Lessons

Lesson Plan

1. 		Description	Action

1. 01

   To understand the nature and peculiarities of recurring billing, you can review What is a recurring billing? article.

   proceed

2. 02

   In your payment gateway all tasks related to the recurring billing are performed within recurring module represented by Console perspective.

3. 03

   Recurring module is designed for merchants that use recurring billing functionality in addition to straight transaction processes. The purpose of this module is to provide easy access to the information that merchants most commonly require for their business, such as access to transactions, chargebacks, batches, statements, etc.

4. 04

   All tasks within recurring module are related to the customer. Your gateway has all needed functionality for working with customers. Let's learn how to create a customer before proceeding with specific terms and tutorials.

5. 05

   Practice Creating a Customer tutorial.

   proceed

6. 06

   For existing customers, a self-service portal is available for paying their bills, looking through the payment history, viewing contracts, etc. Let's learn how a customer can access the portal.

7. 07

   Practice How to access customer's self-service portal tutorial.

   proceed

8. 08

   Now let's review some terms related to recurring payments.

9. 09

   There are two types of recurring payments - regular payment schedule and irregular payment schedule. Regular payment schedule - recurring payments fall into some regular schedule (weekly, monthly, weekly, quarterly, annually). Irregular payment schedule – payments are made on specific, arbitrarily chosen (pre-defined) dates, depending on specific business context.

10. 10

    For regular payment schedule, the concept of billing cycle is used. Billing cycle defines frequency of billings and the day when billing occurs.

11. 11

    Practice How to create a new billing cycle tutorial.

    proceed

12. 12

    Practice How to add new billing tutorial.

    proceed

13. 13

    Now let's proceed with learning about payment schedule, which is referred to as payment plan within the appilcation. The payment plans can be of different types. They are the following: Fixed (term) payment plan – a certain payment amount is agreed upon, and the number of payments is limited (fixed) by the agreement/contract. For example, $10 per month for 12 months. Unlimited (pay-as-you-go) payment plan – payment is going to recur until the plan is explicitly cancelled. For example, $10 per month until cancelled. Hybrid (rollover or open-ended) payment plan – initially consists of a fixed (defined) number of payments, however, after the initial fixed number of payments, the billing continues to recur (the plan becomes unlimited) until it is explicitly cancelled. For example, 6 months for $20 and then $30 until cancelled.

14. 14

    Practice How to create a new payment plan tutorial.

    proceed

15. 15

    One of the recurring billing features is the ability to freeze customer's payment plan. Freeze is the suspension of a billing schedule one or more billing periods.

16. 16

    Practice How to freeze a customer's payment plan tutorial.

    proceed

17. 17

    Once a customer is set up and equipped with a payment plan, you can perform common merchant tasks, which are the following: creating a transaction; issuing a refund/void; uploading a billing file; locating a merchant statement; handling a chargeback case. To learn how to perform these tasks, review prerequisite How to manage common merchant activity lesson.

18. 18

    If you have any issues with your payment gateway online-portal, you can address the problem to the support team. Let's learn how to do it.

19. 19

    Practice How to open a new ticket tutorial.

    proceed

20. 20

    Now you are equipped with all of the knowledge you need to use recurring module of your payment gateway online-portal.