Customizing ProductCart - Installment payments. Balance due on shipping.

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Installment payments. Balance due on shipping.

Printed From: ProductCart E-Commerce Solutions
Category: ProductCart
Forum Name: Customizing ProductCart
Forum Description: Exchange messages with other users that are customizing ProductCart.
URL: https://forum.productcart.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=5361
Printed Date: 03-December-2024 at 11:05am
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.04 - http://www.webwizforums.com

Topic: Installment payments. Balance due on shipping.

Posted By: jblumhorst
Subject: Installment payments. Balance due on shipping.
Date Posted: 20-November-2012 at 10:52pm

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

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Judy Blumhorst
Sailmaker
www.judybsails.com

Replies:

Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 21-November-2012 at 2:41pm

Hi Judy,

One of the advantages of ProductCart over a solution such as Volusion is that PC is extremely malleable.

It doesn't sound like you really need recurring billing for this. Rather, it sounds like what you need is a customization to whichever billing gateway you'll use to submit 80% of the payment when the order is placed, a bit to retain the remaining balance, and then a customization to enable you to submit the balance of payment through the control panel. This is a bit like the functionality for accepting order as "authorization only" and then force capturing them later (when shipped).

Does this sound like it fits the bill for your needs?

Posted By: jblumhorst
Date Posted: 21-November-2012 at 3:43pm

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.

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Judy Blumhorst
Sailmaker
www.judybsails.com

Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 21-November-2012 at 8:32pm

Hi Judy,

I understand you're not doing pre-auths; I just meant that the PC process for doing that is somewhat similar.

This is all pretty straight forward until we get to the bit about some products are made to order and others are ready-made -- especially if an order contains a combination of those. We could sort that out, but it gets more complicated and we'd need to also customize managing products so that you have a flag to tell the system which kind of product a given one is.

Posted By: jblumhorst
Date Posted: 21-November-2012 at 9:06pm

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

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Judy Blumhorst
Sailmaker
www.judybsails.com

Posted By: Hamish
Date Posted: 22-November-2012 at 12:19pm

Hi Judy,
How do you determine which products are charged 100% and which the initial 80%?
I'm guessing it could be any of, certain categories, BTO products or at a certain price level.

Hamish

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Editing ProductCart Code?

See http://wiki.earlyimpact.com/developers/editcode" rel="nofollow - WIKI Guidelines for Editing ProductCart's ASP Source Code

Posted By: jblumhorst
Date Posted: 22-November-2012 at 12:47pm

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" rel="nofollow - http://www.judybsails.com

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Judy Blumhorst
Sailmaker
www.judybsails.com