User's Guide
Table Of Contents
- Contents
- Preface
- Managing Payflow Services
- Using the SDK to Perform Recurring Tasks
- About Recurring Billing Profile Actions
- Using the Add Action
- Required Parameters for the Add Action
- Using the Modify and Reactivate Actions
- Required Parameters for the Modify and Reactivate Actions
- Using the Cancel Action
- Required Parameters for the Cancel Action
- Using the Inquiry Action to View Information for a Profile
- Using the Inquiry Action to View the Status of the Profile
- Using the Inquiry Action to View the Status of Payments
- Required Parameters for the Status of Payments Inquiry Action
- Using the Payment Action
- Required Parameters for the Payment Action
- Testing Recurring Billing
- Obtaining Consent to Bill Customers Using Recurring Billing
Payflow Pro Recurring Billing Service User’s Guide July 2011 9
1
Managing Payflow Services
This chapter provides a high-level overview of the tasks you can perform using PayPal
Manager and the Payflow SDK.
IMPORTANT: You must have prior authorization from the customer to bill on an automated
schedule. See Appendix A, “Obtaining Consent to Bill Customers Using
Recurring Billing,” for additional details.
In This Chapter
“About Payflow Services” on page 9
“Recurring Billing Terms” on page 10
“Overview of Recurring Billing Actions Using the Payflow SDK” on page 10
“Overview of the Payflow Services Interface in PayPal Manager” on page 11
About Payflow Services
NOTE: You must obtain each customer’s consent to bill them on an automated schedule.
Appendix A, “Obtaining Consent to Bill Customers Using Recurring Billing” presents
the relevant sections from PayPal’s Merchant Services Agreement.
To configure a customer to be automatically billed on a schedule, you define a recurring
billing profile for that customer. The profile specifies the 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.
NOTE: Recurring billing supports credit card and ACH accounts. For details on ACH payment
management, see the Payflow ACH Payment Service Guide on Developer Central.
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 perform most recurring billing tasks using either PayPal Manager or the Payflow
SDK.