Integration Guide

PayPal Payments Standard Integration Guide June 2012 201
Recurring Payments – Automatic Billing Buttons
Creating Advanced Automatic Billing Buttons on the PayPal Website
4
Tracking Inventory and Profit and Loss for Automatic Billing Buttons
If you save payment buttons in your PayPal account, PayPal can track inventory and can track
profit and loss for the items that your buttons sell. PayPal can track inventory and profit and
loss for items themselves or separately by product options.
Use the Step 2 section of the button creation tool to specify the information that lets PayPal
track inventory and profit and loss.
Tracking Inventory
If you track inventory, PayPal helps avoid oversold situations. PayPal sends an alert by email
when your inventory on hand falls to or below the alert level you specify. You can let oversold
payments go through, or you can warn buyers and prevent them from specifying more than
your quantity on hand.
Tracking Profit and Loss
If you track profit and loss, PayPal helps you understand the profitability of your items. Enter
the cost of your item, and PayPal provides profit and loss reports based on the volume of sales.
Make sure to include all you costs to sell the item, including costs to acquire it and handle it
until sold.
Adding HTML Variables to Automatic Billing Buttons
Some advanced features of payment buttons can be specified only with HTML variables. If
you understand HTML programming and the advanced HTML variables supported by your
payment button, enter them in the button creation tool before the button code is generated.
Use the Step 3 section of the button creation tool to enter advanced HTML variables that you
want to include in your payment button.
Generating Code for Automatic Billing Buttons and Email Payment Links
When you create payment buttons with tools on the PayPal website, PayPal generates HTML
code for them. Then, you copy and paste the HTML code onto the pages of your website.
In addition to HTML code, PayPal generates URL code for email payment links. Use email
payment links to add payment button functionality to your email messages. Your web editing
tool or your service provider might not let you paste HTML code onto your webpages. If they
do not, try pasting the URL code for email payment links onto your webpages instead.
Protecting HTML Code for Automatic Billing Buttons
When you create payment buttons on the PayPal website, PayPal lets you protect the HTML
code that it generates by encrypting part of it. Protecting the HTML code of your payment
buttons helps protect against malicious tampering and fraudulent payments.