Best way to receive membership subs. payments

PayPal_barry
Moderator
Moderator

I am the membership secretary of a non-profit making society (the Society for Environmental Geochemistry & Health). I would like to set up a simple system for members to pay their subscriptions, so they don't have to use cheques. Please could you advise? Thanks

Login to Me Too
6 REPLIES 6

PayPal_barry
Moderator
Moderator

Hi there, whether you have a website or not, you can still accept recurring payments for your goods and services.  For further instructions on how to use and customise PayPal Subscriptions, please follow these steps, or have your site developer take a look at them:


• Go to the PayPal website and log in to your account.
• Click the "Merchant Services" tab.
• Click "Website Payments Standard" in the left column.
• Click "Website Payments Standard Integration Guide (PDF)" in the lower left column.


By the way, did you know that PayPal offers a lower fee rate for charities receiving donations with us of 1.4% + 20p. If you run a non-profit organisation you can apply for this rate.

To apply you need to have a Business PayPal account and have identified your business category to be ‘Non-profit’ in the Business Information section found on the Profile page.

You will then be contacted and asked to provide some documents to assist us with our review. The following are some of the documents you may be asked to provide:

• Evidence of tax-exempt status and/or registration with any applicable regulatory bodies governing your jurisdiction
• Link to confirm the organisation's registration status online (if applicable)
• A brief organisational summary or Mission Statement
• Subordination letter from the parent organisation (if applicable)

Login to Me Too

spamcan26
Contributor
Contributor

I have signed up for a business account, been to the button factory and created a hosted subscription button with a drop down menu and text box.

The problem is that PayPal does not tell me which of the subscription options the user has selected, so I have to email each customer and ask them what they paid for.  Paypal also strips off the contact information and anything the customer provides in the text box, despite displaying it to the customer.  It makes me look like an incompetent bozzo and not the smart, professional organisation which PayPal promises.

 

All I receive in my notification email from PayPal or when I lookup the transaction is

Subscription details

Amount received:£5.00 GBP
For:Membership
Amount paid each time:£5.00 GBP
Maximum amount you can bill:£5.00 GBP
Billing cycle:

Yearly

 

This is a fundamental problem with PayPal's hosted buttons.

 

Also, I would like the email sent to my membership secretary rather than the account holder.  How do I do this?

 


Correction: The information from the text box is there if I sign in to my PayPal account and look at the 'created' entry for the recurring payment. However, the fact remains that the option is not available anywhere (I have temporarily changed the price of each option so they are unique), nor is the contact phone number which the customer enters on their order form and the information should be in the email to facilitate order processing.

Login to Me Too

websi7
New Community Member

I am using subscriptons fine some which inc a trial period which are cancelled later

 

How can I list only active subscriptions? at present you can only see them and the cancelled ones, my member numbers show as 170 on the register but I have no way of knowing who are ACTIVE until their payment fails or does not arrive.

Login to Me Too

PayPal_david
Moderator
Moderator

Hi there spamcan26,

 

This could possibly be a technical issue that is preventing your information from being received in email notifications or transaction history. I have passed the information on to the relevant people who can investigate your query further for you in order to determine if it is a known technical issue. I won't be informed on if it is a technical issue but I can in the mean time give you some information that will assist you in locating what type of service has been purchased from your buyer.

 

You can view the details that the buyer chose during checkout as follows:

 

1)      Login to the PayPal account and click on 'History'.

2)      Locate the creation of the Recurring Payment Profile and click on Details.

3)      The next page should display the Profile ID, the item name, and the optional selections

 

Alternatively:

 

1)      Login to your PayPal account and click on 'Profile'.

2)      Click on Recurring Payment Dashboard.

3)      Locate the new Profile and click on it.

4)      The next page will display all the subscription details.

 

Another alternative that you would have would be to activate Instant Payment Notifications instead of email notifications. This is a feature that will notify you every time a new transaction has been completed and will POST  the details of the transaction back to the URL that you specify.

 

You will need to create a script that manages the data returned from PayPal, and then you can, for example, send the data to your email or store it in a database.

 

To enable IPN, follow the steps of the following video example:

 

https://ppmts.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/ppdts.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=748

 

For more information about IPN:

 

https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?&cmd=_render-content&content_ID=developer/e_howto_admin_IPNIntro

 

IPN Script generator:

 

https://paypaltech.com/sg2/

 

If you are still facing difficulties or if you would like more information, you can go directly to our Merchant Technical Support page and submit a ticket. This can be donw by clicking the following link:

 

https://ppmts.custhelp.com/

 

In regards to your query websi7. I don't think that you can specify what options you have when searching subscriptions. When you search subscriptions, it will show all of the subscriptions to you in a big list. This includes active and cancelled. There is no way to search just active subscriptions when looking on the subscriptions page. If a buyer has cancelled a subscription from their PayPal account, it should show as cancelled and it should not attempt to process a payment from their account to your PayPal account.

 

I hope this has answered your questions and please let me know if there is anything else that you need,

 

David.

Login to Me Too

spamcan26
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks for that paypal_David.  The only trouble with IPN is that it requires a webserver and SSL certificate (if I read it correctly).

 

Might go that route if I have to, but would rather that the simple email system sent the info. Or are you recommending IPN because of the open nature of email (and thus lack of confidentiality?)

 

Do you have an answer to the second part of my question - how do I send notification to another email address (eg membership not account holder)?

 

Thx

Login to Me Too

PayPal_david
Moderator
Moderator

Hi again Spamcan26,

 

To be honest, I don't know too much about IPN as I don't have a large amount of knowledge about the technical side of PayPal but they were the two options that I was advised of when you are trying to view what service the subscriber has purchased from you.

 

I just noticed there that I didn't include the answer to your second query previously and I sincerely apologise. I thought I had everything answered but I obviously missed that part. The notification that would be sent by PayPal would always be sent to the primary email address on the account that the subscription was activated on. It isn't possible to change the email address when PayPal notifications are being sent to the subscriber. The only way for this to be done would be to update the email address that is registered on the PayPal account.

 

What they would need to do is go to Profile, then Email Address. From here, they can then click Add new Email address (remember to confirm the new email).

 

And then select the new Email and make it Primary. The new notifications should be sent to the Primary email in the account.

 

I know that it may not have been what you were expecting to hear but I hope the information helps,

 

Please let me know if there is anything else that you need.

 

David.

Login to Me Too

Haven't Found your Answer?

It happens. Hit the "Login to Ask the community" button to create a question for the PayPal community.