Today's Feature Spotlight focuses on functionality that was added in WHMCS Version 6.0, PayPal Subscription Automation. Have you ever had a situation where a customer has cancelled only to find next month they have a PayPal Subscription which continues to pay you? At best it's extra time and effort for you to have to deal with and refund it, at worst it can lead to a very upset customer.
Lot's of you told us this was a problem you faced, and so in WHMCS 6.0 we introduced automated PayPal Subscription Cancellation, saving you time, money, and keeping customers happier. In addition, It also helps with upgrades ensuring that if a user changes their package, any previous subscriptions are cancelled automatically to avoid double payment.
Getting StartedA new option has been added under Setup > General Settings > Invoices tab called Automatic Subscription Management. Once enabled, WHMCS will automatically cancel the PayPal Subscription ID associated with a service at service cancellation and upgrade time.
The great news is that if you started using PayPal Subscriptions after 2009, ticking the Automatic Subscription Management is all the setup that's needed. Right away you will see a Cancel Subscription button under the client's products/services tab to manually cancel a subscription at any time.
Converting Old PayPal AccountsIf your first subscription was created before 2009 this will mean that Subscription IDs start with the prefix "S" and unfortunately these cannot be remotely managed via the API. It is, however, easy to convert your PayPal account to start creating new style subscriptions to fully take advantage of this new feature.
The PayPal Merchant Technical Support team have the ability in their admin console to update merchant settings, after updating, merchants will get "I" prefix subscription IDs for newly generated subscriptions. They can be contacted through the PayPal help desk.
Sit Back and RelaxWith the setup complete, you no longer have to worry about PayPal Subscription management. WHMCS will automatically cancel them in the following situations:
- A cancellation request is submitted
- The order is cancelled or set to fraud via the admin interface of WHMCS
- The API is used to cancel or fraud an order with "cancelsub=true" passed
- An upgrade order is placed for the product/service
We are using this feature ourselves and find it a great time-saver already, and we hope you find it just as beneficial. Thank you to everyone who voted for this idea on the feature request board - keep the great suggestions coming!
