PayPal account setup

Setup overview

If you are using either WebsitePaymentStandard or WebsitePaymentPro it is recommended to setup you PayPal account with the following settings:

(Note: Paypal regularly updates their settings interface so certain settings may not be in the same location as shown below.)

Allow multiple payments per invoice ID

It is often the case members need to use the same credit card for multiple payments (e.g. multiple event registration). In these situations Paypal might use the same invoice ID and it is recommended that you configure your account to allow multiple payments per invoice ID.

To turn this option on:

• Click on the 'Payment receiving preferences' link in the 'Selling Preferences' column
• In the section 'Block accidental payments:' select 'No, allow multiple payments per invoice ID'

• An eCheck is an electronic funds transfer that withdraws money directly from payer bank account. It's just like writing a check, only it is done electronically.

  It can take up to nine business days for payments sent by eCheck to clear and the transaction will stay in 'Pending' status during that whole time. To avoid this we recommend to turn this option off.

Turn off 'Encrypted Website Payments'

'Encrypted Website Payments' option must be switched off.

To turn off this option:

• Click on the 'Website Payment Preferences' link in the 'Selling Preferences' column
• In the section titled 'Encrypted Website Payments' select 'Off'

Enable IPN

IPN is PayPal's payment message service that sends a notification back to your Wild Apricot account (e.g. payment completed, failed,etc). These messages will always be sent back to your account even if the user closes their browser before they are directed to a confirmation page.

Your account may already have IPN enabled. To confirm if it is enabled click on My Account  and then click on the IPN History link under the History option.

From here you should see an option to 'turn on IPN' if it isn't already turned on. 

Or you can browse to the setting directly by clicking going to your Profile  (under My Account ) and then clicking on My Selling tools > Instant payment notifications > IPN Settings 

If IPN is enabled you do not need to make any changes. If it is not enabled click the Edit Settings button and enter your Notification URL.

Note you do not need specify a special notification URL as indicated in Paypal’s instructions. This is because Wild Apricot will automatically set the correct url for you - so simply enter your own url (i.e. yourassociation.com) .

Setup PDT

PDT sends payment notifications instantly but the user needs to wait for the message to be displayed.

You will need to update your PayPal settings as well as your Wild Apricot Payment settings.

First update your PayPal settings as follows:

• Click the Profile tab under My Accounts 
• Click the My Selling Tools button in the left column.
• Find the Selling online section and click on the Update link (see above)

This will bring you to the Auto Return for Website Payments section  where you can enable Auto Return for payments as well as PDT notifications. 

• First enable Auto Return by switching the option to 'On' from 'Off' . 

• Then scroll down to the PDT section and also switch this option to 'On'. 
  
• Now copy the PDT token from here, go into your Wild Apricot account under Settings/Payment settings and copy-paste the PDT token

Troubleshooting PayPal Payment Problems

Payment timed out message

Sometimes your members might see the following message after they’ve made a payment:

This does not necessarily mean that the payment has failed, but rather that  the status of the payment is unclear because no message was received from Paypal regarding the payment status (e.g. failed, completed).

Payment not recorded in Wild Apricot

Another symptom is that payment is received in PayPal (and you can see it in your PayPal account) - but it has not been recorded in Wild Apricot

Both cases are usually the result of not enabling Instant Payment Notifications (IPN) or Payment Data Transfers (PDT) within your Paypal account. Please enable these options as described above.