First, notice I have read many post regarding this topic, but the info provided is not enough for me or is not accurate.
I´m developing a website with AngularJS and Ruby on Rails that offers different services. Users can subscribe to these services (one or many) and they get a Paypal Recurring Payment (through a profile) to pay these services (using merchant API). For a fixed amount the service is working ok for me.
The problem is, the amount can be different from one period to another, depending on the number of services the user is subscribed.
I have read Paypal docs, but It´s still not clear to me what is the right approach.
My approaches are:
Once a user subscribes a new service, I can remove the existing recurring payment profile (with fixed amount) and create a new one. This would be ok, but I have read I can´t delete a profile automatically from my application. I can only create. In order to delete an existing profile, I have to do it manually, by login in my business paypal account and delete it. If true, then this is not a solution for me, because I can´t do all flow automatically. However, this is quite strange for me. Is this true? If not, could you please let me know how to do it?
Although, I have not read deep on it, I read on a post I can use Reference transactions to implement this. Is this right?
UPDATE
https://developer.paypal.com/docs/classic/express-checkout/integration-guide/ECReferenceTxns/#recurringreftxns
As far as I understood, Reference transactions let me vary the amount to get from the buyer when I run it, but the problem is that this operation does not executes recurring (managed by Paypal). I should keep the logic in order to execute it from my application. Right?
Any other approach or clarification is welcome.
UPDATE
My first approach is to create just one variable recurring payment with the amount of all services subscribed. But, maybe the solution is to create a recurring payment profile per each service?
1) This is true if you're using Standard Subscription buttons, but if you're working with the Recurring Payments API you can cancel the profile using ManageRecurringPaymentsProfileStatus.
2) Yes, with reference transactions you can charge any amount you need to at any time, but it would be left up to you to build your own recurring payments system, basically, utilizing reference transactions. You could have a script run each day that goes through all your accounts and processes due payments accordingly.
Another option would be to have your users create a Preapproval profile and then use the Pay API to process payments using the preapproval keys. This is very similar to reference transactions.
Related
I am have been using rails for about a week now and have created a website/app which for simplicity's sake we can call a job board. Users can create listings which other users can then apply for. Everything is working as desired. The next thing that I want to set up is the ability to charge users to create the listings.
After extensive searching, I can't find any tutorials that explain this process, just the typical cart and checkout for selling physical products.
I have been pondering solutions but I wanted to consult here for pro advice.
For the payment process (at least for now) I will most likely use active merchant and Paypal as I am based in Europe.
My current doubts are with setting up the modeling.
Would it be better to create a new model eg. 'credits', have users purchase 'credits', then run a variable when trying to create a 'job', eg. if_user_has_credits post the job else link to buy_credits_path, or is there a more direct way of achieving this through the already functional user and jobs models?
Any advice on setting up this functionality would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
I would try to create a credit system, so users just have to purchase credits and you can just drive the user to purchase credits in case they do not have enough for create a listing:
Simple one: Store the user' credit as balance field in the database, and all actions ("add", "deduct") are logged but not used to compute the latest balance. The balance-based way gives you fast access to the current amount
History based: Don't store the balance in database. The balance is computed by looking at the history of transactions, e.g. ("add", "deduct"). The history-based way gives you auditing. The history table should store the transaction, a timestamp, the balance before the transaction happened, and ideally a way to track the funds' source/destination.
You can use both. See the Ruby toolbox for bookeeping and Plutus
I recommend also using logging, and ideally read about secure log verification and provable timestamp chaining.
For logging details see techniques for ensuring verifiability of event log files
I am creating a very basic online store that allows users to buy and customize certain products. I have gotten the payment system working using Stripe, and all that is left to do is provide the seller with a place to view the completed orders (which should contain Shipping Address, order configuration, etc).
I expect that this app will receive very, very low traffic (it's more for fun than anything), so I do not need a super robust admin system. I thought it would actually be sufficient to pass order information to stripe as metadata, and have the seller view the order information on stripe. However, a potential problem I see is that there might be more data than the metadata limit (20 key/value pairs, 500 val limits). Would it be better to create an admin system on my side (using webhooks to notify the application when the payment has been processed)? Thanks!
Stripe is really only meant to handle the payments part of the equation. The order part is normally handled on top of Stripe (either in your own system or some third party), with that system linking order ids to charge ids.
Having your own order admin page would normally make more sense in the Stripe model, since Stripe only stores the amount charged and not much more.
Also unless you're doing subscriptions, no need to wait for a webhook. The Create Charge API is synchronous so you'll know when the payment was processed instantly.
I'm making a site for a coaching company, and they've requested that we somehow keep card information on file (I informed them that that is a big no-no, and most payment API's will handle that side of things for us) so that we can charge the cards 'on-demand'. For example, the person shows up to a coaching session, types in a pin, and it charges their card for one session.
Best case scenario- this also works for an online store as well for payment processing. Once the card is on file, they can create a card, punch in their password, and they are good to go.
We are currently using Authorize.net with Ruby on Rails. I'm still fairly new to the development world, and this is my first time needing to handle payment processing. As far as I have seen, there isn't as much documentation as there should be. They would prefer not to use Stripe, as it has high per-charge fees, and most of our fees are $8-$15, and they also want to avoid PayPal, as it has been known to freeze accounts for no good reason.
Storing credit card information on your side is not practical for two reasons - security and cost (PCI compliance). Your best option is to use Stripe or Braintree.
Both offer great libraries and work as payment aggregators (no need for a merchant account with a bank to start processing payments).
https://stripe.com/docs/api#cards
https://developers.braintreepayments.com/ios+ruby/sdk/server/payment-method-management/create
For Authorize.Net, you would use Customer Information Manager for secure data storage. http://developer.authorize.net/api/reference/starting_guide.html#customerInfoManagerID
I have a client who recently changed the scope of a project I was building for them, to a marketplace.
Previously users had to pay a nominal fee to register for the site...I was handling credit card transactions using Active Merchant.
For the marketplace that they now want to build they want to build a simple escrow-type system...the payment to the seller gets released when the buyer receives the product.
This will be difficult for several reasons:
How will the system be able to determine when the item has been received? The receiver could simply lie about it. I know paypal does something similar, but they use the tracking number from the shipping company to determine this.
How do I go about depositing payments in the sellers account? It's easy to process the payment from the buyer, but how do I get this money to the seller?
For #2 I was thinking it might be possible to use some sort of paypal account to handle this...I haven't looked into any specifics yet. Any idea where to start?
Paypal may be able to handle #1 as well, if I am lucky.
Any suggestions?
We used PayPal Adaptive Payments for #2... still hunting for a solution to facilitate the transaction between User A and User B with the marketplace taking a %...
Would love to hear more answers!
In regards to #1 - I'd require some sort of signed receipt on delivery. That would depend on the value of the goods, at the lower range tracking receipt + some sort of reputation system to remove people who abuse the system has worked for me in the past.
In regards to #2, disbursements; I'd recommend you look at our product Balanced. It's built to solve exactly this problem so I think it's a good match.
Balanced will allow you to collect funds into an escrow account and then disburse the funds as a separate action which allows you to split the funds up or group them together as required. Payouts are done via next-day ACH (US only) but we're building out international support.
Balanced has an excellent ruby gem since you're building in Rails and there's an ActiveMerchant plugin if that's what you are/have integrated with.
I know it's possible to sit between a payer and payee using PayPal by just storing payee's PayPal account information.
Is it possible to take a percentage of the that transaction and pay it to a different PayPal account. Basically acting as a service fee for using our website?
If it helps, I would probably be using Active Merchant for rails.
What you are looking for is called "Chained Payments". You can take a commission from a payment, and the remainder can be split with one or more payees. The original payer only sees you. Chained payments are one of the several types of workflows you can get through the "Adaptive Payments" API.
More info on:
https://developer.paypal.com/webapps/developer/docs/classic/adaptive-payments/integration-guide/APIntro/
and pages 18 and 19 of the following manual on Adaotive Payments manual at cms.paypal.com/cms_content/US/en_US/files/developer/PP_AdaptivePayments.pdf
I was looking into this very same scenario, and I believe I've found that it is supported via PayPal's Website Payment Pro API. It appears as though there are several available use cases, such as:
Taking a cut, as you described
Dividing up a single customer payment among multiple payees (so if you have a shopping car where you resell items from several different providers, you can divide the payments up based on who provided each item)
Take a look at the document here and see if it fits your needs. I'd be very curious to hear how your integration goes, since I'm looking at something very similar for my forthcoming site.
https://www.x.com/docs/DOC-1328
EDIT: You should also take a look at the Adaptive Payments API. That was the other service I found that may fit this use case...
https://www.x.com/community/ppx/adaptive_payments
You can automatically charge transaction fees between the payer and payee if you use the Amazon Payment Service. It explicitly supports your business model.