How can a customer cancel a recurring payment

I have just recently watched the Recurring Payments Webinar and found it very informative. However, I thought it was incomplete because there was not discussion of how a user could cancel a recurring payment. I am working on a website where a customer can select an "auto ship" product each month. If the customer wants to cancel his monthly subscription how would I be able to create a system that would allow the customer to do this on my website?

Thank you,
Robert Crespo

Here is a copy of the Recurring Payments Include file that I've added a function for cancelling profiles: profileCancel()

It can be used like this:

<?php

          $accountInfo = array();

          $accountInfo['USERNAME'] = "API_USERNAME";

          $accountInfo['PASSWORD'] = "API_PASSWORD";

          $accountInfo['SIGNATURE'] = "API_SIGNATURE";

          $cancelProfile = profileCancel($accountInfo,$_SESSION['profile_id']);

?>

Ray, thank you for getting back to me regarding my cancellation of recurring payments question. I guess I will have to figure out a way to incorporate this code into a "my subscriptions" order management page where a customer can have easy access to cancel any future orders. I am just trying to visualize how all of this relatively complicated code fits into my project.

I have a question regarding the 4 extra columns needed or recurring payments to work properly. Since I am using a dynamic MySQL database for my products, I am assuming that the best way to pass these 4 variables to the shopping cart is to have them added into 4 unique database fields. The 4 fields that I was thinking of adding are:

ProductRecTerms
ProductRecAmount
ProductRecFrequecy
ProductRecAmount

Would this be best practice when it comes to where this information is stored in the database?

Let me explain what I need to do. The website I am designing will be selling live insects as food for lizards and other small exotic animals. The website will offer these live food items in a subscription and non-subscription format. Ideally I would like to give my customers the option of being able to upgrade ANY item for sale as a subscription sale. My next question is, would I need to create a copy of every item in my products table, for example, 500 Crickets non-subscription in parallel with 500 Crickets subscription? Or can the subscription upgrade be handled with a separate database table, let's say a table called "Subscriptions" that in turn would store these 4 unique cart variables used to make the subscriptions work? Or would the addition of such a "Subscriptions" table be over complicating things? Any guidance in this area would be greatly appreciated.

You would definitely add those as columns in your shopping cart., or at least terms and frequency. You could probably use the existing Price column for the amount.

I'd imagine you only have a few subscription options (weekly, monthly)... I'm not sure if it would be necessary to database all of it. A simple select list on the add to cart page with the options might suffice and then maybe just three columns in your products table "IndividualPrice", "MonthlyPrice", "WeeklyPrice" might do the trick.

What you do or don't add to the database really depends on what actually varies per product. There is no need to add a database field to handle something that really doesn't change on a product by product basis.

You might want to consider a premier support ticket to help you conceptualize the best way to organize your database and cart to support what it is you are trying to do. We can have a more in depth conversation about your business and make sure you are doing things in the best way to support the end result you are looking for.

Thanks again Ray. Your response gave me a lot of ideas about how to get all of this working. I might need that premier support ticket or I might not. I do enjoy the game of trying to figure this out on my own. I particularly liked your suggestion on using a select lost to initiate a subscription purchase. It's not a problem to modify my existing database with those three fields. After reading both of your replies I feel that I have a better handle on this project. Thank you again!