the new transaction will appear in your PayPal Account History. You can setup further instructions about the payment in there e.g. refund / request a change to the occurance of the payment (agree with customer).

4) (optional) PromoServe Instructions


It is also possible to download your orders in to PromoServe and import a statement (provided by Paypal) to match payments against the order, ultimately telling your nominal ledger that you have been paid each month.

4.1)

  • Ensure the order(s) placed on your STORE Enterprise website are downloaded in to PromoServe (via DataXchange).
  • Ensure a 'Recurring Invoice' for the order has been generated

4.2) Log in to your PayPal account and download the CSV report of transactions: My Account > History

Select a 'Custom Date Range' for your report. From the drop down of 'File Types for Download' select 'Comma Delimited - All Activity' then click the 'Download History' button.

Save the file to a folder you will remember later (prefereably a folder you will always use for this task)

4.3) 'General Ledger and Accounts' > Nominal Codes

Go in to the 'Bank Accounts' tab and highlight your main bank account.

4.4) Click the +Statement button at the bottom of the screen...

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4.5) If this is the first time you are running this process, click the 'Configuration' tab and use the following settings...

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  • Bank = Your bank account
  • Account = Your account number
  • Import Format = PayPal
  • Import File Path = path of the file that you downloaded in 4.2

  Click the 'Save' button to save the settings. This is why it's a good idea to save the CSV file that you download from PayPal  to the same location each time.

4.6) Go Back to the 'Payments and Receipts' tab and click the 'Import Statement' button...

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4.7) NOTE: The following must only be done AFTER your recurring invoice has been generated. Your invoice should be at the status of either 'New Invoice' or 'Printed'.

You then have the option to click either the 'Match Payment' button (highlighted line), or the 'Auto Match' button (all transactions).

Once a payment is matched to a Sales Order, the 'Statement Entry' screen will display a 'Processed Successfully' comment. the status of the invoice will also change to 'Paid'...

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