A client of mine needs to bill his customers $25 up front for a product and then $55 six weeks after their purchase. He's using an Authorize.net merchant account and does NOT want to pay extra for their Automated Recurring Billing (ARB) API. What's the best way to do this delayed payment?
+1
A:
Normally you would accomplish this with separated Authorize and Capture transactions (you could run a combined Authorization and Capture for the $25 immediately, then Authorize an additional $55, later on you run the Capture on the $55). However, I don't think this will work for you because I'm fairly certain Authorization only transactions expire after ~30 days.
Your only alternative will be to store the credit card details and then run the $55 capture to happen outside of your application (as NullUserException noted, this could be with a cron job, or a Scheduled Task in Windows).
Note that storing the credit card details means you need to be very careful (encryption, etc); I would recommend using Authorize.Net's Customer Information Manager system so you don't have to keep those details. I've not used CIM, only recommending it because it is built into the provider you are using; There may be alternatives.
Chris Shaffer
2010-07-29 14:12:09
+1 for the CIM mention. That is the best solution. Unfortunately it costs as much as ARB. And authorizations do expire at or before 30 days from the date of authorization.
John Conde
2010-07-29 16:18:50