Setting up a payment plan

A paymentCommerce: the verification of a money transaction in a website shopping situation. The e-commerce system most often needs a verification for a payment to create the actual purchase order and complete the shopping workflow. plan works exactly like processing an order, except that a payment plan spreads payments over time, giving you flexibility in how you sell your products, and how a customer pays for them. Use a payment plan for large and complicated orders, orders that need to be shipped in sequence, magazine or grocery subscriptions, or expensive items.

A Customer Service Representative (CSRStands for "customer service representative") sets up a payment plan to generate recurring payments. Payment plans are handled in the background through the Subscription payment plan scheduled job.

1. Go to Order Management > Payment Plans (recurring).
2. Open up the Payment Plans List and click New Payment Plan.
3. Select a customer contact to whom the payment is attached. The Payment Plan New page appears.
4. Complete the form as you would when creating an order.
5. Set the cycles and parameters of the Payment Plan Details.

   

   • Plan Cycle. (Cycle Mode)

     You can choose from the following plan cycles, which determine how often the customer is charged.

     • No Cycle. No recurring paymentCommerce: Payments initiated by Commerce Manager on a regular cycle, used in a subscription-based scenario. is created. The customer is charged once when the initial purchase order is created.
     • Daily Cycle. Recurring payment happens daily from start date.
     • Weekly Cycle. Recurring payment happens weekly from start date.
     • Monthly Cycle. Recurring payment happens monthly from start date.
     • Custom1/Custom2. These are placeholders for developers to create custom cycles within the Mediachase.Commerce.Orders.PaymentPlanCycle class.
   • Cycle Length. Entering a value of 1 or higher determines the unit of time for the Plan Cycle. For example, if the Plan Cycle is Daily, and the Cycle Length is 3, a transaction occurs every three days. If the Plan Cycle is Monthly and the Cycle Length is 1, a transaction occurs each month.
   • Max Cycles. Determines the maximum number of cycles to run for this payment plan. For example, if the Max Cycles is set to 2, payment plan stops after two transaction cycles. If you want the plan to go on indefinitely, set Max Cycles to 0.
   • Completed Cycles. This tallies the number of completed cycles since the payment plan was created. When initially creating the payment plan, set this field to 0.
   • Start Date. Set the start date and time when recurring transactions begin.
   • End Date. Set the end date and time when recurring transactions end.
   • Is Plan Active. True enables the payment plan. Set False to create the payment plan but keep it inactive.
   • Last Transaction Date. Logs the last transaction date. Leave the date and time fields as is when you create the payment plan.
6. Click OK.

Payment plan order details screen

The payment plan begins when the first purchase orderCommerce: An order that has been registered and paid for. Typically, it has an associated purchase order number. is generated. You can create the purchase order manually (by clicking Create First Purchase Order) or automatically by the payment plans scheduled job.

After you create a new payment plan, a new Order page appears. This is slightly altered from the original Order detail page that appears after creating a new order. The changes include:

• Inability to manage shipmentCommerce: a collection of products from a purchase order, ready to be shipped after going through inventory check and other verifications. (release shipments for further processing).
• An Orders tab that shows a history of processed purchase orders from this payment plan.
• A Create First Purchase Order button that a CSRStands for "customer service representative" clicks to create the first purchase order related to this payment plan. The button disappears after creating the first purchase order manually, or if the payment plan scheduled job runs and generates the first purchase order. The payment plan goes into effect after the first purchase is generated.
• The generated purchase order number includes the parent ID of the payment plan. For example, if the payment plan parent ID is 35, subsequent purchase orders are numbered as PO35XXX.
• When a payment is added to a payment plan, the customer is not charged. The payment plan simply collects payment information until converted to a purchase order. The customer is charged once the purchase order is generated for the first time (and through subsequent purchase orders).

Editing and canceling a payment plan

1. To edit an existing payment plan, go to Order Management > Payment Plans (Recurring) or Today/This Week/This Month/All. Click the payment plan ID number to open the payment plans order details page and make edits.
2. To cancel a payment plan, click Summary then click Cancel Payment Plan.

Creating a recurring payment plan using Authorize.Net

Episerver Commerce supports the Authorize.Net recurring payment plan gateway. For information about setting up payment methods, see Payments.

1. Go to Administration > Order System > Payments > (Language) and create a new payment methodContains information about the way a customer views a payment option and has a payment gateway associated with it. Examples: credit card, pay by phone, cash on delivery, and exchange payment. or select an existing payment method (such as Pay by Credit Card).
2. When you set up the parameters of the payment method, select the Mediachase.Commerce.Plugins.Payment.Authorize.AuthorizePaymentGateway class name.

   

3. Click Yes for Supports Recurring.
4. Click OK.
5. Click the name of the payment method again and click Parameters.
6. Configure your Authorize.Net account for both regular payments and recurring payments.