PayPal Payflow - 2006 User Manual

Payflow Link
Recurring Billing
Service User’s Guide

For Professional Use Only
Currently only available in English.

A usage Professional Uniquement
Disponible en Anglais uniquement pour l'instant.

Last Updated: December 2006

Payflow Link Recurring Billing Service User’s Guide

200005.en_US-200612

© 2006 PayPal Inc. All rights reserved. PayPal, the PayPal logo, Payflow, and Payflow Pro are registered
trademarks of PayPal Inc. Other trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners.

The information in this document belongs to PayPal Inc. It may not be used, reproduced or disclosed
without the written approval of PayPal Inc.

PayPal (Europe) Ltd. is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority in the United
Kingdom as an electronic money institution. PayPal FSA Register Number: 226056.

Notice of Non-Liability

PayPal Inc. is p ro viding the information in this document to y o u “AS-IS” with all faults. PayPal Inc. makes
no warranties of any kind (whether express, implied or statutory) with respect to the information
contained herein. PayPal Inc. assumes no li ability for damages (whether direct or indirect), caused by
errors or omissions, or resulting from the use of this document or the information contained in this
document or resulting from the application or use of the product or service described herein. PayPal Inc.
reserves the right to make changes to any information herein without further notice.

PayPal Inc. does not guarantee that the features described in this document will be announced or made
available to anyone in the future.

Contents

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

This Document. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Organization of This Guide. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Customer Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Chapter 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

About Recurring Billing Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Recurring Billing Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Chapter 2 Managing Recurring Billing Service. . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Recurring Billing Tasks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Adding a New Recurring Billing Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Converting a Test Profile to Live St atus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Modifying Profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Searching and Managing Profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Configuring Customer’s Email Notification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Configuring Merchant Email Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Generating Reports to Track and Review Recurring Transactions and Settings . . . . . 5

Chapter 3 Creating a Recurring Billing Profile with Electronic Checks 7

About Recurring ACH Payments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Adding ACH Recurring Payment Profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Customer Email Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Email Payment Summaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Chapter 4 Testing Recurring Payments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Testing Recurring ACH Payments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Testing Guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Credit Card Numbers Used for Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Testing Result Code Responses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Payflow Link Recurring Billing Service User’s Guide 3

Contents

Appendix A Obtaining Consent to Bill Customers Using Recurring Billing

11

Appendix B Example Administrative Summaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Example Expiring Credit Card Notice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Example Detailed Daily Transaction Summary Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Example Detailed Daily Transaction Summary Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19

4 Payflow Link Recurring Billing Service User’s Guide

Preface

This Document

This guide describes how to perform recurring billing transactions. The Recurring Billing
Service is a scheduled payment solution that enables you to automatically bill your customers
at regular intervals—for example, a monthly fee of $42 for 36 months with an initial fee of
$129.

Organization of This Guide

This guide contains the following:

z Chapter 1, “Introduction,” contains an overview of the Recurring Billing Service.
z Chapter 2, “Managing Recurring Billing Service,” describes the recurring billing

operations available in PayPal Manager.

z Chapter 3, “Creating a Recurring Billing Profile with Electronic Checks,” describes the

creating a recurring billing profile in PayPal Manager.

z Chapter 4, “Testing Recurring Payments,” describes how to test your implementation.
z Appendix A, “Obtaining Consent to Bill Customers Using Recurring Billing,” outlines

your responsibilities in obtaining prior authorization from the customer to bill on an
automated schedule.

z Appendix B, “Example Administrative Summar ies,” contains examples of the summary

messages.

Customer Support

PayPal is committed to providing you with the most advanced technical support expertise to
ensure availability and reliability of your e-commerce applications. For details, see your
Service Level Agreement.

For integration and connectivity issues, PayPal provides online documentation, direct email
support, and phone support. For technical support on shopping carts, contact the vendor.

Online Info: http://knowledge.paypal.com/paypal/categoryBrowse.do

This site provides a FAQ (frequently asked question) section

Payflow Link Recurring Billing Service User’s Guide 5

Preface

Customer Support

Email: [e-mail]
Phone: [phone]

6 Payflow Link Recurring Billing Service User’s Guide

Introduction

1

Recurring Billing Service is a scheduled payment solution that enables you to automatically
bill your customers at regular intervals—for example, a monthly fee of $42 for 36 months with
an initial fee of $129.

About Recurring Billing Service

To configure a customer to be automatically billed on a schedule, you define a recurring
billing profile for that customer. The profile specifies the credit card account to bill, the
associated contact information, the amount to charge each time, the payment period (monthly,
weekly, and so on), and the term (the number of payments) of the agreement.

When you submit the data, PayPal generates the new profile, activates it, and automatically
performs the billing on the specified schedule. As time goes on, the profile stores both the
configuration information that you supplied and the transaction and payment history for the
account. When the term is complete, the profile is mature and no further automated
transactions occur.

When defining the profile, you have the option to perform an initial transaction that differs
from the recurring transaction, for example, to perform a no-charge transaction that validates
the account information or to charge an initial fee. In addition, you can specify how to handle
declined transactions.

You can also perform the following tasks:

z Search for profiles by profile ID, profile name, credit card number, comment, and amount

of payment.

z Convert any Sale or Delayed capture transaction into a recurring profile.
z Prepare reports.
z Send email receipts and notification of failed transactions to customers (available through

PayPal Manager only).

z Deactivate profiles with payment problems.
z Specify criteria for automatic cancellation of profiles with chronic payment problems.

NOTE: You must obtain each customer’s consent to bill them on an automated schedule.

Appendix A contains additional information.

Payflow Link Recurring Billing Service User’s Guide 1

Introduction

1

Recurring Billing Terms

Recurring Billing Terms

Payment. A payment is the sum that is transacted during each payment period. Payments

differ from transactions. Several transactions may be required to successfully perform a
payment for a payment period; for example, due to a lack of funds during the first transaction
attempts. Once a transaction succeeds for a payment period, the payment is marked as
successful.

Payment Period. There is one payment made per payment period; for example, a $42

payment on a monthly basis. In this example, the payment period is Monthly.

Profile. A profile is your definition of a recurring transaction for a single customer. The

profile includes all information required to automatically bill the right person the right amount
of money at the right time for the right period of time.

Profile ID. A 12-character string (generated by PayPal) that uniquely identifies a recurring

profile. Test profile IDs start with the characters RT and live profile IDs with RP.

Term. The total number of payment periods over the duration of the agreement. For example,

a three-year, monthly payment contract has a term of 36. It is important to remember that the
term defines the number of scheduled payment periods, and not payments actually made. See
the definition of Mature Profile for further details.

Mature Profile. A profile is considered mature when the term is complete (the total number of

payment periods for the profile have occurred). Remember, however, that even though the
number of payment periods specified by the term has occurred, the customer might have not
made all scheduled payments.

2 Payflow Link Recurring Billing Service User’s Guide