topic Re: SIM and Recurring Billing in Integration and Testing

SIM and Recurring Billing

susan — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 05:43:32 GMT

Hi,

We have a client who wants to integrate a payment system to allow customers to purchase their application.

We have decided to use Authorize.net API for development. Can anyone advise as to which is the best suited integration method.

Our criteria are:

1. We do not want to store any Credit card information on our server, even though it is a secure site.

2. We want to do recurring billing for customers (variable amounts)

As of now, we are thinking of using SIM, however we are facing a brick wall when it comes to automated recurring billing. Any help is appreciated. :)

Thanks,

Susan

Re: SIM and Recurring Billing

stymiee — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 12:05:06 GMT

You can't use SIM to do recurring biling. To do recurring billing you will need to use CIM and your own scheduing engine. Since the amounts will vary you can't use ARB since that only allows for fixed amounts. So you'll need to use CIM to create customer accounts and then you will charge your scheduled variable payments using those stored accounts.

Re: SIM and Recurring Billing

susan — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 10:17:54 GMT

Hi John,

Thank you for your quick response.

The reason why we plan to use SIM is that we do not want to collect and store Credit card info on our servers. If we use CIM, will we have to collect and store Credit card info on our end?

Is it possible... just asking.. that we can use SIM and then setup recurring payment manually by converting an existing transaction record to a recurring one? Or is there any other way to convert a transaction to a recurring one?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Susan

Re: SIM and Recurring Billing

stymiee — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 12:17:53 GMT

If you don't want to accept credit cards through your website then you won't be able to use CIM as you'll need to have the credit card information to create the payment profiles. However, you do not need to store any credit card nformation as that is what CIM is for. It stores the credit card information for you so you don't have to worry about the security measures necessary to do it.

But there is noy way to use CIM with SIM. SIM is for very basic transactions only. If you want to do anything more then that you will need to use the other Authnet APIs.

Re: SIM and Recurring Billing

susan — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 15:05:12 GMT

Hi John,

Is it possible to manually make a settled transaction as recurring?

Thanks,

Susan

Re: SIM and Recurring Billing

stymiee — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 15:09:07 GMT

Yes. Find the transaction in your control panel and there you will find a link that says, "Create ARB Subscription from Transaction" click on that to manually create a subscription.

Re: SIM and Recurring Billing

susan — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 15:22:21 GMT

Thank you for your prompt and apt response. :smileyhappy:

Re: SIM and Recurring Billing

ham — Fri, 07 May 2010 05:25:13 GMT

"To do recurring billing you will need to use CIM..."

I understand that this a direct response to the OP. I'd like to know if this is always the case if you have different requirements? I guess my question is if you want ARB will you also need CIM?

Re: SIM and Recurring Billing

stymiee — Fri, 07 May 2010 11:51:47 GMT

In general, ARB and CIM will not be used together although it certainly it possible in certain scenarios.

Re: SIM and Recurring Billing

roninsoft75 — Tue, 21 May 2013 22:31:34 GMT

John,

Can we call the CIM API to change credit card and other billing information? We want to do exactly what is described above, but the users are able to update their card info on our secure site. We don't want to store card info, but rather display it and allow for updates via the api...

Re: SIM and Recurring Billing

RaynorC1emen7 — Tue, 21 May 2013 23:09:31 GMT

Yes, take a look at the hosted CIM option.

Re: SIM and Recurring Billing

gwardell2 — Fri, 16 Aug 2013 17:02:05 GMT

Hi,

Where do I find information on seting up this Hosted CIM?

Gary

Re: SIM and Recurring Billing

RaynorC1emen7 — Fri, 16 Aug 2013 18:09:29 GMT

Is in the documentation http://developer.authorize.net/api/cim/

and the sample code http://developer.authorize.net/downloads/samplecode/

Re: SIM and Recurring Billing

gwardell2 — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 13:17:38 GMT

> In general, ARB and CIM will not be used together although it certainly it possible in certain scenarios.

How do I set it up to use CINM and ARB together?

What I want to do is store the billing informsation on Authorize net and have recuring billing of fixed amounts, which is what ARB does.

But I also want to be able to query the billing address information and update, which is what CIM does, I think.

When I have tested it I am unable to find the ARB account via CIM.

Gary

Re: SIM and Recurring Billing

RaynorC1emen7 — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 15:01:31 GMT

I think he mean using both CIM and ARB on different recurring billing. one for some scenario and use the other for other scenario.

How do I set it up to use CIM and ARB together? So no, not the way you think it does.

But I also want to be able to query the billing address information and update, which is what CIM does, I think.

You can update the billing with ARB with the subscription ID. Not sure about query, might be able to do that with the transaction ID.

What it sound like is that you would use CIM and do your own scheduling

Re: SIM and Recurring Billing

gwardell2 — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 23:54:56 GMT

> use CIM and do your own scheduling

If you use CIM to do your own billing then there is no need for ARB. Plus you have to run your own CRON job to kick off the billing.

If one can't query the ARB information via CIM or any other API then, it would seem that when you drop your information into ARB it's like a black hole, it never comes out again and if you need to contact your customer for some reason you have to keep the information in your own database. You can't use Auth net as a data repository.

However, one can manually look up all of the ARB information in the merchant control panel. So one kind of wonders why that same capability isn't available via an API?