INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS & USER GUIDE:

IF YOU ARE UPGRADING FROM A PREVIOUS VERSION YOU WILL LOOSE ALL OF YOUR EXISTING SUBSCRIPTIONS. 

If you have a custom Theme you may have compatibility issues. We can address those issue but there may be an additional fee involved for adjusting the extension.

PLEASE BACKUP YOUR STORE & MySQL FILES BEFORE PROCEEDING!

INSTALLATION:

1. Use the default OpenCart Extension installer and upload The Recurring profile fixes OCMOD first, then the product subscriptions OCMOD. Be sure to click the modifications refresh button on the modifications page and if using OpenCart 3.x to clear the cache found on the main dashboard page (small gear on the upper right hand).

2. Set data tables. Go to your stores admin, click on Extensions/Modules/Product Subscriptions/Click Install.  Please note that if you are installing this version over an older version YOU WILL LOSE ALL PREVIOUS DATA INCLUDING EXISTING RECURRING PAYMENTS AND CUSTOMERS.

3. After installation of module while in Extensions/Modules/Product Subscriptions make all the general settings including setting a secret CRON code. The CRON code is important in order to get payment email notifications as well as payments made notifications. You will need to go into your server/hosting company cPanel to set up a CRON job with the link information provided in the Product Subscriptions module setting. If you don't know how to setup a CRON job please contact your hosting company.

4. When setting an automatic recurring billing item using Authorize.Net or PayPal the product price needs to be 0 and the recurring price will be the price of the recurring payment. The recurring payment will be taken out usually within 24 hours of the order being placed. So if a product price has been set and a recurring item has been selected, the initial price of the product would be charged at checkout and the recurring item will be charged usually within 24 hours. If you don't want this to happen then the product price needs to be set to 0.

A SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT PayPal and how it works. This is an example if you wish to offer a regular sale as well as a recurring sale on the same product:

In the product form you would put the normal product price and in the recurring tab you would NOT tick the hide regular price box but would tick the allow single sale box. When it is setup this way a regular checkout would happen when the product is added to cart OR if the recurring is selected the customer would be charged the recurring price plus shipping and taxes if selected in admin. PayPal then processes the 1st payment as zero then the following day charge the recurring price. That is the way PayPal works.

ADDING A RECURRING PROFILE:
1) Go to Catalog>Recurring Profiles> Make all your settings then press save.

Duration controls whether it is recurring or not.  If the duration is set to 0, it is recurring.  If you have a 1 month Recurring Profiles and set the duration to 6, it will end after 6 months.  In that case, the reminder emails would be sent out to notify that their Recurring Profiles is about to end.

You can offer a trial period for your subscription. At the end of the trial period, the selected subscription will take over unless the customer cancels during the trial period. Recurring amounts are calculated by the frequency and cycles.

If you use a frequency of "month" and a cycle of "1", then the user will be billed every 1 months. The duration is the number of times the user will make a payment, set this to 0 if you want payments until they are cancelled. Products can also be sold individually or recurring if the Allow Single Sale box is clicked in the product edit form.

If you want to use the PayPal recurring, you set the duration to 0.  This would be the automatic recurring charges.  If you want the customer to login and renew, set the duration to some other number.

The extension will allow you to create a trial only subscription.  When creating the “trial only”, make sure you set the subscription status to disabled.  That is how the module is determining if there is a subscription AFTER the trial.  If you leave everything for the subscription blank and set to enabled, it will think there is a subscription period still.

SETTING PAYMENT GATEWAY:

Go to Extensions>Payments>YOUR PAYMENT GATEWAY.
For automatic recurring payments you ONLY USE:

PayPal Checkout Integration (Allows for Cancel, Suspend, Reactivate)
Authorize.net (requires purchase of special 3rd party extension. Contact us for details on where to purchase)
SagePay Direct (Allows to setup recurring payments only. Cancel must be done through their interface)
SagePay Server (Allows to setup recurring payments only. Cancel must be done through their interface)
Square (Allows for Cancel only)
WorldPay (Allows to setup recurring payments only. Cancel must be done through their interface)

For Manual recurring payments:

You can use any of the payment gateways that come default in the OpenCart Installation. Other non default gateways may work but may require additional coding added to them to make them work with our extension. If additional coding is needed there will be an additional fee involved. Please contact us for details.

MAKING A MANUAL PAYMENT:
When using a manual recurring payment method for subscriptions, this means that when a payment comes due it will be up to the customer to log into their account and manually process a payment (Honor System). In the customers account in the Recurring  Profiles page the customer can make a payment there. Once the payment has been added to the cart and the order has been processed, the next due date will increment to the next due date. Admin will get notifications via email of pending payments that have come past due. Admin can also cancel or suspend any recurring profile if the wish.

SPECIAL NOTE: 

When using PayPal Checkout Integration:

Your PayPal Account must be setup to allow recurring payments. This setting can be found in: Extensions>Payments>PayPal Checkout Integration.

In some instances we have seen that improper domain records information will block PayPal from accessing your website. If PayPal cannot communicate with your site the information the extension requires will not propagate. Contact your host and make sure your domain records are pointing correctly back to your site.

The emails frequencies are based on the last day of the subscription period. As an example, if the days to send emails is set to 7 that means that the first reminder email to the customer will go out 7 days before the end on the subscription period. It is a combination of the end date AND grace period.  If you have a grace period of 10 days and want the email to go out 20 days before the end of the subscription, you would need to set the reminder period to 30.

EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS:

In Extension>Module>Product Subscriptions You need to set a secret CRON code in order to send emails reminders and payment notices. Get with your hosting company on how to set up a CRON Job.

SUBSCRIPTION EXAMPLES:

Automatic Recurring. Let's create 3 different subscription offers for the customer:

1)      1  month @ 19.95 until cancelled

2)      6 months @ 17.95 until cancelled with a 1 month trial @ 0.00

3)      12 months @ 15.96 until cancelled with a 1 month trial @ 0.00

With these three options on the product page, the customer would choose one.  This is an automatic recurring charge until the customer cancels.  There is nothing the customer needs to do as long as they want to continue the subscription.

Manual Recurring – Let's create 3 different subscription offers for the customer:

1)      1 month @ 19.95 for 1 month

2)      1 month @ 17.95 for 6 months (10% discount)

3)      1 month @ 15.96 for 1 year (20% discount)

Using the above profiles, their subscription would expire after 1 month for the 1st option, after 6 months for the 2nd option, and after 1 year for the 3rd option.  In order to continue their subscription, they would need to login and renew it.  They will also get the renewal emails accordingly.

This is what you will see on the catalog side:

A 10% discounted subscription will say: 6 months @ $107.73 (You save: $11.97)

USING DOWNLOADS WITH PRODUCT SUBSCRIPTION:

Product Subscription module can be used for subscriptions to downloadable and digital products. To set up, follow these simple steps.

1) Check the “Subscription” checkbox to make the download part of a subscription.

2) On the Product page for the download, make sure you setup your subscriptions.

This is a picture of a PayPal account recurring payment. VIEW RECURRING PROFILE

REINSTATING A SUBSCRIPTION:

If a customer cancels a subscription from within their account depending on the settings in admin, you will have a certain amount of time  to reinstate their account. In the Sales/Recurring Profiles page you will see a reinstate link if it is available for the gateway you are using. If you try to reinstate a subscription that’s beyond the allotted/set time it is not possible. Every payment gateway has it's own characteristics on how cancellations and reinstating a subscription work. Please refer to the payment gateways instructions for more information.

If you have any questions about the installation process, please contact us.