Since there does not seem to be a current solution for this, I am going to develop one with my programmer. The only question is, do we develop it just for me, or is there interest from others in making this available as a plugin? The basics: I need an easy way to maintain monthly subscribers who get invoiced and pay offline. This requires a way to post payments manually and have it interact with the member's subscription to extend it or suspend it, with emails generated to the admin upon either of those actions. If I develop this, would you be interested in it as well? What kinds of features would you want to see in it?
I would be interested, but I may be thinking of it differently than you. How are you paid offline? Do they give you their CC info and you still need to charge it? Or they send you a check/cash? Or you've already charged their CC in some other fashion and just need to create the subscription? Here are my needs, let me know if that is something you would be interested in developing. * On admin/edit_user page, change the add/edit CC info to allow support for custom handling by the payment plugins to be able to override current behavior (i.e. I use authorize.net_cim and want it to create a billing profile with auth.net server instead of saving CC info in database - which is only behavior now ). * on admin/user_subscriptions page: * allow ability to select a product from list that has the information of the subscription based on the product (i.e. it starts now and the recurring cycle is determined by the product instead of via manually entry) * similar to previous - allow the price (atleast the default price) be determined by the product. * allow for coupon codes to be entered here and change price accordingly. * allow for entry of affiliate code to be associated with subscription. * allow for custom fields to be saved with subscription. * upon saving, the transaction takes place to charge CC and start the recurring process - similar to how it would happen if user were to do it from his member page. as FYI - I've also been in discussion with amember about possibly having them do this customization - but haven't gotten quote yet or committed to anything.
I like this -- I think this *should* be part of aMember overall. It's a pain in the butt having to set cycle time and price when subscription is already setup. I would like to override the cycle or price manually only when needed.
I agree. That's why I was surprised to hear people actually use that page. It makes no sense to me how it could be useful in it's current state. I got very excited when I discovered it, but was dissapointed to see how it is implemented. So definitely looking for better solution here. Look forward to seeing progress here.
I would love to see this happen and have a feature request. let amember send an email for people who pay offline and in the email also have a link that they click on to go to a payment page online where they can choose from the different payment systems. I'll try to explain why I would like this: - we have a high tech banking system in our country that allows people to pay immediately against their bank account and then return to the protected page, bit like creditcard but now direct transfer online from their bank, but no recurring billing is possible. - Therefore I would like these people to receive the email with the link to pay online and once the payment is done, they just go to the protected content. Mind you this should work without people having to log in to pay, so the script would have to circumvent the amember login yet register the completed payment automatically upon completion of payment. I guess this goes for those of us who have creditcard processors without recurring billing in place. thanks
Well... It's definitely on the list. I was hoping for a bigger response, but when we are ready I'll do a final survey of requests and see if I can reconcile them into a plugin that makes sense. I am thinking it is something we'll get to in early 2010
I think this is a great option to have. If you have someone that you want to give a subscription to, but don't want to create it manually. With that plugin, you could tell them to sign up and select payment option "blah." When they sign up, it sandboxes the account until you approve it. Then if it needs to renew it gives you the option to put the account on hold again or confirm that they've paid. I think you could also achieve this with a major hack of the "coupon" code (and just give the person a code over the phone or whatever). Or possibly a use similar to a gift certificate? The possibilities are pretty wide here.
Thanks for asking. I did not proceed. Instead, I developed a workaround for my needs. What I do is this: 1) When someone signs up online, they go into a free lifetime account pending approval. 2) On the signup page, there is also a physical contract they must download, sign and send in via email or fax. 3) Once both those steps are complete, I will manually approve them and activate their account. 4) I have a 30 day free trial, so no payment is necessary yet. 5) If they have chosen to pay by credit card (it is an option on the physical contract) then I manually enter their card info on their profile page, and change their type of account to an identical account with monthly billing. 6) If they have chosen to be invoiced and pay offline, they stay in the free lifetime account, and I have a separate billing system which generates email invoices and tracks payments. 7) If someone falls behind, I can manually suspend or terminate their account. Sure, it is a bit of extra work, but I have it down to a pretty easy-to-maintain routine that only takes a few minutes a day to keep running smoothly.