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To set up AutoBill-based recurring billing with PayPal, you must be preapproved by PayPal to conduct reference transactions. Contact Vindicia Client Services for more information. Note: Not all merchants will be authorized to obtain the referenceId from PayPal. Work with your PayPal representative to obtain the right to use this process. If the PaymentMethod exists and contains a ReferenceID for PayPal, Subscribe uses that PaymentMethod. If thePaymentMethod does not exist, or does not contain a Reference ID for PayPal, Subscribe returns a URL in the authStatus field. The consumer can be redirected to the URL to make a payment.

Set up recurring billing in an AutoBill

  1. Set the following for the PayPal payment method (PaymentMethod object and its payPal attribute) on AutoBill, or on the Account object if the settings are not specified on AutoBill:
    1. Set emailAddress to the subscriber’s email address.
    2. Set returnUrl to an existing URL on your site to which the customer will be redirected after a successful authentication with PayPal.
    3. Set cancelUrl to an existing URL on your site to which the customer will be redirected after a failed authentication, that is, if PayPal does not authorize the payment information.
  2. Call update() to create the AutoBill object, and return a TransactionStatus object. The TransactionStatus object must contain a URL in the redirectUrl field, to which the customer will be redirected to complete the PayPal payment process. Without completion of this step, recurring billing will not begin.

Retrieve the redirectUrl

While waiting for the customer to complete payment at PayPal, the AutoBill object will have status: PendingCustomerAction. The object is dormant and will not perform any billing. At the PayPal site, the customer logs in and agrees to the contract for recurring billing. When the process is complete, the customer clicks a button that takes them to your success page (returnUrl) or failure page (cancelUrl). From the success page, make the finalizePayPalAuth() call to inform Subscribe of successful authorization of the PayPal-based payment method. After receiving the successful authorization, the status of the AutoBill object changes to New , indicating that the subscription has started and that the AutoBill will start billing the customer according to the specified dates.

Finalize the PayPal payment method authorization

For every subsequent transaction performed by the AutoBill object, no action will be required from the customer. PayPal will notify the customer when the transaction is complete. That notification is in addition to any communication issued by your organization through the Subscribe email notification system. For more information, see the Using Subscribe with PayPal white paper, available from Vindicia Client Services. Parent topic:Working with AutoBills