WHMCS and PayPal Recurring Payments

[ComputerTrophy]

Is it me or do we all have to manually cancel PayPal recurring payments when one's VPS is terminated/cancelled?

It's the pain of having many clients and having to check through each and every cancellation/termination to make sure they're not using recurring payments before you get a peace of mind.

Not to mention, since I don't want to be receiving payments from former customers, I get worried every time somebody pays an invoice.

Is there a way to cancel recurring payments automatically once a subscribed customer cancels their VPS?

 

[Damian]

No, and no to both of those. It's the customer's responsibility to cancel the customer's subscriptions, as it's the customer who sets them up from the customer's Paypal.

It's extremely rare that anyone ever complains. I might get one or two complaints a month that we're "charging their Paypal account", even though that's completely impossible for us.....

For the one or two that you do get, just refund their overpayment. Not a big deal.

 

[peterw]

Recurring payments of Paypal are bad because

• it is not easy to cancel recurring payments as a customer in Paypal
• if you buy a second product Paypal wants to update the existing recurring payment instead of opening a new one

Second is terrible because it does update the amount and not the time.

 

[shovenose]

Recurring payments of Paypal are bad because

• it is not easy to cancel recurring payments as a customer in Paypal
• if you buy a second product Paypal wants to update the existing recurring payment instead of opening a new one

Second is terrible because it does update the amount and not the time.

Yeah, they'll end up with weird amounts of account credit at odd times while having overdue invoices.

 

[MartinD]

Recurring payments of Paypal are bad because

• it is not easy to cancel recurring payments as a customer in Paypal
• if you buy a second product Paypal wants to update the existing recurring payment instead of opening a new one

Second is terrible because it does update the amount and not the time.

Cancelling a subscription in PayPal is piss easy - not sure why you think it's not easy...?

 

[Roger]

For the one or two that you do get, just refund their overpayment. Not a big deal.

For this refunds Paypal charges you the $0.30 USD fixed transaction fee which is non-refundable to merchants. This is a real issue with recurring payments.

 

[peterw]

Yeah, they'll end up with weird amounts of account credit at odd times while having overdue invoices.

The recurrent payments are a mess when they are updated through WHMCS. It should be possible to add a new recurrent payment instead.

Cancelling a subscription in PayPal is piss easy - not sure why you think it's not easy...?

If you have a Paypal account where there is more than one transaction per month (ebay + wife + 2 daughters + 1 son) then you have to search through all the transactions to find the 11 month old payment of your vps.

1. Log in to your PayPal account.
   
2. Click Profile near the top of the page.
3. Click My money.
4. Click Update in the My preapproved payments section.
5. Search for the one payment you want to cancel
6. Click on details
7. Click Cancel, Cancel automatic billing, or Cancel subscription and follow the instructions.

Point 5 is nasty and time consuming. Searching my mails to find the date when I ordered the server and find the correct payment entry. But only if you did not order something else because then the recurrent payment was updated and you have to find that entry to cancel the recurrent payment.

 

[SkylarM]

5. Find your most recent transaction to the company and then click the "View recurring dashboard" or just go to the recurring/pre-approved dashboard and find it there.

I run the business beta theme so not sure where it is in classic, but

Transactions -> Dropdown change to Subscription Agreements > change date to a very broad date, and find the one company you wish to terminate the subscription to.

Alternatively if you have a lot of subs/transactions you can contact your provider asking for the paypal transaction ID for your most recent invoice and then navigate to it that way (if they are willing of course)

 

[mikho]

Last time I checked paypal you could filter on active subscriptions.


That makes it easy.

 

[nunim]

Last time I checked paypal you could filter on active subscriptions.


That makes it easy.

They have like 4 different things they call subscriptions now, some are subscriptions, some are reoccurring payments, some are billing agreements, etc.. Not as simple as it should be.

 

[MartinD]

The recurrent payments are a mess when they are updated through WHMCS. It should be possible to add a new recurrent payment instead.

If you have a Paypal account where there is more than one transaction per month (ebay + wife + 2 daughters + 1 son) then you have to search through all the transactions to find the 11 month old payment of your vps.

1. Log in to your PayPal account.
   
2. Click Profile near the top of the page.
3. Click My money.
4. Click Update in the My preapproved payments section.
5. Search for the one payment you want to cancel
6. Click on details
7. Click Cancel, Cancel automatic billing, or Cancel subscription and follow the instructions.

Point 5 is nasty and time consuming. Searching my mails to find the date when I ordered the server and find the correct payment entry. But only if you did not order something else because then the recurrent payment was updated and you have to find that entry to cancel the recurrent payment.

Well, no offence, that's more of an issue with how you manage your paypal account and subscriptions - not really the providers fault, is it?

 

[BuyCPanel-Kevin]

Typically if a paypal subscription is set up to pay for the license and the license is marked as cancelled the money is just put into the clients credit balance, and it can be used towards the payment of other licenses. I don't think there is any automated way to cancel a paypal subscription, just notify the user that they need to cancel it, then the responsibility is shifted from you to the client.

 

[Damian]

For this refunds Paypal charges you the $0.30 USD fixed transaction fee which is non-refundable to merchants. This is a real issue with recurring payments.

Pardon my bluntness, I only ask to learn: how is it a real issue?

 

[WSWD]

For this refunds Paypal charges you the $0.30 USD fixed transaction fee which is non-refundable to merchants. This is a real issue with recurring payments.

I have never been charged a transaction fee when issuing a refund.  The PayPal fees have always been refunded for me.

 

[Damian]

I have never been charged a transaction fee when issuing a refund.  The PayPal fees have always been refunded for me.

You don't get a specific "refund fee" charge, but if you're:

-On standard Paypal, Paypal keeps the $0.30 base transaction fee.

-On micropayments Paypal, Paypal keeps some small percentage of the fee. I forget the exact value, but it's tiny.

We're on micropayments, vis-a-vis:

In this case, you can see that the refund fee that was levied was $0.05, which is (almost literally) tuppence, hence my inquiry as to why this is a real issue. Even at $0.30, still much cheaper than having bad press on forums and websites for not refunding a customer.

If you're not accounting for these, your numbers are going to be slightly funky.

 

[qps]

The way around the PayPal "refund" fee seems to be if you only have exactly the net amount of the transaction in your account, PayPal will just issue the refund.  So, in Damian's example above, if you had an account balance of $2.29, the refund would go through with no fee.

 

[Aldryic C'boas]

The "way around" is that you accept a 0,30$ loss off the refund is simply the cost of doing business.  It's called overhead.

When I see people start talking about typical business expenses being 'an issue', I honestly just start eyeballing the calendar to place my bets on a deadpool.