Integration Guide

Express Checkout Integration Guide May 2010 113
11
Handling Recurring Payments
Set up a recurring payment to handle subscription and other payments that occur on a fixed
schedule.
z Recurring Payments Demo
z How Recurring Payments Work
z Recurring Payments Terms
z Options for Creating a Recurring Payments Profile
z Recurring Payments With Express Checkout
z Recurring Payments Profile Status
z Getting Recurring Payments Profile Information
z Modifying a Recurring Payments Profile
z Billing the Outstanding Amount of a Profile
z Recurring Payments Notifications
How Recurring Payments Work
When you support recurring payments for a buyer, you create a recurring payments profile.
The profile contains information about the recurring payments, including details for an
optional trial period and a regular payment period. Both periods contain information about the
payment frequency and payment amounts, including shipping and tax, if applicable.
After a profile is created, PayPal automatically queues payments based on the billing start
date, billing frequency, and billing amount. Payments reoccur until the profile expires, there
are too many failed payments to continue, or you cancel the profile.
NOTE: When using Express Checkout, the buyer can also cancel a recurring payments
profile.
When a buyer uses Express Checkout, queued payments are funded using the normal funding
source hierarchy within the buyer’s PayPal account.
After you create a recurring payments profile, you can view recurring payments details or
cancel the recurring payments profile from your PayPal account.You can also access recurring
payments reports from the PayPal Business Overview page.
Also, after creating a recurring payments profile, you can use the Recurring Payments API to
do the following:
z Get information details about a recurring payments profile.
z Change the status of a recurring payments profile.