Paypal : Billing Plan + Agreement - basic Qs

Question

Some fairly basic questions as I don't seem to be able to find simple answers in API documentation.

I have a shop selling magazines + other items. Currently selling individual items or in groups and charging using PayPal REST API.

We want to add subscriptions - which I gather means using their Billing Plan + Billing Agreement. Have some Questions:

1. Does every sale need it's own Plan + Agreement ? (Or can I just pre set-up 4 plans (different postage options), and add all the agreements to one of those 4 plans)

2. I can't see a list of acceptable Frequency values- Is "Yearly" an option?

3. Do I specifically need to call "Bill outstanding agreement amounts" i.e. "POST /v1/payments/billing-agreements//bill-balance" to charge it in a years time - or should it in theory be charged automatically?

4. To check it's been paid - I need to search for transactions - right ? ("GET /v1/payments/billing-agreements//transactions? start_date=yyyy-mm-dd&end_date=yyyy-mm-dd")

Thanks.

Answer 1

Let me answer one by one:

1. A Billing Plan (or a Billing Agreement) is an agreement made between the seller and a specific buyer. The answer at this question is yes: every sale needs its plan.
2. Yes, yearly is a valid option. The variable “frequency” accepts the following value: WEEK, DAY, YEAR, MONTH. Please, find here our REST API Reference: https://developer.paypal.com/docs/api/#billing-plans-and-agreements.
3. Buyer will be charged yearly (for example) automatically. You need to call “Bill outstanding agreement amounts” only if there is an outstanding amount to resolve. For example, if a payment failed.
4. Yes, you are right. Please note, dates should be in this: yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ssZ. Here our documentation: https://developer.paypal.com/docs/rest/api/payments.billing-agreements/

If you need more information, please let me know.