Payment Plan Setup

Payment plans are an easy way to accept and process recurring payments and installments. This section describes how you can configure your SOLO Server account to process recurring payments.

Permissions

Before you start setting-up payment plans, it is necessary to grant relevant permissions to any users or groups who will need them through the Manage Users/Manage Groups pages. The relevant permissions are as follows, and can be set by going to the menu (Your Name) / Users:

Create Payment Plan

Allows creating of payment plans

Edit Payment Plan

Allows editing of existing payment plans

Edit Payment Plan Instance

Allows editing payment plan instances

Create Stored Payments

Allows creating stored payments for customers

Edit Stored Payments

Allows editing existing customer’s stored payments

For more information on managing users, visit the Managing Users and E-Mail Notifications page.

Configuring Product Options

The first step in setting up a payment plan is to configure the required Product Options. You will generally need to configure at least two Product Options: one used for the initial purchase, and another used for installments (or any recurring payments that are processed). The Product Option for the initial purchase will be configured as appropriate for your licensing needs, and will need to be revisited after the payment plan has been created. It should also be named so that it sufficiently describes the payment plan with which it will be associated. For this example, we would name this option something like License with Monthly Subscription. We also have a step by step tutorial on setting up a recurring subscription using SOLO Server and Instant Protection PLUS 3.

Creating the Product Options

The Product Option used for installments (also referred to as the Installment Option) is best configured before creating your payment plan. The installment option should use a name that indicates what was processed (i.e. a "maintenance renewal", "subscription renewal", etc...). This is displayed on the invoices generated for any recurring payments processed, and helps you and your customers understand exactly why a payment was processed. Additionally, using the separate option also helps make your reports much more clear. For example, it will allow you to distinguish between new orders and recurring payments. Below are some steps that show how the product options may be configured:

• First, create your product. For this example, we will call it Product A.
• Next, create a product option for the initial purchase. For this example, we will name this Purchase with Monthly Subscription. This is the option the customer will activate and should be configured accordingly.
• Now create a product option for the installment. For this example, we will call this Monthly Subscription Renewal. You can also name your Product Option something like Annual Subscription Renewal, Installment, or anything that you feel is most appropriate for describing the nature of the installments or recurring payments that will be processed.
  • Set the Option Type to Transaction Fee.
  • Although the price set on the Product Option will not be relevant for processing recurring payments, we recommend setting this to a value noticeably greater than the installment price (i.e. something like $99 or $999).
  • Uncheck "For New Customers" to prevent customers from seeing this Product Option in the SOLO Server product catalog.
  • Uncheck "Issue License" to indicate that any licenses generated with this Product Option are only intended for invoicing purposes (and may not be activated).
  • The defaults for any other fields are sufficient, so no further configuration is required for the Installment Option.

With the installment Product Option in place, you may now proceed to configure your payment plan.

Configuring a Payment Plan

To configure a payment plan, use SOLO Server's global menu and click on the Store / Payment Plans (Recurring Billing). To add a new Payment Plan, click the Add New button; otherwise click the Edit link next to the payment plan you wish to configure. Then refer to the descriptions of each of the Payment Plan Fields to configure your Payment Plan. The example product option configuration shown in the section above is designed to charge a recurring monthly subscription fee for a software license. In this scenario, the Payment Plan could be configured as follows:

• For this example, we would pick a name like Product A Monthly.
• To bill every 30 days, the Recurrence Type would be set to Scheduled, with the Frequency set to 30 and the Frequency Interval set to Days.
• Since the customer needs to make an initial purchase to obtain a payment plan instance (which is what processes the recurring payments), the payment plan needs to assume that the initial payment covers the first month. To do this and avoid double-billing the customer, set the Days Until Start to 30 for this example (or whatever value is appropriate for you, when creating your payment plan).
• Since our example is a subscription which could be used indefinitely, the number of payments needs to be set to -1 as indicated on the page. If, for example, this was set to 2, then no further payments would be processed after the 2 installments were processed in the frequency specified earlier.
• Set the installment price to the amount that should be charged for each recurring payment or installment. If needed or appropriate, you may add a surcharge to the installment as well.
• Since we created a Product Option named Monthly Subscription Renewal under Product A in our example, we would select Product A Monthly Subscription Renewal in the Installment Product Option field.
• If an installment payment attempt is declined, it can retry the charge once per day up to the Number of Retires configured. This can function as a grace period before the customer's license is potentially deactivated. You can also notify them of the need to update their credit card information beforehand through an automated mailing (see Sending Billing Reminders below).

Displaying Information in the Shopping Cart and Invoices

Customers need to be informed about how the payment plan will charge them on a recurring basis before and after they place their order. There are several fields that can show information throughout the ordering process to help ensure customers are not surprised about charges after the initial purchase (which helps prevent refunds and charge-backs/disputes).

• The information you enter in the Purchase Text field is displayed on the line item level of the cart as well as on both the initial purchase and installment invoices.
• The information entered in the Purchase License Text field is displayed on the line item level above the Purchase Text on the cart and initial purchase invoice. So with the Monthly Subscription Renewal example, we can add information such as:
  • "You will automatically be billed $10 every month. If your subscription expires and is not renewed, or your subscription is canceled, then you will no longer be able to access Product A."
• The information in the Installment Text field is displayed on the line item level above the Purchase Text on installment invoices.. This field allows you to further describe what the payment was for, and can also be used to provide instruction and/or links to assist with canceling or disabling any further payment processing for the payment plan instance.
• By default a message is also displayed at the line item level providing the customer with a link to view or cancel the payment plan through the Customer License Portal:
  • "To view details, edit billing and credit card information, or cancel the payment plan subscription associated with this item, click HERE."

Associating a Payment Plan with a Product Option

Once a payment plan is created, the final step is to associate it with one or more product options which are used for initial purchases (including bundled product options). On the product option add/edit screen, there is a Payment Plan field where all payment plans will show up in a drop down list. To tie a payment plan to a product option, just select a payment plan from the list and save the change. In our example given above, we would edit the Product Option for the initial purchase of Product A (License with Monthly Subscription) and configure it to use the Product A Monthly payment plan.

Using Payment Plans With Bundles

Bundles can be used with payment plans, with the payment plan instance covering all of the bundled licenses as a whole. There are a few limitations that can cause confusion when configuring a bundle with a payment plan:

• Currently, you cannot add an included option to a bundle option if the option is associated with a payment plan. This means that if you would like to bundle options that can be purchased individually with a payment plan, those options will need to be duplicated and the payment plan removed from the duplicate for use in the bundle.
• You cannot use a bundle for the renewal option. This means that you must set up a separate product for the renewal option rather than creating a new option on the bundle product.

Sending Billing Reminders

In order to reduce time-consuming administrative issues that tend to be commonly associated with the nature of subscription-based software sales (such as billing inquiries, chargebacks, and billing failures due to expired card data), SOLO Server can optionally send reminder emails to customers with an upcoming payment and/or whose credit card is nearing expiration. To configure billing reminders, create a mailing for the notification email content and then set up a Pending Payment Plan Notification Daily Process. See Pending Payment Plan Notification Mailings for more details.