Paypal payments pro and recurring payments

Guys, you should probably consider removing the instructions on your pp payments pro setup tabs in the admin. I actually followed the info that it’s not enough to upgrade to payments pro, but necessary also to request ‘recurring billing capability’. I’ve actually been hounding lame PP about this. All i get from them is that -recurring billing is already part & parcel of payments pro.

So, please revise the instructions unless i’m wrong about this — thanks !

Recurring Payments is an extra service you have to pay for. It’s not default in PayPal Pro, they charge you extra to enable recurring payments. They give it differnet names, they also call it DPRP if you have the non-PayFlow Edition of PayPal Pro. Knowledge Base » PayPal Pro, PayFlow, DPRP, Express Checkout

If they changed that, then ask the person to give you a link to the documentation where it says so, or an announcement about it in their site. Or point you to the page in your PayPal settings where it says that recurring payments are enabled for your account.

Oh, also if have PayPal Pro (PayFlow Edition) and you want to sell subscriptions (recurring payments), for Express Checkout to work you’ll need to have them enable Reference Transactions in your account.

Ok, I just got off the phone with PP and here’s the deal: for “old” accounts (i didn’t ask what = old) you have to request the payflow edition. For new accounts (yay, i am new) it’s there by-default. So, it would be helpful if your doc’n mentioned that and just directed new acct holders to go straight to the payflow credentials setup. Possibly the reason for my confusion on this is simply that PP did not send login to their “manager console” — i have yet to see if everything is available there. ~J

Yeah, I’m sorry you had to go through that. PayPal can be very annoying.

We do have an article, I may link to it from the admin pages. Thanks for the feedback. :)

Knowledge Base » PayPal® Services / A Quick Comparison
Knowledge Base » PayPal® Pro (PayFlow Edition)

Latest update to this:

— the latest confusion is over the exact setup requested by s2member for proper payflow integration. The setup asks for “your payflow API vendor” – but within the latest PP manager (see attched scrnshot) the options do not use the same terminology. My guess is that S2member wants the ‘merchant name’ here… but it’s kinda scary to be guessing things when your site is live and taking orders. Also note the options in the select menu — these are for creating a user for a specific use — seems like that would be a good idea to have a dedicated user defined for s2m integration.. though i’m not sure what “role” options would be correct here…

I see, I don’t know the new interface you’re talking about. Have you asked PayPal what the “vendor” was changed to in the interface you have?

I just googled it and this PayPal page refers to it as vendor: https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/cps/merchant/wppro/WPProIntegrationSteps-outside#SectionD

Use the information to enter the username, partner, vendor, and password in your shopping cart’s configuration or administration screen.

PP is really not doing a good job and updating their info. This “step-by-step” is for older accounts. As you can see, the manager console is completely different. I looked everywhere and there is no API credentials area. Maybe older accounts see this UI but not newer ones. Paypal is obviously not going to bother to make all of this clear, so i think you guys should because someday soon lots of s2m users will run into this also… *Paypal, the most loved way to be confused.

Yeah, they can be troublesome… Have you asked them about it and what credentials you should use now that they changed their names in the interface you have?

Could you show me a screenshot of the interface you have? (obscuring your credentials, of course) I’d like to show it to Jason in case it’s different to his.

There is only an area “integrate” where you can create/customize a checkout page (attached). They say that all that’s needed now is the partner,merchant,user = password to integrate w/payflow.

What do you think i should enter for s2m “Your Payflow® API Vendor:” ??

I am pretty confused as well

My sign up form (http://lifetransformingdiet.com/membership-signup/) has the following error message:
Error #1. User authentication failed: 11452-Merchant not enabled for reference transactions. Please contact PayPal Merchant Technical Support (www.paypal.com/mts) and request Recurring Billing service, and also ask to have Reference Transactions enabled for Recurring Billing via Express Checkout.

I have signed up for Paypal Advanced. Paypal website states for Advanced: Customers pay without ever leaving your website

I also have recurring billing and reference transactions enabled on my account so this should not be a problem??

Please let me know

Thanks

Dave — i was having this issue as well and just got off the phone with PP (call#7!). I found out the following. Despite what anyone may have told you at PP you do need to specifically order & pay for recurring / reference transactions. The way to do this is search for a link on your mgr console home page “buy recurring …”

Do that. It’s $10 per month. If you get a system error upon submit (as i did) just click on through — the console will kick you out and you will have to re-sign in. You should notice that in the lower -right of page there will be a status message saying recurring payments is LIVE.

Now, go to s2m and make sure you have as the vendor” you company name exactly as it is specified on your contact page within the console.

Then, click your heels together and chant “there’s no place like home” 3 times.

ps – i have not been able to confirm that this actually resolves the issue as it takes 24-48 hours for the reference transactions to be enabled. So they say.

I am getting the Error #1. User authentication failed. error now… I’m seeing other s2m threads here saying that the “api vendor” (in s2m) should actually be = merchant login.

sigh.
it would be so nice if the terminology betwn s2m & pp were the same.

After testing with the api vender = merchant login i get the other error saying that recurring / reference trans need to be enabled. I’ll wait 48 hours before testing again.

I actually got it to work with Paypal Advanced.

All I needed to do was delete payflow account details on s2member admin area and now everything works!
For some reason, payflow details prevented it from working. All you need in the s2member admin panel are the regular paypal details.
I also recurring billing plus reference transactions to the Advanced package.

I have a different minor problem now but at least transactions are working:

After user signs up with paypal, first email is sent with username and password – this is from ‘New User Email Message’ under general options
Second email “Congratulations! (your membership has been approved)” which is being sent from ‘sign up email confirmation’ pro form. It states “Your Username/Password will arrive shortly, in a separate email. If you have any trouble, please feel free to contact us.”
Third email which is sent after activation – Your registration has been approved.” This email then includes a new password.

Thus the first email was unnecessary and in fact, that password no longer works after user is activated because the new password in the third email is active

How does one get around this? i.e. first email should not include username and password.
I could delete the username and password in that email but then free subscribers would lack this info?

@david — are you able to use paypal forms with advanced? does it really work? does the user stay on-site and credit cards are accepted? the advanced is like $15, /mo right?

This is finally working for me (!!!).

Conclusion:

The correct fields in s2m are:

Your Payflow® API Username: username

Your Payflow® API Password: password

Your Payflow® API Partner: paypal

Your Payflow® API Vendor: username

James
I had the same problem. Thank god I had a great PP rep. She kept me on the phone and approved everything on the spot.

I still had an issue and I was told by Jason Caldwell to remove everything in my PayFlow sections and it worked. I can now accept single payments as well as installments

Hope that helps

Yes it works
$5 monthly + $10 recurring billing

I still have the problem with multiple email sent out to user as explained above

@ David this sounds like your customer simply changed his pw after buying. Unless it was you that was the buyer! Something is missing from your explanation.

Please repeat all of this and take notes. It’s not really possible for password to change themselves ;-)