Recurring payments is a feature that has been on the to-do list for some time because it is not such an easy feature to implement. Most hosting providers do not even support recurring payments. This was until Mollie announced they are now supporting recurring payments. As Mollie is a widely used payment provider it became useful for us to offer this feature as well. RO Payments now supports recurring payments in a basic form.
RO Payments now supports recurring payments through Mollie. Although the options are quite basic at the moment, this should be enough to get you started on recurring payments.
Setting up recurring payments
The first step is to create a profile in which you enable the recurring payments.
By setting the Subscriptions to Yes, the other options become visible and can be set.
Recurring Settings
There are several settings you can configure to fine-tune the recurring settings to your needs.
Description
The description is shown to the customer when they pay or when a payment is deducted.
Number of payments
This is the number of times the amount should be deducted from the customers account. In this example the customer will be charged 2 more times after the initial payment. Leaving this field empty will cause the subscription to run indefinitely.
Interval
The time between each payment. This can be specified in days, weeks or months. The maximum interval is 1 year.
Customers
The Customers page will list all customers as they exist in Mollie except any changes done outside of the website. The site is not notified about these changes, so cannot update the information as such. To bring customer data up-to-date you can use the sync button. This will synchronize all the customers with Mollie for all the profiles you have setup as recurring. The customer list can be filtered on profile, so you see customers for a specific profile instead of all.
A customer can be removed by selecting a customer and click the Delete button on the toolbar. This will remove the customer from the local system and Mollie. Be careful as you cannot undo this action.
Subscriptions
The Subscriptions page will list all subscriptions as they exist in Mollie except any changes done outside of the website. The site is not notified about these changes, so cannot update the information as such. To bring subscription data up-to-date you can use the sync button. This will synchronize all the subscriptions with Mollie for all the profiles you have setup as recurring. The subscription list can be filtered on profile, so you see subscriptions for a specific profile instead of all.
To cancel a subscription, you can select a subscription and click Cancel in the toolbar, this will cancel the subscription for that customer. The customer will have to pay for a new subscription to start a new subscription.
Other information
Start date of the subscription
The subscription starts on the day the customer makes the initial payment.
Creating orders on the website
RO Payments does not create any orders for any extension on the website. At the moment it only starts the subscription, shows a list of the subscriptions and allows you to cancel the subscription.
Identifying customers
Customers are created at Mollie with an email-address and name. The name only if provided.
Recurring Payment Flow
Once you have setup recurring payments, it is time to start using them. The flow is as follows:
- Customer goes to the website and selects a subscription
- RO Payments initiates a payment
- Customer is send to Mollie to complete the payment
- Mollie sends the customer back to the website
- RO Payments creates the customer at Mollie
- RO Payments creates the recurring payment for the customer at Mollie
- Customer is shown payment result message