[ic] AUTOMATIC recurring billing solution

Dan Coutu interchange-users@interchange.redhat.com
Tue Apr 23 16:53:01 2002


Jim Webster wrote:

> A client of mine has authorize.net.  They were told authorize supports
> recurring billing.  They support recurring billing but it's not automatic.
> They require a batch upload everyday.
> 
> Can someone recommend a company that supports automatic reccuring billing
> and will interface with IC in the same manner as authorize.net?
> 
> Jim Webster
> 


While I can't recommend a company I can recommend a checklist of things to
watch for so that you don't end up with headaches in the middle of the night
and on weekends.


Automated recurring billing must handle, hopefully in some graceful and 
automatic way, the following situations:

o The credit card has expired.
o The credit card was reported stolen.
o The connection to the gateway goes down in the middle of processing.
o The connection to the gateway cannot be established at all.
o The customer wants to update their card information with a new expiration date.
o The customer wants to charge a different card number.
o The customer wants to cancel service.
o The merchant (you) wants to change the fee permanently.
o The merchant wants to change the fee one time only (special promotions.)

Most cases of automated recurring billing exactly the same amount each month, 
quarter, year. If this is what you need then you're okay. If you need to charge 
a variable amount each time (for example, based on actual use of a service) then 
you end up not being able to use their recurring billing solution.

Lots of places charge a combination of fixed amount and variable amount. Such as 
an ISP that charges a base monthly fee with a variable amount based on disk use, 
web site traffic, number of emails sent/received, etc. So the ability to handle 
variable charges is not an unusual requirement.
-- 

Dan Coutu
Managing Director
Snowy Owl Internet Consulting, LLC
http://www.snowy-owl.com/
Mobile: 603-759-3885
Fax: 603-673-6676