Developer's Guide

Payflow Recurring Payments Developer’s Guide 9
Recurring Payments Overview
Limitations
Limitations
The current release of Payflow recurring payments has the following limitations:
z A recurring payments profile can have at most one optional trial payment period and a
single regular payment period.
z The recurring payments profile start date may not be earlier than the profile creation date.
Recurring Payments Terms
Table 1.1 lists commonly used terms related to Payflow Recurring Payments.
TABLE 1.1 Payflow Recurring Payments Terms
Term Meaning
Payment The amount that is transacted during each regular payment
period, not including shipping and tax. It is represented by the
Payflow AMT parameter. Payments differ from transactions.
Several transactions may be required to successfully perform a
payment for a payment period, for example, because of a lack of
funds during the first transaction attempts.
Regular payment period The period during which a single regular (non-trial) payment is
made. It is represented by the PAYPERIOD parameter. If, for
example, a $42 payment is due on a monthly basis, the regular
payment period is monthly.
Trial payment period An optional subscription period before the regular payment
period begins. It is represented by the TRIALPAYPERIOD
parameter. A trial payment period and trial payment may differ
from the regular payment period and regular payment.
Term The total number of regular or trial payment periods. It is
represented by the TERM and TRIALTERM parameters. If there
are 36 monthly payments, for example, the term is 36. On the
PayPal website, term is called payment cycle.
Recurring payments profile Your definition of a recurring transaction for a single buyer. The
profile includes all information required to automatically bill the
right person the right amount per payment period over the billing
frequency.
Profile ID A 19-character string PayPal generates to uniquely identify a
recurring profile.
Outstanding balance If a payment fails for any reason, that amount is added to the
profile’s outstanding balance.