Advanced Features Guide

Table Of Contents

Express Checkout Advanced Features Guide April 2012 55

Handling Recurring Payments

Billing the Outstanding Amount of a Profile

Use the BillOutstandingAmount API to immediately bill the buyer for the current past

due or outstanding amount for a recurring payments profile.

NOTE: You can also bill the buyer for the current past due or outstanding amount for a

recurring payments profile from the PayPal website.

To bill the outstanding amount:

 The profile status must be active or suspended.

NOTE: The BillOutstandingAmount API does not reactivate a suspended profile. You

need to call ManageRecurringProfileStatus to do this.

 The profile must have a non-zero outstanding balance.

 The amount of the payment cannot exceed the outstanding amount for the profile.

 The BillOutstandingAmount call cannot be within 24 hours of a regularly scheduled

payment for this profile.

NOTE: An error occurs when another outstanding balance payment is already queued.

PayPal informs you by IPN about the success or failure of the outstanding payment. For

profiles created using Express Checkout, the buyer receives an email notification of the

payment.

Recurring Payments Notifications

PayPal notifies you of recurring payments events through IPN and email. Typically, however,

you can call GetTransactionDetails to obtain the information you need.

PayPal notifies you of certain events through IPN. For recurring payments profiles created

using Express Checkout, PayPal also notifies buyers of specific events by email. The

following table indicates when PayPal generates IPN and emails: