What Is A Recurring Product?

A recurring product will form a sale that will automatically bill your customer at a specified interval. These types of products are typically used for such items as web hosting, membership services or ‘Item of the Month’ type products.

In order to use recurring products, you must use the Plug-n-Play parameter set and have these products created within your account. Keep in mind, only credit cards are accepted for recurring products. If you need assistance with creating products, this article will help you.

What Types Of Options Can My Recurring Products Have?

2Checkout currently supports recurrence intervals that will allow the sale to bill your customer every week, month or year. You also have the freedom to set how many of the intervals must pass for the sale to bill. This means you can set a sale to bill every 1 week, 2 weeks, 8 weeks, 7 months or even every 2 years.

Recurring products must also be given a duration, or the total amount of times the sale will bill before it stops billing. You can currently set a recurring product to bill for any specified number of weeks, months, years, or this can be set so the sale bills forever until it is canceled.

By combining your interval and duration you can set a sale to bill for exactly how long you need it to. If you wish to sell a 6 week e-book subscription where you will deliver a new e-book to your customer and bill them every week. To set this up we would create a product that bills every 1 week for 6 weeks. Recurring products can be both intangible product that require no shipping or tangible products which do require shipping. A tangible recurring product will be charged shipping on each installment that is billed. Shipping charges cannot be applied to intangible products.

If you need to add a charge for any reason you can set a start-up fee, which will be added to your products price on the first billing only. This start up fee will only be charged at the initial purchase. Setting a $10 startup fee would allow you to bill your customer, for example, monthly for $20, but charge the customer $30 the first billing.

You may also use a negative startup fee to lower, but not eliminate, the initial charge. Setting a -$10 startup fee would allow you to bill your customer, for example, monthly for $20, but charge the customer $10 the first billing.

Recurring products may be edited, but this will NOT effect current recurring orders for those products. Editing a recurring product will only effect orders placed for that product after the changes have been saved.

What Options Do I Have For Tracking My Sales?

Once a recurring sale has been placed, it can be viewed inside your 2Checkout account on its sale details page. This will show you each installment that has taken place, when it was billed and how much it was. It will also contain all your customer information and sale information just like regular non-recurring sales. If you need help finding a sale inside of your account, this article will assist you.

The “Declined Recurrings” report and the “Recurrings to Bill” report will help you track your recurring sales. The “Declined Recurrings” report will show you each sale that has declined and for what reason it declined. When a recurring sale declines your customer is sent an email notifying them of this and they are provided a link to update the billing information they have on file. Suppliers will also receive a copy of this email so they are aware that a billing was not successful. When a customers updates the billing information the sale will attempt to bill again. If the customer does not manually update the billing information the system will automatically attempt to bill the sale every seven days. The “Recurrings to Bill” report will show you the recurring sales on your account that are set to bill again and when they will bill.

Can I Automate Sales Tracking?

Using the Instant Notification Service (INS) beta, you have the ability to receive information directly from 2Checkout to your website and any system you have in place when certain events occur.

To enable INS, you first need to build a script (or multiple scripts) that will be accessed by and will receive data from our server. The INS User Guide will assist you in developing this script.

Once you have your script(s) constructed, you will want to add them to the Notifications section, which can be found under the Account tab. Fill out the text fields with your script URL(s), making sure to enable each notification that you want to get sent to your script(s).

If you need to be notified when an order is created (recurring or not), you can use the “New Order Created” notification setting, which will be called shortly after a new order was placed through your account. This is similar to the Approved URL within your account settings, but it is *NOT* the same. The Approved URL setting can be used to pass the customer (along with data about the sale) back to that URL on your website, whereas the INS “New Order Created” URL will be accessed in the background by our system after the customer is finished with their order. If you want your customer to be returned to a URL on your website after they place a sale, you will want to use an Approved URL. Otherwise, if you want to just receive data about the new order created, you can use the INS “New Order Created” setting.

Setting the notification URLs for recurring orders can be done using the last five notification items, and are as follows:

• Recurring Installment Successfully Billed — The “New Order Created” URL setting is called (if it is set) on the first time a recurring product is ordered. Then, this “Recurring Installment Successfully Billed” gets called every time the order successfully bills after the initial purchase.
• Recurring Installment Failed — Whenever a recurring order fails to bill, this URL is called. Failures will happen whenever a customer’s billing details can not be billed successfully. This typically happens when a customer’s credit card has expired, or if the customer does not have sufficient funds within their account.
• Recurring Stopped — This URL will be called when a recurring order was stopped before its recurrence length is finished. This URL will be called whether the vendor or a 2Checkout agent ends the recurrence on an order.
• Recurring Complete — This URL will be called when a recurring order successfully bills its final sale and the recurrence has ended. Keep in mind, you will receive an additional call from the “Recurring Installment Successfully Billed” along with a call to the “Recurring Complete” URL.
• Recurring Restarted — When a recurring product has been re-started from previously being stopped, this URL is called. This URL will be called when a 2Checkout agent re-starts billing on a recurring order.

Once you have these URL settings enabled, you will start receiving INS calls as soon as they happen. If you have any issues with the INS or you require assistance with the INS parameters, please don’t hesitate to open a support ticket in the Tech Support category.

How Can I Stop A Recurring Sale?

To stop a recurring sale so it no longer bills, the supplier will need to access the sale detail page we discussed earlier and click the “Stop Recurring” link located at the bottom of each line item on every recurring installment. Once this link is clicked, it will read “Restart Recurring”. Suppliers have the ability to stop a recurring sale whenever they wish. Customers can also contact 2Checkout.com to request the billing be stopped. Suppliers will be notified when this happens and may be requested to provide information before we stop the sale.

If an order or recurring installment is in approved status it can still be canceled without the customer being charged or 2Checkout fees applied to the suppliers account. If an order is in pending or deposited status a total or partial refund can be issued to the customer. If the order was passed in using our plug and play parameters individual products and shipping charges can also be refunded by using our line item refund feature.

To cancel or refund an order please follow these steps:

1. Click on the Sales Tab near the top of your account homepage.
2. Click on either the sale number you wish to cancel/refund under the recent sales display or use the sale locater to bring up the order.
3. To issue a refund click on the Refund Sale button on the top left of the order.
4. Here you will be required to select a reason for the refund, enter a comment and click on submit refund.

To issue a partial refund please follow these steps:

1. Click on the Sales Tab near the top of your account homepage.
2. Click on either the sale number you wish to partially refund under the recent sales display or use the sale locater to bring up the order.
3. To issue a partial refund click on the “Issue Partial Refund” button directly under the invoice number.
4. Here you will be required to select a reason for the refund and enter a refund amount, enter a comment and click on submit refund.

To refund a line item please follow these steps:

1. Click on the Sales Tab near the top of your account homepage.
2. Click on either the sale number you wish to access under the recent sales display or use the sale locater to bring up the order.
3. To issue a line item refund click on the refund button listed in the refund column between the product name and amount.
4. Here you will be required to select a reason for the refund, enter a comment and click on submit refund.

To cancel a recurring billing please follow these steps:

1. Click on the Sales Tab near the top of your account homepage.
2. Click on either the sale number you wish access under the recent sales display or use the sale locater to bring up the order.
3. To cancel the recurring billing click on the stop this recurring link listed by the product name.

Please note: The refund option may not be displayed on a sale based on the following criteria:

• Your username does not have authorization to issue refunds (basic editing access).
• The sale is over 60 days old.
• The invoice has no balance left to refund.
• For a line item refund, the line item has already been refunded.
• For a line item refund, the line item amount is more than the
  remaining balance on the invoice (this can happen on an invoice with one
  line item and a coupon or on an invoice with a partial refund).
• It’s an online check order that has not been deposited.

Please feel free to contact us directly for refund assistance.

Related Articles:

• Is There a Time Limit on Issuing Refunds?
• What Are 2Checkout’s Refund and Dispute Policies?
• Adding Sale Comments

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1. Login to your account.
2. Click ‘Set up Products’ on the main page.
3. Click ‘New Recurring Product’ in the upper right hand corner of the screen.
4. You will see a screen with several fields. Any field with an ‘*’ is required and must be completed. All others are optional. Below a description of each field follows.

Your Product ID (Required) – This is an internal reference number for your use. A part number, bin location or other reference that will be useful to you. This field can consist of only letters and numbers with no spaces or special characters.

Name (Required) – This is the name or title of your product. Keep this as short as possible (no more than 30 characters) or it can cause the payment page to become distorted.

Description – This is what your product is. We recommend you keep this short as well to keep the payment page from becoming distorted.

Price (Required) – This is how much the customer will be charged each payment cycle. Do not include any currency symbols (like ‘$’) in this field or errors will result.

Start Up Fee – This is a one time fee billed together with the first installment. This amount will be billed only once, not on a recurring basis.

Weight – If you plan to use our shipping systems and will ship by weight, specify the weight here.

Handling – If there are any product-specific handling charges, they go here. These charges are above and beyond your normal shipping charges, and are only applied if this product is purchased, they are applied for each product ordered, i.e. if 3 of this product are ordered, the customer will be charged 3 times this amount. Do not use currency signs (like ‘$’) and do not use commas. Prices can be specified in whole numbers or as decimals to 2 places (example: 4.95).

Tangible (Required) – This indicates whether or not your product is tangible. Tangible goods must be shipped in a timely manner in order for you to receive payment. Tangible goods are also subject to sales tax for Ohio customers. This field must be set correctly, if 2Checkout becomes aware you have deliberately lied about whether or not a good is tangible, your account will be suspended, and further penalties may apply. Note that if you set this field to intangible, the customer will not be charged for shipping and the option to select shipping methods will not be shown on the order page.

Pending URL – The Pending URL field is no longer used and may be left blank as 2Checkout no longer accepts e-checks as a payment method.

Approved URL – This is the URL your customer will be returned to when the payment has been confirmed. Most credit card orders will be sent here.

Recurrence (Required) – This is a two-part field. The first part is a numerical field that tells us how long between billings as a number. The second box tells us the unit of time measurement, current options are; weeks, months and years. So, if you want a customer to be billed once every month, you would put in a ‘1′ in the first box, and then select ‘months’ from the second drop-down box. Note that we no longer support daily recurring billing.

Duration (Required) – Like the last setting, this is a two-part field. The first part is a numerical field that tells us how long to continue billing as a number. The second box tells us what unit of time you are referring to. If you put in ‘6′ and then selected ‘months’ from the second drop down, your charge would automatically cease billing after 6 months. If you want to bill the customer until they or you cancel, leave the first box blank and select ‘Forever’ from the second box.

5. Once you have configured the product to your satisfaction, press ‘Create Recurring Product’ to save the product to the database.

Note: For help setting up a single-bill product, please see below.

—-Related Articles—-

• How do I set up a new product?
• Creating a Product CSV

To refund the entire sale, click on “Refund Sale” on the top left of the sales details page. To issue a refund for an individual installment, you will need to click on the “Refund” link listed under the refund column for the invoice. There will be an invoice entry for every installment. When issuing a refund you will be required to select a reason for the refund, enter a comment and click on submit refund. To cancel the recurring billing click on the “Stop This Recurring” link listed by the product name.

Please note: The refund option may not be displayed on a sale based on the following criteria:

• Your username does not have authorization to issue refunds (basic editing access).
• The sale is over 60 days old.
• The invoice has no balance left to refund.
• For a line item refund, the line item has already been refunded.
• For a line item refund, the line item amount is more than the
  remaining balance on the invoice (this can happen on an invoice with one
  line item and a coupon or on an invoice with a partial refund).
• It’s an online check order that has not been deposited.

Please feel free to contact us directly for refund assistance.

If you are a customer who has a recurring service that is billed through 2Checkout.com you will wish to contact 2Checkout.com directly by clicking here.