Hello and thanks in advance for any help you can give.
First, I am coding DNN really for about the first time. I have completed writing a very simple VB DNN Module and installed it onto my production server. My knowledge is about as limited as that.
Second, I am looking to add payments to my website for services. These services will mimic a pay by month subscription service; BUT the fee will VARY per month per customer. I have been researched Authorize.Net and Paypal enough to see there are many methods of producing payment results. For example, Paypal has about 6 methods to handle payments.
1) Express Checkout
2) Website Payments Pro
3) Website Payments Standard
4) Mass Payment
5) Payflow Pro
6) Website Payments Pro w/ PayFlow
7) And there may be more.
While Paypal’s descriptions of their methods are not complete, it appears some of these require credit card (or other payment info) to be stored on my server, others have them stored on theirs; but do not allow for the different billing amount per month (20% restriction). I am also unclear as to when and how the customer’s authorization takes place. This is explained to you so that you know what I know and how I am confused.
My questions are:
1) For example purposes, how does the DNN Core handle payments?
a. What type of Paypal is it, and how does it work?
2) What Paypal method does the DNN Events module use? (I have it’s source and could incorporate it, but I can’t figure out how it exactly works and what it does.)
3) Since I likely will need to vary the billing amount each month, what method of payment and carrier do you recommend? (many answers welcome) Meaning, whom should I use and what issues will I run into with varied monthly billing and authorization/kicking of those amounts going past limits (ex Paypal’s 20% variation limit in 120 days – which I will break that rule.)
4) If I chose to store all the Credit Card( Billing) information on my server, is there and example module out there that handles the local encryption requirements and has working source code for interfacing with any providers for the billing and backend?
In summary, I am trying to figure out which provider to use, the method from that provider to use, and then find example source code to model after for my site. I also want to understand where the customer is involved with authorizing this. I likely will need total control of this on my site, but I am not sure. If I can get away with varied billing amounts (and re-authorizations) without storing this credit card information on my site – great; but I want your ideas and proven results, so I can explore them. My guess is, I will have to store them and handle it all on my side and batch in the transactions monthly.
Your help? Ideas? Answers?
Thanks,
Paul