How to setup existing PayPal account subscribers; How does PayPal module work?

[risrik]

Hi,

 

I have been offering web hosting to some of my web design clients for a couple of years and just using PayPal subscriptions and no billing system. That is, I just had a link to purchase one of my reseller packages that would take the customer directly to the PayPal monthly subscription sign-up page (I set up the subscription in PayPal) and then I would manually set up an account in my WHM. I decided to use WHMCS and automate the account set up and billing but am a little confused as to how PayPal will be handled.

 

Do my current monthly hosting subscribers have to sign up for an account again or is there a way to transfer their PayPal subscriptions into WHMCS. Do I need to set up specific subscriptions in PayPal or does WHMCS just send payments to PayPal and not for specific products within PayPal. I'm not sure how the PayPal module is handled in WHMCS and would appreciate some help on how to deal with current clients and how PayPal works with WHMCS.

 

Thanks!

[chickendippers]

http://wiki.whmcs.com/PayPal

 

If you import your customers and add their accounts to WHMCS they'll get an invoice when their service is due and will need to create a new PayPal subscription.

Due to limitations with PayPal it is not possible to (reliably) transfer existing subscriptions to WHMCS.

[risrik]

Thanks for responding! I'm unsure of a few things. You said newly imported customers will "get an invoice when their service is due". How does WHMCS know when their service is due when their current PayPal subscription is totally separate from WHMCS? Do I tell it when I import customers? Do I cancel the subscriptions at PayPal and then generate a new invoice for each client for when they would usually be charged next? Or will the PayPal subscription be cancelled automatically if I select a certain setting for the imported customer (and a new invoice will be sent to create a new subscription)?

 

How do I smoothly convert long-time customers from regular PayPal subscriptions to clients in my WHMCS using PayPal for their hosting package? I just want to make sure I do things properly.

[chickendippers]

By the sounds of it you don't currently have a billing system, so you'll find this useful: http://wiki.whmcs.com/Importing_Data#Manual_Data_Entry

 

When you add a new customer's product/service you'll need to enter a due date, this is how WHMCS knows when to send them an invoice.

 

You will manually cancel all subscriptions at PayPal, and WHMCS will automatically generate the invoice based on the due date of the produce/service.

[risrik]

Thanks a lot chickendippers. I really appreciate the help in understanding how things work!

[johnaikin]

I'm struggling with this a little bit as well.

 

Just to make sure I understand.

 

1. My existing Paypal subscriptions all need to be cancelled.

2. I need to remove the paypal subscription ID I've already input manually into the account information

3. The next invoice generated with the system will take the client to Paypal to subscribe again.

 

Is this correct?

 

Do I need to set up different subscriptions in my paypal account or will they simply create their own or use the existing ones I have set up..

 

Is there a way to test this? To make sure it is working? I can't seem to work out any way to do it short of having 2 Paypal accounts.

 

Thank you for your patience.

[chickendippers]

Well if you went to the trouble of manually entering the subscription Ids into the product information, you should probably contact support who can hook you up with a PayPal redirect script, so you don't need to cancel the subscriptions.

 

Other users have reported this works, but I didn't want to risk it.

[othellotech]

you dont need to cancel the existing subscriptions, if as CD says, you enter the subs-id into the field on the product for each client and setup the paypal idn callback - although if you only have a few it can be a good exercise to contact all the clients, discuss your new system and guide them through cancelling and recreating - you'd be suprised ow many then order new items too