Frequently Asked Questions About the Managed Billing Platform

Transcription

1 Frequently Asked Questions About the Managed Billing Platform 1. When can I expect to be paid for a subscription to my application? 2. Why did I receive a payment outside of the normal payment collection days? 3. What types of usage transactions can I bill for? 4. Can I bill for usage during the free trial period? 5. Can I bill for usage after the user has unsubscribed? 6. How do I add or change my billing plans? 7. Can I change an existing plan fee? 8. How do I preview my billing plans before they are released to the end user? 9. Why am I seeing my inactive billing plans? 10. How do I credit a charge? 11. How do I refund a customer (subscriber) account? 12. How do I cancel a seller subscription? 13. What happens when a subscription is cancelled? 14. My application updates the subscriber s listings; what do I do when the subscriber cancels their subscription and does not want my application functionality on their listings any more? 15. Why does a seller receive a statement even when they are unsubscribed? 16. Can I have beta users test the applications before it is live? 17. How does the PayPal preapproval work? 18. What if a PayPal payment doesn t go through?

2 1. When can I expect to be paid for a subscription to my application? You will receive payment for your subscriptions 25 to 45 days after a subscriber's paid subscription period begins. Your payment is based on four conditions: 1. Subscription bill date 2. Payment method 3. Payment collection date 4. Payment response The subscription bill date is the date when the user s eligibility to be billed begins. That s the date the user subscribes, unless there is a free trial period. If there is a free trial period, the subscription bill date is the date the free trial period ends. When users subscribe to a billable plan, they are prompted to choose a default payment method to pay for the subscription fees. Currently, PayPal is the only payment option, and is automatically used. The payment collection date is based on the user s bill cycle, assigned to a user when an account is created. The billing system has two bill cycles: 1 st of the month, which has payment collection on the 15 th of each month 16 th of the month, which has payment collection around the th of each month For each bill cycle a request is sent to PayPal to deduct the payment from the user s PayPal account. PayPal returns a success or failure response for each user payment. If the response is success, the money is moved directly from the user s PayPal account to the developer's PayPal account immediately. Receiving Payment Automatic payments are processed once a month for each bill cycle. The first payment for an application with no free trial period will be 15 to 45 days after the subscription bill date. If the free trial period is 30 days the first payment will take 45 to 75 days. Here are a couple of example timelines from subscription to payment. Example 1: User subscribes to application A Plan 1 on 3/10/2010 for the first time. This application s Plan 1 has a free trial period of ten days. A. User is in bill cycle 1, and payment takes 27 days: 1. Subscription bill date: 3/20/ Next bill cycle after bill date: 4/1/ Payment collection date 4/15/2010 B. User is in bill cycle 16, and payment takes 42 days: 1. Subscription bill date: 3/20/ Next bill cycle after bill date: 4/16/2010

3 3. Payment collection date 4/30/2010 Example 2: User subscribes to Application B Plan 3 on 3/10/2010 for the first time. This application s Plan 3 has no free trial period. A. User is in bill cycle 1, and payment takes 37 days: 1. Subscription bill date: 3/10/ Next bill cycle after bill date: 4/1/ Payment collection date 4/15/2010 B. User is in bill cycle 16, and payment takes 21 days: 1. Subscription bill date: 3/10/ Next bill cycle after bill date: 3/16/ Payment collection date 3/30/ Why did I receive a payment outside of the normal payment collection days? This could be because some users prefer to make their payment before the automatic deduction, and some billing plans have one-time charges or usage transactions that are immediately applied. Also, if a monthly payment fails due to a hard decline (preapproval agreement cancelled, agreement expired, etc.), the billing system removes the automatic payment because any future attempts will result in a payment failure. The user might sign up for PayPal automatic payments and sign a new agreement, and then make a one-time payment immediately instead of waiting for the following month s payment cycle. 3. What types of usage transactions can I bill for? There are two types of usage transactions: Plan usage: a fee based on usage of the application. This fee attribute can be used when users are charged based on their activity. Examples of plan usage include: o o o Shipping applications that charge per label printed CRM applications that charge per seat of access Applications that use tiered pricing ($5 for 1-10 units, $7 for units, etc.) Non plan usage: a fee charged by applications that include pass-through fees such as postage, freight, and shipping insurance, which are commonly known as hard costs. A developer can only use non-plan usage when the pass-through fee charged to the subscriber is equal to or less than other commercially published pricing for the same type of product or service.

4 For example, published pricing to ship a 1lb package via Priority Mail is $4.95. A developer can use non-plan usage to charge a subscriber for a similar postage purchase within their application only if the subscriber is charged $4.95 or less. 4. Can I bill for usage during the free trial period? Yes, you can bill for non plan usage (hard costs) during the free trial period. Note, though, that you can t bill for plan usage during the free trial period. For an explanation of non plan and plan usage, please see What type of usage transactions can I bill for? 5. Can I bill for usage after the user has unsubscribed? Yes, you can bill for usage after the user has unsubscribed, if the transaction took place before the cancellation date. You can not bill for usage with immediate payment after the user has unsubscribed, though. 6. How do I add or change my billing plans? Submit a Developer Service Desk ticket and upload the Billing Plan input form, which contains your new or changed plan. New or changed billing plans become available once a month, around the 15th of the month. Submit a plan by the 10 th of this month, and it will be available by the 15 th of next month. After the 15 th, ebay sends you an with instructions for verifying the billing plan in production. Once verified, it can be made available to your users. 7. Can I change an existing plan fee? Yes, you can. You can decrease or increase your fees. You begin by ing appsbillingissues@ebay.com. ebay needs to review fee changes and coordinate the rollout to existing customers so that the pricing information in your App Center entry shows the new rate." 8. How do I preview my billing plans before they are released to the end user? Use the admin account, which is a Seller ID that you included in your production deployment descriptor.. Logged in as admin, you can view the new plans and descriptions in the subscription flow before they become visible to your users. The admin account can view all plans regardless of state (active, submitted, stored) or visibility (visible/non visible). 9. Why am I seeing my inactive billing plans? You are logged in with your admin account the Seller ID you input into your production deployment descriptor. Log into ebay with a non-admin user account to view only the plans visible to the end user. 10. How do I credit a charge?

5 If you need to credit a transaction in which the subscriber has been charged, please appsbillingissues@ebay.com, and provide the user name, transaction date, original transaction amount and credit amount. We are developing a Credit API, and plan to release it by June Once the Credit API is available, you will be able to credit all transactions. 11. How do I refund a customer (subscriber) account? You should only refund an account that has a credit balance. If you would like to refund a subscriber for a particular transaction, please credit the transaction before you issue a refund, so the balance on the users account will be accurate. Please see How do I credit a charge? Once the credit has been completed, refund the customer account by logging into your PayPal account, locating the transaction, and refunding. Please send an to appsbillingissues@ebay.com with the user name and refund amount. If a credit is also required, include the transaction date, the original transaction amount and the credit amount. This ensures that the correct balance is shown on the user s account. For example, a user signed up for a subscription for $24.95 a month on July 13 User was charged the partial first month ($15.29) and in advance for the next month (24.95), with a balance of $ A payment of $40.24 was deducted on August 15, bringing the user s balance to $0. If the user cancelled and was unhappy with the service, you may want to refund the $40.24 payment. In order to refund, you need to have a credit balance. Credit the $15.29 and $24.95, and then refund the total credit balance of $ We are developing Refund API functionality, and plan to release it by June Once the Refund API is available, you will not need to refund from your PayPal account. 12. How do I cancel a seller subscription? You can either instruct the seller to cancel their subscription themselves, or you can cancel the subscription yourself, in the Embedded Applications tab. The seller can cancel their subscription from the Applications Tab on My ebay. If this is the plan, send the user the following instructions: 1. Go to My ebay. 2. Place your pointer over the Applications tab, and then click the Manage your applications link to see a list of all the applications you're subscribed to. 3. Click the Other actions link, and then select Unsubscribe. You can cancel the subscription in the Embedded Applications tab. 1. Login to the developer portal. 2. Click My Account at the top of the page. 3. Click the Embedded Applications tab. 4. Scroll down to the Production Applications section, where it lists the active subscribers. 5. Click on the # of users to view the User Management tool. 6. To view a particular user, enter the user ID in the filter section and click Search. 7. To view all users, just click Search button with no filter criteria.

6 8. To change the user s status, click the current status. 9. In the drop-down, select the Cancel and click Submit. If the subscription does not have a non prorated plan then the status will change to Cancel. If the subscription is non prorated, the status will change to Cancelled Pending. If the status is Cancelled Pending and the subscriber wants to cancel now, you do have the option to select Cancel Immediately, which will revoke the user s token, remove access to the application, and stop billing. 13. What happens when a subscription is cancelled? What happens when a subscriber cancels depends on the type of subscription plan. If the subscription plan is prorated, when the user selects Unsubscribe the subscription is cancelled immediately. The user will not be able to access the application because the user s token is revoked. Billing will end immediately. If they have paid in advance, in the following statement they will receive a cancellation credit. If the subscription plan is non prorated, when the user selects Unsubscribe the subscription is moved to Cancelled Pending. The user still has access to the application and is obligated to pay for the subscription until their subscription end date. The subscription end date is based on your initial sign up date. A subscriber who selects a non prorated plan is agreeing commit to pay for the entire term of the monthly or yearly plan. 14. My application updates the subscriber s listings; what do I do when the subscriber cancels their subscription and does not want my application functionality on their listings any more? If your application affects a seller s listings, you need to have a way to take your application s functionality out of the listings. For example, some developers have replaced their graphics on the listing pages with a one-pixel graphic. 15. Why does a seller receive a statement even when they are unsubscribed? A subscriber may still receive a statement even for a cancelled supscription. A statement will be sent based on these circumstances: 1. If the account balance > $1.00 or less than -$ f the account balance is between -$1 and $1.00 and a credit or payment was applied the previous month 16. Can I have beta users test the applications before it is live? Before your application is active, you can specify beta users who can access your application.

7 Add the beta users names in the Permission tag of the deployment descriptor, which adds them as admin users of your application. Admin users will see all plans. Instruct your beta users to select a free plan. If a billable plan is selected, they will be billed. 17. How does the PayPal preapproval work? A user subscribing to a billable application is required to sign a PayPal preapproval agreement. Each application sets a maximum amount limit for the preapproval, which cannot be exceeded within the period of the preapproval term. The preapproval amount is NOT charged to the user s account or held in PayPal. It is just a reference point for PayPal to use to ensure that the user is not charged more than that amount during the period of the agreement term. For example, if the preapproval limit is set to $200 for a 12-month term, you will only be able to charge and collect payments up to $200 within the year. 18. What if a PayPal payment doesn t go through? In some cases, a PayPal payment will fail. The user may cancel the preapproval agreement, or there may be no funding source. When a payment fails, an is sent to the user instructing them how to make a payment. There are two types of failures: hard decline, and soft decline. In a hard decline, the billing system removes the user s automatic payment agreement and requests the user to add a new one. The user makes a one-time payment from the new agreement. In a soft decline, the billing system keeps the automatic payment method and requests the user to pay immediately with a one-time payment. NOTE: If a user does not add an automatic payment, they will continually be billed with no payment collection. We do not yet automatically suspend past-due accounts ebay Inc. All rights reserved. ebay and the ebay logo are registered trademarks of ebay Inc. All other brands are the property of their respective owners.