Recurring payments

Klarna Checkout is compatible with the WooCommerce Subscriptions extension for handling of recurring payments.

Please note that Klarna supports subscriptions only for some regions. Please check with Klarna merchant support for supported regions.

Klarna is not currently enabling recurring for Klarna Checkout.

Requirements

To get started with recurring payments via Klarna in your WooCommerce store, you will need the following:

• Klarna is not currently enabling recurring for Klarna Checkout; existing recurring accounts can continue to transact.
  As an alternative, Klarna Payments accounts support recurring by default, without configuration updates required for the Klarna merchant account, more info at Recurring payments for Klarna Payments.
• The extension WooCommerce Subscriptions installed and configured.
• If you want to be able to accept free/zero value subscriptions you need to apply this filter.

Get started with subscriptions

1. Create a simple subscription product. Set it to a daily renewal so that we can test the renewal process as well.
2. Make a test purchase (either with a real account or a test account).
3. Make sure that:
   1. The subscription order is created in both Klarna and WooCommerce.
   2. A Klarna reservation number is added to the order notes in WooCommerce.
   3. A Klarna recurring token is added to the Subscription.
   4. The subscription status is set to Active in WooCommerce.

1. Wait 24 hours and check that the renewal order is created, a new reservation number from Klarna 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

1. Navigate to the subscription (→ WooCommerce → Subscriptions) you want to test.
2. 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.

1. Navigate to the subscription (→ WooCommerce → Subscriptions) you want to test.
2. In the right column you should see a box named Billing Schedule.

1. 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.
2. 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 Klarnas 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. Information about possible error codes can be found in this Common error codes from Klarna article.

Failed payment flow

If a renewal payment fails, the customer will receive an email with the following subject line  Invoice for renewal order #… The content of this email looks like this:

By clicking the Pay now link, the customer is redirected to the checkout page to pay for the order and re-activate their subscription.

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 Klarna 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.

Update payment method from My account page

If the customer wants to change the payment method selected in KCO for the subscription, they can login to My account and then navigate to the subscription. From this view they can click the Change payment button.

• This will send the customer to the checkout page where Klarna Checkout is selected again as the payment method.
• By clicking on the Change payment method button the customer is redirected to a Pay for order page. However, the amount of this order is set to 0.
• Finally the customer is redirected back to the subscription page and can se a notice about the subscription payment method being updated.

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.

Klarna Checkout is part of the official WooCommerce marketplace and support automatic recurring payments.

Basic Features

Advanced Features

Display Klarna Checkout even on free subscriptions

If you have a coupon that brings the total order value down to zero making the subscription free for the customer, by default this will show the standard WooCommerce checkout instead of the Klarna Checkout. For Klarna Checkout to work with zero value subscriptions it is required that you use the filter kco_check_if_needs_payment. And return false instead of true to this filter.

/**
 * Use together with Klarna Checkout for WooCommerce (v3 platform)
 * https://wordpress.org/plugins/klarna-checkout-for-woocommerce/
 *
 * Filter to change if you want the Klarna Checkout iFrame to display on free orders or not.
 * For example after a coupon has been used.
 */

add_filter( 'kco_check_if_needs_payment', 'kco_change_check_if_needs_payment' );
<em>function</em> kco_change_check_if_needs_payment( $bool ) {
  return false;
}

Troubleshooting

“Your system might be unaware of this order. Please reach out to your admin.”

When a customer updates the information in a subscription, if they change payment method from their My account page or update their address for instance, this results in an uncaptured invoice in the Klarna Portal with the amount of 0. This order is however not visible in the WooCommerce order view, only in the detailed view of the subscription.

In the Klarna Portal this 0 amount invoice is created with a notice “Your system might be unaware of this order. Please reach out to your admin.”

Since this is an order with 0 value and it’s only an update of an existing subscription where the order value is not affected no further action is needed.

Make sure you confirm that this is in fact the result of an update of information within a subscription and that the amount is 0.

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.