Recurring Profiles Questions

[Briantist]

I've done a lot of work with the API, but I haven't done anything with
recurring profiles yet and my account is not auto-bill capable. Since
there is no test/dev account access, I have no way to test this stuff
so I have some questions about implementation:

1. Can the recurring profile immediately create the first invoice and
charge it? If so, how is that done (which calls have to be made with
which parameters)?

2. I see that I can enter card information directly in the recurring
API calls. Is there any way to create an invoice (either automatically
from the profile or a one-off invoice), let a customer pay for it
online, and then tell the recurring profile to use that credit card
number as the auto-bill number? Basically I'm trying to avoid having
to accept the card number myself, and instead having them enter it
directly in FreshBooks.

Thanks!

[Fresh Marcos]

Hey there,

Recurring profiles are not dependent on auto billing, so you can test it using your account. Auto billing just allows you to indicate the credit card data from your client, so that any invoice generated by the recurring profile gets automatically payed (without intervention of your client).

When you create a recurring profile, the first invoice will be generated based on the 'date' field, this field must be a valid date (today or latter), if you pass today's date then your first invoice will be generated immediately (the response of the API call will give you the id of the recurring profile created as well as the id of the invoice generated by the recurring profile). If you pass a date in the future, then the first invoice will just be generated that day (the response for the call will just contain the recurring_profile id).

About your second question, when creating a recurring profile that doesn't have the auto billing information, the invoices will be generated based on the 'date' and the 'frequency' fields, and your clients will be able to pay it online, the same way they would if this was done through FreshBooks web application.

I hope this helps, for more information please consulte the official API docs (http://developers.freshbooks.com/docs/recurring/), and if you have more questions please just post on this forum.

Take care,

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Fresh Marcos

[Briantist]

Well I thought I replied earlier but it still didn't show up here, so
I guess it got messed up.

I misspoke when I said I couldn't use recurring profiles; I have used
them before, I just meant auto-billing specifically. Sorry for the
confusion.

If I create the recurring profile with a date of today, AND include
the auto-bill information, will the invoice that gets generated
automatically also charge the user's card right away and then be paid?

My second question was really directed at having a customer enter
their own payment information for an invoice, and then using that
information as the auto-bill information for future recurring
invoices, but without "me" (my code) handling the user's payment
information at all. Is there any way to do that?

Thanks!

Brian

[Fresh Marcos]

Hey Brian,

No worries, about your questions:

If you create a recurring profile with a date of today, and include auto-billing information - then an invoice will be generated and an automatic payment attempt will be made for the invoice, and if everything is ok your invoice will be marked as paid. Everything done automatically without intervention from your Client. (the client might receive a payment confirmation email, depending on your FreshBooks account configuration).

About your second question, when a client pays your invoiced (the one that was generated by a recurring profile) he/she will have an option of opting in for 'auto-billing', if they do then their billing information will be stored on the recurring profile and the next generated invoice will be automatically payed as described before. This all happens without you having to write any line of code.

I hope this helps with your development.

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Fresh Marcos

[Briantist]

Thanks this is very helpful. A question about that second scenario:
when the client enters their information and indicates that it can be
used for auto payments, that only applies to the one recurring
profile, correct?

What happens if the recurring profile is changed, to reflect a new
amount? Will the charge still go through without intervention from the
user?

The situation I'm trying to work with is that the first invoice will
be different than the rest. The first invoice will include one-time
charges, and the recurring charges need to be prorated (but the full
invoice does not need to be prorated). I could generate a recurring
profile for the first amount and have it generate its invoice
immediately, and then I can change the items to reflect the actual
monthly charges. I just want to make sure I'm not running into any
issues of the customer having to reenter their information.

[Fresh Marcos]

The auto-billing information is stored into the recurring profile, so it is per recurring profile, and not per client, so it will just apply to the specific recurring profile the auto-billing info is stored.

When the auto-billing information is stored in a recurring profile (either by yourself, or if your client opt for that when paying an invoice), we assume that your Client trust you, so that any changes to the recurring profile after that is your responsibility and the auto payment will still go through.

Understanding that you know what you are doing, I would like share a couple of recommendations:

    - make sure that your client receives the invoice generated by the recurring profile (use the send_email field when creating the recurring profile)

    - enable payment notifications to be send to your Client (settings -> emails -> Payment notification)

Let me know if this helps

------

Fresh Marcos

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[Briantist]

Yes it was very helpful. I think that answers all my questions;
thanks!

[Briantist]

Hey I know this is old, but I just got set up with an Auto-Bill capable provider (Stripe). I created a test invoice, sent it to myself, and went through the entire payment process. At no point did I see an option for the client to opt-in to use their info for future payments.

Is there really no way for the client to enter their own card details for auto-billing?

[Fresh Daniel]

Hi Brainlist,

Try following these steps:
1. Create a recurring profile for today's date.  Make sure that Stripe is selected for online payment on the right hand side and that 'Auto-Bill' is not set (you should see dashes instead).

2. Click on the invoice link from the customer email to enter the client portal.

3. Click on the "Pay Invoice" option.

4. On the next page you have the option to enter credit card information.  There should be a drop-down option to choose to continue to be billed manually or choose to be billed automatically in the future.

Cheers,

-Daniel

[Briantist]

Another late reply, but yes this did work. Thank you!