SIM and Recurring Billing

[susan]

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

[RaynorC1emen7]

Yes, take a look at the hosted CIM option.

[gwardell2]

Hi,

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

Gary

[RaynorC1emen7]

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

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

[gwardell2]

> 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

[RaynorC1emen7]

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

[gwardell2]

> 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?