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Customization
Recurring payments
Avarda Checkout is compatible with the WooCommerce Subscriptions extension for handling of recurring payments.
Please note that Avarda supports subscriptions only for some regions. Please check with Avarda merchant support for supported regions.
Requirements
To get started with recurring payments via Avarda in your WooCommerce store, you will need the following:
- Your Avarda Checkout Client ID needs to be configured to enable recurring payments. Get in touch with Avarda to activate this feature, your Avarda account/Client ID does not support recurring payments by default.
- The extension WooCommerce Subscriptions installed and configured.
Get started with subscriptions
- Create a simple subscription product. Set it to a daily renewal so that you can test the renewal process as well.
- Make a test purchase (either with a real account or a test account).
- Make sure that:
1. The subscription order is created in both Avarda and WooCommerce.
2. A Avarda reservation number is added to the order notes in WooCommerce.
3. A Avarda recurring token is added to the Subscription.
4. The subscription status is set to Active in WooCommerce.
- Wait 24 hours and check that the renewal order is created, a new reservation number from Avarda is added to the order notes in the renewal order and the subscription is set to Active again.
Don’t have time to wait for the renewal to be triggered?
There are couple of options to avoid waiting 24 hours for a renewal to be triggered.
The fastest way is the Process renewal action
- Navigate to the subscription (→ WooCommerce → Subscriptions) you want to test.
- In the right column you should see a box named Subscription actions.
Choose Process renewal and click Apply.
You can also change the date and time for Next payment in the subscription and set it to an earlier time than 24 hours if you don’t want to wait that long.
- Navigate to the subscription (→ WooCommerce → Subscriptions) you want to test.
- In the right column you should see a box named Billing Schedule.
- Click the date field of the Next Payment section. A calendar is now displayed where you can select todays date. The nearest time you can set the renewal to be triggered is 1 hour in the future.
- Wait 1 hour for the renewal to be triggered and then make sure the renewal and subscription behaves as explained in the Get started with subscriptions section.
Failed renewal orders
If a renewal order is denied in Avardas system, the subscription will be set to On hold. Information about the reason why the renewal failed will be added as an order note in the renewal order.
Failed payment flow
To reduce the risk of subscriptions being deactivated due to denied renewal payments, there is the option to activate the Retry Failed Payments feature in the WooCommerce Subscriptions settings. By activating this setting, WooCommerce Subscriptions will make new attempts to deduct the amount and notify the customer of the problems according to a customizable schedule.
You can read more about the Woo Subscriptions default retry rules at the official documentation.
After the customer have finalized the purchase, the subscription is set to Active again and the Subscription notes will look similar to this:
In general failed renewal payments with a 4xx error code should be treated as a failed payment where the customer need to take action and click the Pay now link in the email to re-activate their subscription.
Change the recurring token
In some cases you might need to change or add the Avarda recurring token. This can be done by navigating to the specific subscription and clicking on the pen icon next to the Billing address data.
When you have changed the data in the input field, remember to click on the Update button in the top right meta box.
Automatic Payments
WooCommerce Subscriptions offers two methods for accepting recurring payments:
- Automatic payments
- Manual payments
To understand the difference between the two methods, read Subscription Renewal Process before continuing.
Avarda Checkout support automatic recurring payments.
Basic Features
| Subscription Suspension | ✔ |
| Subscription Cancellation | ✔ |
| Subscription Reactivation | ✔ |
Advanced Features
| Multiple Subscriptions | ✔ |
| Recurring total changes | ✔ |
| Payment date changes | ✔ |
| Customer payment method changes | – |
| Store manager payment method changes | – |
FAQ
No subscription is being created. When a customer signs up there is only a regular order created.
This is usually happening because a new customer account wasn’t created.
The most common reason for this is that the account settings described in the Requirement section isn’t configured correctly.
No renewals are triggered at all
This is usually because you are working in a staging/test environment. WooCommerce Subscriptions have a built-in feature that determine if your installation is a production site or a staging site. From the staging site no renewals are being triggered. Read more about how WooCommerce Subscriptions handle staging sites and migrations here.
When is a pending subscription created?
A pending subscription is created at the same time as when a pending order is created.
Why does the customer get redirected back to the checkout with an error when I offer a free trial?
If you offer Free trial with subscriptions the customer will keep getting redirected back to the checkout with the error Something went wrong with completing the order. Please try again or contact the store.
You will also find the following in the log REDIRECT ERROR [order_id]: Could not get an order_id from the merchant reference "your-reference.
The reason for this is that you have enabled $0 Initial Checkout in the Subscription settings.
When this setting is enabled, the payment gateway’s process_payment will not be called, which is what we use to store the merchant reference to the Woo order.
Solution: Go to: WooCommerce → Settings → Subscriptions and uncheck $0 Initial Checkout to disable it.