Anyone interested in Paypal REST Base Inteface from Aware?

[BenHayat]

I'm interested, too... A good payment system is highly necessary in our days

Just remember, this is a fairly basic plugin to save CC info in the vault and allow developer send charges. It does not support Braintree subscription, but you can build that in Aware easily. The only addition we're interested, is to support Paypal beside CC.
If this is good for you, can I count you as an interested party to purchase plugin?

[weblike]

I'm in with $100

[BenHayat]

I'm in with $100

I just explained it to Mark . No $ figure yet we know what the package will cost. But I will tell you this, $100 will not even buy you the current plugin.

[weblike]

OK, I got it .

I'm interested (fairly depends on price as well, everything does in nowadays and quality of course ).

thx a lot.

[RLJB]

We're the guys that got the original Braintree plugin developed by awareim. There's a lot to consider on this topic, so I will try and give you our reasoning and then you need to lay your own needs and situation over the the top.

First our situation...

We had the Braintree plugin developed a few years ago. We had previously used PayPal for a subscription saas aware system we developed. PayPal did ok but it had a few issues we didn't like...

1. With PayPal if you set up a subscription, you can't vary the amount of the subscription by more than 15%, without them re entering their credit card details again. We had an entry price of $19 per month for 1-3 users, when they went up to 4 users the price goes up to $49 per month... With PayPal we could not change the price without the customer intervention.

2. You have to leave our site and go to PayPal to do the transaction. It's ok but we wanted it more tightly integrated. Plus the return success in Aware never really worked properly.

3. You don't actually get the credit card details. You DO want to know expiry dates of cards, cause users need to update details, you need to prompt, but you don't know the dates. You only knows when the transaction fails, too late.

4. If the payment fails, you get an email. They try 5 times, then the subscription is cancelled. It's a pain to manage, it's outside your app, so it's manual.

We kinda hated PayPal by the end of it, so we started to look around. This was before PayPal bought Braintre. So we got the Braintree plugin developed.

It's a simple plugin, you really only need two features and the plugin does it....

1. Add a customer into the vault, get a token
2. Send a charge transaction to customer in the vault using a token, get a success or fail

You manage all the billing logic in aware, you keep exp dates, you can change the amounts as you need, you use all your own forms. The plugin works great to do that. Yes you can't take PayPal as a payment method (not an issue for us, have a think about if you really need to offer PayPal, I would guess no at least as a starting point).

Now the bad side of Braintree....

1. Check the requirements in your country to get an account, in Australia (where we are based) you must have a merchant account, and if you think getting a PayPal business account is a pain, a merchant account is a lot worse (we had to provide a business plan and financial projections)

2. Currencies. Our Braintree account provides only for Australian dollars. This is a pain, we want to launch in Asia, UK, USA in LOCAL currency. Can't do it easily within Braintree, we have to open a merchant account in each currency. (PayPal by far has the largest selection of currencies).

3. Prices have gone up since PayPal bought them, such is life.

So here is the situation for us...

We're re launching a product, but we really want to push it into other countries, so we're actually considering moving back to PayPal. (Can you believe it!)

Plus we're considering changing our charging method, our thinking is we can simplify our billing process by moving away from an automatic deduction method on the monthly anniversary. Basically we will have our system calculate a"date paid to" for the customer, they buy 1, 3, 6 or twelve months in advance, that sets the date paid to. If this falls behind current date they can't login without making a payment. This is what our accounting system does, it's simple and effective, but it does have an issue if people don't pay for 5 months and then try and login. Also if they just buy monthly they have to keep re entering credit card details.

In summary....

The current Braintree plugin is good, I really don't think you need to develop it further IF you're happy with Braintree issues . But really think through your fee and charging structure, there may be a better way.

[BenHayat]

Plus we're considering changing our charging method, our thinking is we can simplify our billing process by moving away from an automatic deduction method on the monthly anniversary. Basically we will have our system calculate a"date paid to" for the customer, they buy 1, 3, 6 or twelve months in advance, that sets the date paid to. If this falls behind current date they can't login without making a payment. This is what our accounting system does, it's simple and effective, but it does have an issue if people don't pay for 5 months and then try and login. Also if they just buy monthly they have to keep re entering credit card details.

Excellent write up and THANK YOU for writing this.
From some other projects that I had done before in ASP.NET and doing Payment processing for other clients, I learned monthly processing (which was really daily processing for us, because you never knew what day of the month a user started their subscription, so every day we had to pull those that are due in 30 days). It was a pain, even though we tried to automate things, but it was hard.
So, for my new SaaS project in Aware, I've decided to do an "Annual" subscription and when someone buys, we set a date called "ExpiresIn" which is 365 days added to purchase date.

But in US, many people use Paypal, due to it's protection policy. So, Paypal, debit card and Credit card, are all important. And this can be done with the current Paypal system in Aware, but not the best implementation.

[hpl123]

I can also confirm Braintree´s application process being somewhat tedious. For me it took a couple of weeks to get approved and I needed business registration documents, single page business plan, forecast for usage etc. etc. It is what it is and most merchant account application processes are like this (I actually think Braintree is better than many other but it´s still a tedious process).

Regarding the Braintree Paypal integration, I am not sure I am interested in chipping in on that. Firstly, I don´t really use PayPal for our customers and secondly I think this integration is a BIG undertaking and will be expensive for Awaresoft to develop.

Good to hear your thoughts Rod and interesting you might be going back to PayPal. Then a PayPal COMPLETE plugin/integration might still be interesting? The COMPLETE integration should be able to do what the Braintree plugin does but that is probably possible.

[BenHayat]

I can also confirm Braintree´s application process being somewhat tedious. For me it took a couple of weeks to get approved and I needed business registration documents, single page business plan, forecast for usage etc. etc. It is what it is and most merchant account application processes are like this (I actually think Braintree is better than many other but it´s still a tedious process).

Regarding the Braintree Paypal integration, I am not sure I am interested in chipping in on that. Firstly, I don´t really use PayPal for our customers and secondly I think this integration is a BIG undertaking and will be expensive for Awaresoft to develop.

Good to hear your thoughts Rod and interesting you might be going back to PayPal. Then a PayPal COMPLETE plugin/integration might still be interesting? The COMPLETE integration should be able to do what the Braintree plugin does but that is probably possible.

Just got this.
http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/28/paypal ... rwglq:chny

[RLJB]

One thing I forgot to mention.... We are currently also looking at stripe.com which offers 100+ currencies. So far it looks good, I will update when we have finished our investigations.

Just reading above its clear that Everyone's needs are different, and different countries have different rules, so you all really need to do do thorough investigations.

[hpl123]

One thing I forgot to mention.... We are currently also looking at stripe.com which offers 100+ currencies. So far it looks good, I will update when we have finished our investigations.

Just reading above its clear that Everyone's needs are different, and different countries have different rules, so you all really need to do do thorough investigations.

Stripe is BY FAR the best option and I know many developers use it for their webapps etc.. The founder of stripe was actually a developer tired of the ridiculous/tedious application process for merchant accounts and created stripe to be an easy, fully functional solution/alternative. Also if i´m not mistaken, stripe is similar to Paypal in it´s usage for developers: you create an account and is up and running almost right away (i.e. not long application process etc. etc.). Also the stripe fee etc. are absolutely ok and is very similar to PayPal.

Stripe wasn´t available in Scandinavia previously when I investigated it but now is so I am definitely up for a Kickstarter creating a stripe plugin. The ideal would of course be if Awaresoft realize the value and builds stripe directly into Aware IM? RLJB, have you at all started the discussion wit hAwaresoft regarding creating a stripe plugin?

[customaware]

Regarding Rod's comments....

We're the guys that got the original Braintree plugin developed by awareim. There's a lot to consider on this topic, so I will try and give you our reasoning and then you

Now the bad side of Braintree....
.
.
.
2. Currencies. Our Braintree account provides only for Australian dollars. This is a pain, we want to launch in Asia, UK, USA in LOCAL currency. Can't do it easily within Braintree, we have to open a merchant account in each currency. (PayPal by far has the largest selection of currencies).

I have just received this back from Braintree...

"As an Australian merchant, you can settle in 9 major currencies: AUD, CAD, EUR, GBP, HKD, JPY, NZD, SGD, and USD. Additionally, you can accept payments in over 130 currencies.

If you plan on using anything other than AUD, you will need a multi-currency account with NAB. Do you have an existing account? If not, one of our sales representatives will assist you during the application process."

[RLJB]

Hey Mark, I suspect it's a bit of a "moving target" - as the competition gets hotter, they relax their rules (perhaps). They seem to have changed their tune a little since I last asked (which was about 6 months ago), I wonder how easy it is to get a multi-currency account. I will ask again.

Hendrik - the Stripe signup process is as simple as signing up, identifying yourself (I used Google+, LinkedIn and Facebook) and it is immediate. It is very simple. I haven't asked Aware to price a plugin build yet for Stripe, still doing the investigations.

[RLJB]

Mark - this is an email from Braintree support from May 2014:

Hi Rodney,

Thanks for reaching out, and congrats on the UK launch! We can definitely help you set up your account to process GBP in addition to AUD. Here’s an overview of how it would work:

Setup

In order to process a new currency with NAB, your merchant account provider, you’ll need to open new bank account with NAB in the new currencies. NAB will reach out to you directly with instructions and associated setup paperwork once I get the process started over here.
From there, if you’re interested in converting foreign currencies back to AUD, you’ll be able to transfer between your accounts. One thing to note that is that NAB may charge transfer fees.
Pricing would be at your current rate: Interchange + 1.75% + 0.25 AUD
Process

Please returned the multi-currency agreement attached signed.
I’ll request the additional currencies (GBP) and NAB will reach out to get these set up.
In the meantime, we can add GBP to your Sandbox so that you can test.
Let me know if you have any questions and we’ll get you up and running as soon as possible!

Best,

Plus on the form they state the charges as:
Multicurrency Processing (Non-AUD): 3.05% + 0.25 AUD per transaction

It just seems overly difficult, I want to be able to offer a system in the UK, US, Aus, NZ, and Sing all in local currencies. I believe that means four new bank accounts, that's four new bank reconciliations every month for our accounts etc. I will email him back and see if it is any easier now.

[BenHayat]

Hendrik - the Stripe signup process is as simple as signing up, identifying yourself (I used Google+, LinkedIn and Facebook) and it is immediate. It is very simple. I haven't asked Aware to price a plugin build yet for Stripe, still doing the investigations.

Hopefully, as more developers come to use Aware, especially for SaaS applications, a complete [and up to date] Payment processing system needs to be in place within Aware Structure, whether it's PayPal REST API or Braintree or Stripe REST system.
So Rod, after your investigations and before you approach Awaresoft for custom plugin for your need, I suggest to open it up here, so we also can contribute to the features and then we all can pitch in for a plugin that servers most of the needs and it's close to a complete implementation.
The current Paypal implementation is old and Aware needs a new Payment processing system from ground up. It's part of every SaaS application and Aware is awesome for building these large and powerful apps.

Just my two cents and hope Support is reading this.

[customaware]

Hey Mark, I suspect it's a bit of a "moving target" - as the competition gets hotter, they relax their rules (perhaps). They seem to have changed their tune a little since I last asked (which was about 6 months ago), I wonder how easy it is to get a multi-currency account. I will ask again.

Hendrik - the Stripe signup process is as simple as signing up, identifying yourself (I used Google+, LinkedIn and Facebook) and it is immediate. It is very simple. I haven't asked Aware to price a plugin build yet for Stripe, still doing the investigations.

Yes Rod....

I had a play with Stripe last night and in a few minutes was able to set up my payment plans which was simple. Certainly the most intuitive to date that I have looked at. (except Recurly which looks gorgeous but is expensive and is not an all in one solution)

I assume Node+ is basically .js ??

I would certainly support funding an interface to this if it can be done quickly.