Recurring billing can be set up in two ways.
A. using the price list kept on the InternetSecure
servers, (See Step one in Easy Setup.) and B.
using the Product string method of passing the
information. (See Product Strings and Encryption.)
The recurring billing information is passed
in the flags field or set up in the flags field
of the price list. It looks similar to an HTML
tag;
{RB amount=9.95 startmonth=+1 frequency=monthly
duration=3 email=2}
Note: If the curly braces ( "{" "}" )
or any other of these fields are not included
in the flags column then an item will no be
entered into recurring.
The above example would charge a customer 9.95
on a monthly basis for 3 months, starting one
month from today. It would send a notificaton
of the impending charge 2 days in advance.
Recurring Billing Tag Attributes
There are 8 attributes that the recurring billing
tag can accommodate. They are listed below with
an explanation of what each does.
- amount
- this is used to specify the amount that
will be charged for each recurring billing.
It can be the same as the original price of
the product, or it can be different. The format
of this attribute is: amount=price
e.g. amount=10.99
- startdate
- the startdate tells the system when to start
billing the customer. The date is in the format
mmddyyyy. This attribute can not be
used in conjunction with the startday, startmonth
or startyear attributes. The format for this
attribute is startdate=mmddyyyy e.g.
startdate=04281997
- startday,
startmonth and startyear - these attributes
are used to tell the system when to start
billing the customer. Values are relative
to the day the transaction was completed.
The attributes are formatted as: startday=(+)number
startmonth=+number and startyear=+number
e.g.
startday=+5 means to start billing 5 days
from today
startday=5 startmonth=+1 means to start billing
on the 5th day of next month
startmonth=+1 means to start billing one month
from today
startyear=+1 means to start billing one year
from today.
Note: the startday attribute is the
only one that does not require a + in front
of the number, and that is ONLY when it is
used in conjunction with the startmonth attribute.
- frequency
- the frequency attribute tells the system
how often to process the charge. There are
eight different values available:
- daily
- weekly
- biweekly
- monthly
- bimonthly
- quarterly
- semiannually
- annually
The
format of the frequency attribute is frequence=value
e.g. frequency=monthly
- duration
- the duration attribute affects how many
times to repeat the charge. This value can
be anywhere between 0-31. 0 represents an
unlimited number of times. This attribute
is formatted by duration=value e.g.
duration=0 means to precess that charge until
otherwise changed.
- email
- finally, the last attribute is email. This
tells the system how many days in advance
to notify the customer of the impending transaction.
The value must be between 2 and 7. The email
attribute is formatted as email=value
e.g. email=3 means to notify the customer
three days in advance of the impending transaction.
Recurring billing is an option that must be requested
by the merchant and approved by InternetSecure.
If you would like to use the recurring billing
system, please notify InternetSecure of the request
at service@internetsecure.com.
Managing Recurring
Billing
The management of the recurring billing database
is the responsibility of the merchant.
Once you have recurring billing properly setup,
your recurring billing database will start filling
up with transactions. Each of these recurring
transactions has a Next Date value associated
with it. The Next Date value indicates
when the transaction should be processed. For
example, if a monthly recurring transaction
is created with a Start Date of 'Aug 1, 1998',
then the Next Date value is also filled
with 'Aug 1, 1998'.
The transaction is processed on 'Aug 1, 1998'
and if approved, the Next Date value
is changed to 'Sept 1, 1998'. If the transaction
is declined, the Next Date value stays
at 'Aug 1, 1998' and the recurring transaction
is set inactive. When a transaction is inactive,
it is ignored by the recurring system and not
processed until it is reactived.
Viewing the Recurring Billing Database
You can view all these transaction in the Recurring
Billing menu of the Merchant
Administration area.
The Recurring Billing menu offers two
choices:
Querying
Recurring Database
Add Recurring Transaction
To view your recurring billing database, select
"Querying Recurring Database". This will
bring up a new page that allows you to view your
database by supplying certain information.
Viewing a Specific Recurring Transaction
To view a specific recurring transaction, simply
enter the Recurring Tracking Number in
the field provided, and press the Submit Query
button. The recurring tracking number is unique
to each recurring transaction.
You can also view the recurring transaction by
entering in an I.S. receipt number or by
entering the name of the customer. When searching
by customer name, you can type the full name or
just part of the name. For example, typing the
name 'Smith' in the customer name field will list
all the recurring transactions that have the name
anywhere in the customer name field.
Inactive Transactions
Inactive transactions are recurring billing transactions
that have been processed and declined. Normal
queries will not show inactive transactions. To
view them you must use the Inactive Recurring
Transaction Query. This will list all of your
inactive transactions, so it could be a big list.
Clicking on an inactive transaction will show
all the information about the customer and products.
From this view you can reactivate the transaction.
To reactivate a transaction, you can click on
the Activate All button. If you only want
to reactive certain products, then you should
click on the Activate button beside the
appropriate product.
