One of the new features in WHMCS 8.11 is the PayPal Payments Auto-Migration functionality.
This functionality is designed to automate the process of transitioning customers to the latest PayPal integration offered within WHMCS, at an appropriate time, and without any end user or admin user interaction or knowledge of the different PayPal integrations required.
In this Q&A, we discuss what it is and how it works.
What is PayPal Payments?
PayPal Payments is the name of the latest PayPal integration in WHMCS. Launched in December 2023, this integration is now our recommended integration for transacting and accepting payments with PayPal. Why should I (as a service provider) activate and begin using it?
The newest PayPal Payments integration provides significant benefits and advantages over previous PayPal integrations that have existed for WHMCS. These include: - Branded Checkout - A modal based experience means customers don't ever leave your website to complete the payment authorisation with PayPal.
- PayPal Pay Methods - A single authorisation interaction with PayPal creates an agreement between the PayPal account holder and your PayPal business account, enabling your WHMCS instance to bill the customers PayPal account on-demand, which in turn leads to the following benefits:
- Replaces PayPal Subscriptions - this new functionality entirely replaces PayPal Subscriptions, giving WHMCS authority to bill on-demand and control the entire subscription lifecycle. Wave goodbye to duplicate subscriptions, over and underpayments, and subscriptions which only partially cover a customers services.
- Faster Repeat Checkouts - With a PayPal agreement in place, customers can checkout faster and pay with PayPal without needing to re-authorize. This makes repeat checkouts, as-well as addon and upsell purchases, a quicker and more convenient experience.
Why are we providing migration functionality?
End users cannot be expected to understand the differences between various PayPal integrations in WHMCS, nor should they have to. When they choose PayPal for payment, they shouldn't need to distinguish between the latest integration and an older one. For them, it's just checking out with PayPal. In addition to this, we continue to see payment gateways updating their APIs more frequently, and delivering newer integrations which provide better experiences for end users.
For these reasons, what we're launching today is new core WHMCS functionality, that enables a seamless, transparent experience for both admin users and customers when upgrading between related payment gateway modules within WHMCS. This is available for PayPal immediately, and will be used for other payment gateway deprecations and replacements in future.
Why should I (as a customer/end user) want to use it?
As a customer making an online purchase, you ideally want 3 basic things: speed, security and ease of use. After making an election that you wish to pay by PayPal, you want the fastest and most streamlined checkout experience possible that enables you to start using the service you are purchasing as quickly as possible. And you want renewals to be automated and hands-off, recurring automatically until such time as you elect to cancel. For the best possible experience, this means using the latest integration, PayPal Payments.
Will my customers existing PayPal Subscriptions be cancelled when I upgrade to WHMCS 8.11?
No mass automated cancellation of existing PayPal Subscriptions will occur immediately on or after upgrade to WHMCS 8.11.PayPal Subscriptions are only ever cancelled if there is a seamless path for automated payments via PayPal Payments and no action is required by the client or admin. This means WHMCS will only ever perform a cancellation in scenarios where the same customer has a PayPal Payments billing agreement as a saved Pay Method.
How does the auto-migration process work?
From an end user perspective, the process is simple and transparent. The PayPal Payments Auto-Migration workflow is only triggered in scenarios where the latest PayPal Payments module is activated along with one or more deprecated modules such as PayPal Basic or PayPal Checkout.
Auto-migration is evaluated for a given customer any time a PayPal payment interaction occurs for or by them.
A PayPal payment interaction can occur in a number of ways:
- A successful PayPal Subscription automated renewal payment
- A successful PayPal Payments automated renewal payment
- The end user initiating a new purchase, either via the shopping cart, or as part of an addon, upsell or upgrade offering through WHMCS, and electing to check out with PayPal
- The end user initiating an invoice payment and electing to pay using PayPal
Upon application of payment to an invoice, the WHMCS system will evaluate if there is an opportunity to utilise the on-demand billing behaviour of PayPal Payments instead of a subscription to achieve automated payments for the related client.
The audit will evaluate if the client has subscriptions associated with the PayPal Basic or PayPal Checkout modules. If they do, the audit will then check to see if the client has also established a billing agreement via PayPal Payments (in this payment event, or at any time previously). If both of these conditions are met, WHMCS will schedule a transition to occur at the next available cron tasks opportunity.
The transition will attempt to cancel the PayPal Basic or PayPal Checkout subscription. If the cancellation is successful, the associated services will be updated to PayPal Payments. This ensures that any future renewal invoices to generate will be automatically billed by the WHMCS billing engine, leveraging the PayPal Payments billing agreement.
Subscription are only ever cancelled if there is a seamless path for automated payments via PayPal Payments and no action is required by the client or admin.
The result: A seamless experience for the customer, no interruption or revenue risk to you as the service provider, and a PayPal Payments billing agreement that can be used for all future recurring, on-demand and new checkout transactions.
Will my customers receive an email when the PayPal Subscription is cancelled?
Yes, the emails PayPal send when cancelling a PayPal Subscription are unavoidable at this time. No action is required by the end user.
What actions do I need to take for the auto-migration to occur?
No additional steps are needed. Any WHMCS installation that has the latest PayPal Payments module activated and in-use, along with customers assigned to legacy and now deprecated PayPal integrations such as PayPal Basic and/or PayPal Checkout, will have this auto-migration occur automatically. How do I avoid this functionality?
If after reading all of the above, you're still not convinced that you want to use the latest PayPal integration for WHMCS, PayPal Payments, then simply no action is required. Auto-Migration will only occur in installations where you have taken action to activate and configure the PayPal Payments payment gateway module. If you do not have this module active, no changes will occur to your customers subscriptions via the legacy PayPal modules for WHMCS. It is important to note however that all previous PayPal integrations for WHMCS, including the PayPal Basic and PayPal Checkout modules, are now considered Deprecated and support will be removed for them in the future.
This is a really big step forward for WHMCS in terms of payment gateway managed migrations, and something which I'm excited for the thousands of businesses who leverage WHMCS with PayPal to start taking advantage of.
If you have any further questions, I invite you to ask them in the comments below.
