tech Posted February 20, 2010 Share Posted February 20, 2010 (typo 'happens') I'm still learning WHMCS before my first sale. I'm trying to understand how Paypal works for subscriptions. Q1: If there's a hosting package, and domain, in an order, the checkout summary has correct totals, but when I go to pay with PayPal it only shows the subscription being setup for the hosting item ('modify' settings enabled). I stop there. Will it automatically setup a second subscription after the first is setup? Or will the customer just have a balance due in their account for the domain, and need to setup that subscription separately? With 'modify' settings disabled, it does charge the trial full amount in the first billing, but no mention of what happens when the yearly domain renews. Q2. If I have customers on subscription already (outside of WHMCS, using a different program), and i add them into WHMCS, how does WHMCS automatically know when they have paid? Is their payment tracked through Subscription ID? How does IPN work in this case? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WHMCS Support Manager WHMCS John Posted February 21, 2010 WHMCS Support Manager Share Posted February 21, 2010 1. Domain names do not create subscriptions, so the client will need to manually pay for the renewal of their domain a year later. 2. WHMCS can't know about these payments, you'll need to cancel the subscriptions and have the client re-create it via WHMCS. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tech Posted February 21, 2010 Author Share Posted February 21, 2010 What if I have addon products/services that are monthly subscriptions? If they order at initial signup, the setup fees are added to create a trial amount. This is good. But if they order addons later, that creates a 2nd paypal subscription right? The problem is they may get confused if they have many subscriptions. Most of my clients will order addons, although not at initial signup. I'm trying to keep things as simple as possible. If I enable paypal modify settings, the trial amount can't be used, which would mean I'd have to send a 2nd invoice for setup fees. That may be confusing. However, is it better in the long run to be able to modify subscriptions vs deal with them having 2 or more? Maybe I need a merchant account to do things as simply as possible... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WHMCS Support Manager WHMCS John Posted February 21, 2010 WHMCS Support Manager Share Posted February 21, 2010 Ordering an addon would not create a PayPal subscription. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tech Posted February 21, 2010 Author Share Posted February 21, 2010 Hmm... that's a problem! Should I go with a subscription that can be modified, then I can adjust it so all of their monthly charges are in one payment? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WHMCS Support Manager WHMCS John Posted February 21, 2010 WHMCS Support Manager Share Posted February 21, 2010 PayPal don't allow you to modify the subscription as you see fit, it's pretty limited. The modify subscription option means that customers will be given the option to create a new agreement or modify an existing one when going through the subscribe process. Saving you from having to cancel a subscription and create a new one. When a client upgrades/downgrades modifying of the subscription does not occur at the time of the upgrade, it occurs on the next renewal invoice (when the client logs in to pay the new amount). However it doesn't allow the client to specify the amount of the subscription, it's defined automaticlaly based on the product's recurring amount. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tech Posted February 21, 2010 Author Share Posted February 21, 2010 Thanks for the info. Here's a scenario: Client orders Monthly Product A on 1st of the month $20 -> subscription created & paid Client orders Monthly Addon B on the 15th of the month, $10 setup + $20/mo -> no subscription created, one time payment I need to add the price of the Addon $20 to their subscription on the 1st of the month. What's the best way to go about doing that? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WHMCS Support Manager WHMCS John Posted February 21, 2010 WHMCS Support Manager Share Posted February 21, 2010 That would not be possible. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tech Posted February 21, 2010 Author Share Posted February 21, 2010 (edited) 1. Would I need to cancel the subscription A, and invoice them for the new monthly charges and start a new subscription? 2. If I made an Upgrade package which includes Product A & Addon B, can they upgrade and keep the same subscription modified with a higher price? (I don't mind if it takes effect the next month) Edited February 21, 2010 by tech 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tech Posted February 21, 2010 Author Share Posted February 21, 2010 I'm now looking into configurable options for what I'm trying to do. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knipper Posted February 22, 2010 Share Posted February 22, 2010 I too just had a problem occur. Hopefully someone can explain. A customer ordered a domain and hosting and paid via paypal. The hosting subscription was charged to his account, but NOT the domain. It shows up on his as paid, and on my account as well. However the clients WHMCS client area shows an open invoice for the total amount of both items. In my admin area the order shows as unpaid, including the subscription item, which appears to have been transferred successfully. Do I have a configuration problem, or is this how it should be handled. If this is correct, then other than the paypal e-mail WHMCS does not record the payment info... this must be done manually. Then do I have to create a seperate invoce for the customer to pay for the domain and actually get it registered? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WHMCS Support Manager WHMCS John Posted February 22, 2010 WHMCS Support Manager Share Posted February 22, 2010 As I mentioned above PayPal subscriptions don't cover domains. When viewing the invoice, is there any payments listed in the transactions section? If not, this suggests you haven't configured the IPN correctly: http://wiki.whmcs.com/PayPal 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
niels Posted February 22, 2010 Share Posted February 22, 2010 As a side note: be very careful accepting PayPal both inside and outside of WHMCS. I have legacy customers who don't use WHMCS; their subscription payments get handled by a separate script. When these same customers sign up for more services, using WHMCS, often the "new subscription" they create for WHMCS somehow hijacks their old non-WHMCS subscription. Meaning I get a "subscription modified" rather than a "new subscription created", and payments to the legacy service stop. I now ask customers to cancel their non-WHMCS subscriptions and re-create them in WHMCS when they want to place additional orders. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knipper Posted February 22, 2010 Share Posted February 22, 2010 As I mentioned above PayPal subscriptions don't cover domains. When viewing the invoice, is there any payments listed in the transactions section? If not, this suggests you haven't configured the IPN correctly: http://wiki.whmcs.com/PayPal Thanks John, The only thing I noticed is was my URL didn't have a trailing slash at the end of the address. I added one and may try to test again. No, there were NO payments listed in the transaction. But as mentioned both I and the customer got the e-bay emails showing both the first subscription payment, as well as an ongoing subscription notice. Thanks! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WHMCS Support Manager WHMCS John Posted February 22, 2010 WHMCS Support Manager Share Posted February 22, 2010 eBay email? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knipper Posted February 22, 2010 Share Posted February 22, 2010 eBay email? Paypal e-mail! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tech Posted February 25, 2010 Author Share Posted February 25, 2010 I've had to change my pricing to adjust for a few of these limitations. New question: If a client upgrades configurable options mid-cycle, they are not billed for any setup fees that are normally part of the options. I guess I'll need to invoice them for that separately, and all other setup fees. (Paypal modify is enabled.) When they upgrade their options and pay, is that just a one time prorated fee? or at the end of the cycle does it detect a subscription in place and offer them to modify subscription to include the new fees on the invoice? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WHMCS Support Manager WHMCS John Posted February 25, 2010 WHMCS Support Manager Share Posted February 25, 2010 ...At the end of the cycle does it detect a subscription in place and offer them to modify subscription to include the new fees on the invoice? Yes, this is what happens. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tech Posted March 26, 2010 Author Share Posted March 26, 2010 Any way to have a product with a 30 day free trial, then auto-charge thereafter? I could do a $1 trial, but that may not be as appealing. It seems I have to make 2 separate products for this, meaning the client has to manually go in an choose to upgrade. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tsoprano Posted May 16, 2010 Share Posted May 16, 2010 I too just had a problem occur. Hopefully someone can explain. A customer ordered a domain and hosting and paid via paypal. The hosting subscription was charged to his account, but NOT the domain. It shows up on his as paid, and on my account as well. However the clients WHMCS client area shows an open invoice for the total amount of both items. In my admin area the order shows as unpaid, including the subscription item, which appears to have been transferred successfully. Do I have a configuration problem, or is this how it should be handled. If this is correct, then other than the paypal e-mail WHMCS does not record the payment info... this must be done manually. I've had this same problem a few times now. Customer signs up for domain name and hosting subscription through paypal. Invoice is for the combined amount but only the hosting is billed by paypal and subscription is created leaving the domain portion unpaid.. Is there a setting I have wrong or is there an easy work around for this?? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WHMCS Support Manager WHMCS John Posted May 17, 2010 WHMCS Support Manager Share Posted May 17, 2010 That is expected behaviour, domains never generate subscriptions. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oempire Posted May 17, 2010 Share Posted May 17, 2010 i actually just ran into this again today. cust signed up - paid for monthly hosting , yearly domain name. cust made paypal subscription which covered the hosting component, domain component still unpaid. it also makes it hard, if you have the paypal option force subscriptions - as it keep forcing them to pay the monthly amount. I would think in this type of situation the best way it should work is 2 invoices are generated one covering the hosting, one for the domain name.. but it does work that way and is rather messy 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WHMCS Support Manager WHMCS John Posted May 17, 2010 WHMCS Support Manager Share Posted May 17, 2010 @oempire: Do you have the Modify Subscriptions option enabled in Setup > Payment Gateway? Disabling this should resolve the issue. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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