Installment payments. Balance due on shipping.

I'm investigating migrating from Volusion to Product cart.  Volusion had a "recurring payment" feature that I used to process partial payments. 

I make custom-fitted sails for sailboats.  I charge the customer 80% of the price when I start making the job, with the 20% balance due when I ship the finished sail.  

As far as I can tell, the way the gateway is implemented, there's no way to capture two partial debits.   Has anyone ever developed an add-on that does this?  I know from past experience that both Authorize.net and PayPal Pro can be configured to accept recurring payments. 

Thank you in advance,
Judy

Something similar to what you describe would meet our needs.

Because of the nature of my business clientele, we don't authorize. 

We capture 80% of the price when we start designing and fabricating the product.  We do not authorize the remaining 20% at that tie. 

After we capture the 80% deposit and start the build-to-order process, we consider the order status is "work started"

When we're ready to ship, which can be 3-9 weeks later, we capture the balance due, ship out the product, record the tracking number, our cost to ship the package, and we mark the order completed. 

We need a way to record and display the captured deposit amount and payment method,  and show the balance due. This should be visible online to the customer and the storeowner, as well as in printed and emailed invoices.

We also sell a limited inventory of ready-made sails and sailboat gear equipment, for which we capture 100% of the price. 

We generally don't use authorizations.  We usually capture 100% or 80% of the order  at the time the order is placed.   

Thank you.

Thank you for the reply Sean.  I can tell from your reply that we're both on the same track.  There are just a few details to clarify.

I use an old fashioned calculator to figure out how much to charge the customer as a deposit. I don't need to automate the calculation.    If the order contains a mix of ready made and BTO, I use the calculator to figure out how much to charge the customer for the deposit.   It's easy enough to do manually.  It just takes a few secs. 

I agree with you that should be pretty straight forward  for someone (like you) who can write  ASP and knows where to put the hooks into ProductCart. 

(That's not me or my husband.  He does SQL and VB, and I do very basic stuff in html.  And, of course, I design sails. )

Judy

Hi Hamish,

Here's the business logic:
If I the product is in stock or can be drop ship from a manufacturer immediately, I capture 100%
If the product must be fabricated, I capture 80% as a deposit.

I keep a few BTO products (pre-built in the most popular configuratson) in stock, available for immediate shipment. 


Here's the programming logic:

In the "Sails" category:
 
If the sail is a pre-built and in stock, I can ship immediately and I capture 100%.
If the sail is a custom configuration (and therefor not in stock), then I capture 80% of the price and proceed to have it built at the fabricator shop.

In all other categories - 

The products are drop shipped from the manufacturer.   After review and approval, I charge 100% to the card immediately and tell the manufacturer to drop ship the item.

(These products cost hundreds or thousands of dollars.  They are not returnable, so I must reveiw every order to make sure the customer gets the right model for his intended use. )

Judy
http://www.judybsails.com






Edited by jblumhorst - 22-November-2012 at 1:02pm