Installment Plan Payment Module [Support thread]

The Installment Plan Payment Module is now available at

http://www.zen-cart.com/index.php?ma...roducts_id=588

It is based on the manual credit card payment module, but breaks the total payment up into a number of payments (specifiable by the shop owner), thus providing "financing" for your customers. It is designed to replace the "Layaway" module which did the same thing less securely.

This module does not automate the process of charging the card; this still must be done manually. It simply allows you to offer another payment option.

That Software Guy

version 1.1 is now available; if you run both the Zen Cart credit card module and this module, you should upgrade.

Thanks,
Software Guy

Mr. Scott Wilson

Your installment module for zencart is a great addition to the zencart payment modules and though I find this kind of payment module extremely valuable
I would like to propose an addition to your module that would greatly increase it's value.

I feel that for most of zencart shop owners it would become very confusing to use and keep track of this method of payment if it were widely used by customers because there is no visual input for the shop owner of which customers credit cards have been charged and what balance still remains.

If you could come up with a way to take the products a customer has purchased with your installment module and visually set them aside in the zencart admin area so the shop owner can keep track of the products purchased with the installment module and the due balance remaining for the customers purchase.
I feel that this would greatly cut down on the risk that shop owners may double charge their customers credit cards by mistake.

Additionally, There is no visual representation for the zencart shop owner to what amount to charge it's customer per month like is represented to the customer during the checkout process.

I also would like to offer the suggestion to let the customer choose the installment billing date because some people may be using a check card to make purchases and may or may not have funds available in the customers credit card or bank account for the transaction when the zencart shop owner initiates the installment transaction for a particular installment payment. This way liability is reduced for overdraft fees and takes the responsibility away from the shop owner for initiating said transaction.

I am not approaching you to criticize your work or your valuable addition to the zencart community but to share an idea and improve your modules productivity.

I really think this would help zencart shop owners keep track of who they need to process and when.

I hope you find this information very helpful:) "beasleybub" zencart community.

Interesting suggestions. The admin is undergoing modification; let's wait to see what the Zen team delivers in 1.6 and go from there.

Scott

Thanks swguy!
I'm glad someone like yourself has worked on a module like this.
I don't know enough about php or I would gladly help.
cheers!:P

Question - is this an item that, once installed, is always available in the cart as a purchase option, or can it be set as an option only for items over a certain price?? I downloaded the package and read thru the readme, looks like a great feature! :smile:

There are no minimum order restrictions but one could certainly be added. It is always available as a purchase option for customers whose group name begins with "invoice" as long as their cart is not all virtual items.

Hi Guys,

I have a question to see whether anyone has done this before.

I want to only give customer options to pay installment i if they buy a products from a certain category.

So pretty much how do I go through the cart before payment to see if customer has added a product from a certain category.

Has anyone done this before.

I am running zencart 1.3.7


Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Response by PM.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by swguy

There are no minimum order restrictions but one could certainly be added. It is always available as a purchase option for customers whose group name begins with "invoice" as long as their cart is not all virtual items.

---

Hi SW GUY! I love this mod. My client does, too, but now she tells me she wants a way for this to be used only for purchases of a certain amount or higher. I don't understand how to make this happen...or do you mean you can build it in?

thanks,
tracey

Response by PM.

Hi Scott,

I, too, am interested in modifying this very useful mod to set a minimum order and limit by category.

You mentioned waiting to see about changes made in the admin before possibly adding the changes that beasleybub suggested, but how far away is 1.6 anyway??? :smile: I am sure that everyone that uses this mod would appreciate thos additional admin features. I for one would happily donate to make this a reality, this mod will be a sizeable part of our payments since we sell a lot of high-dollar items to mainly starving artists.:D

Thanks!

Matt

Re: beasleybub's requests: this is just a payment module. It's not an accounts receivable system. If you need a tracking tool, start with a spreadsheet and build up from there.

Re: your requests: if you have specific needs for customizations for your shop, you are welcome to PM me for a quote or post your request in the Commercial Help Wanted area.

Thanks,
Scott

Hi swguy (waving to you from the spacecoast),

Do you think this mod could be used for a site that only requires a deposit on their items?

It's a travel site that you can either pay for the whole trip up front or put down a deposit and pay the rest upon arrival. It's been making me nuts as to how to deal with this.

thank you,

betty

You could do this.

Another approach, depending on what payment modules you use, would be to simply modify the payment module to take (say) 25% of the actual amount.

Good luck,
Scott

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by swguy

You could do this.

Another approach, depending on what payment modules you use, would be to simply modify the payment module to take (say) 25% of the actual amount.

Good luck,
Scott

---

Problem I could see with that would be if they wanted to pay in full.

Plus one thing I'm figuring your mod could help with I didn't mention in my previous post is that there is no zencart payment mod for the sites credit card processor, so by using your mod, the deposits at least would not have to go through Paypal.

thank you,

betty

Gotcha. Yet another approach would be to use the Invoice module, and then invoice them for either 100% or 25% of the total using Google Checkout (stand-alone).

Good luck,
Scott

Hi there! Any chance we can work together to make this function with Authorize.net to take advantage of their 'Automated Recurring Billing' feature?

Right now one of my clients offers payments but this was accomplished by placing a 'deposit' in the attributes which, when selected, gives a transaction to the 'enable ARB' via authorize.net -- was just wondering if that is something which can be 'triggered' from outside authorize.net???

Anyone have any experience with ARB and know if there is info which can be passed via AIM?

You'd have to start with the authorize.net payment module, not with this - and you'd have to code to their API, etc. etc.

All the Installment Plan module does is what the regular "credit card" module does, but with the ability to divide the total by a specified divisor. There's no logic that will cause recurring billing to occur automagically. You have to do it by hand.

Scott

Got ya... in that case I can still see using it to help people figure their 'payments' instead of the using an excel spreadsheet to figure before entering the ARB.
Ah... except then it will not enter the first transaction for them... right now they search for the first one then use a link to 'create ARB' -- thanks for the clarification!

Hi,

I just installed this and I can see the option in admin as well as on my shopping cart. However, when I place a test order, it shows the correct payment, but when I get to the final checkout screen, it shows the full amount again. Shouldn't it show total amount -current installment with a balance due?

The full amount also shows in the order emails to me and the customer. If the total product was $1000, it shows as if $1000 is being billed rather than an installment of $500. If I have two installments set up, it makes sense to me for the order and the email to show that $500 is being billed now and $500 will be billed in 1 month rather than showing the total. This will be so confusing for the customer. Is this working correctly?

They've agreed to pay $1000 by installment, so that's the amount it shows. If you want to show the $500 figure in the email, you would have to modify your email template.

I have been using this with my current site with no problem at all, thanks for the great mod!!!

Now I am upgrading to 1.3.8a and when I installed this mod everything looks fine, but the option is not available at checkout! I have unistalled-reinstalled and checked all of my settings.
Any idea? I am using fast and easy checkout, don't know if that would make a difference (but it works with 1.3.7 with FEC)
Thanks!

www.mommyandbabyessentials.com/test

This module works with manual credit card processing. It's not a way to automate recurring paypal payments; it's just a way to securely pass back the customer's credit card info for manual processing that is broken down over time.

I have updated the help to clearly state this.
http://www.thatsoftwareguy.com/zenca...ment_plan.html

Scott

Thank you for your reply and update.

I understand it does not do recurring billing. It does give the customer an option for installment payments. Is there a way to setup this option without having to get a credit card? We would continue to invoice directly from Paypal for the installment amount but would it still allow the customer to order directly from the shopping cart instead which is bypassed currently?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by cutterscreek

I understand it does not do recurring billing. It does give the customer an option for installment payments. Is there a way to setup this option without having to get a credit card?

---

If you modified the software to make it work this way, then yes, it would work this way.

Another option would be to modify the invoice contribution to work this way.

To the best of my knowledge, there are no pre-existing contributions that do exactly what you want. You'll have to write some code or hire someone to do it for you.

Hi i just installed this mod and it's great. But seem 6 payments is a little limited. Is there a way to make it 6 payments, 12 payments, 18 payments, 24 payments, 30 payments and 36 payments. I have a company who are doing installment schemes. It doesn't have to be online by credit card.

thanks

Number of payments is a field you set in admin. 6 is just the default value.

Hi thanks for the reply. It's true you can set the payments under admin. I wants to offer more paymenst rather than just 6 or 12 or 24. I want it to come in a row and the customers can choose the amount of payments they wants.

Thanks

Then you're going to need to write some code, since the system doesn't present this option currently.

I must have done something wrong. I installed "Installment Plan" per the instructions, but the little circle is yellow (not green) in the Payment Module. Can you recommend a cure?

hello, i wonder if i could use this module for payment by check?

If you'd like, sure. The point of this module is just to show what a partial payment plan would look like.

There is a mod set up for paypal or authorize.net payments. It's still a manual processing though :( I installed it on my site balticcreations.net. (still working on designing it and getting it up and running with products) you get the option of layaway but then not a payment option for the deposit.

I find it easier to work out an invoicing plan and just invoice your customers for the payments. Then for the deposit just make a discount code to take off a certain amount making the original payment only the deposit. Then the customer will have to pay off the discounted amount. So like my site is 20% down so the discount code (which is in place) will take 80% off their order. But when they use the code it gives them instructions and tells them the code is not an actual discount but will equal the amount owed. I have been doing it this way on another site for well over a year and it works well.

swguy, this idea is brilliant and would like to see if it is possible to have it separate the installments payments into three and then set-up automatic billing. I am trying to figure this out myself. Any suggestions? Thanks Frank

Automatic billing is beyond the scope of this mod.

Installment plan now includes a minimum order threshold (which uses the subtotal value). To get this functionality you download the latest version of Installment plan, and REMOVE and re-INSTALL installment plan under admin->modules->payment.

Where is the credit card info stored exactly? Where do I find it from the Zen Cart Admin area?
Also, the partial digits are not being emailed to me for some reason.

The transaction goes through. Order confirmations go to the shop admin and customer .... but no other emails are generated.

help please

Is it legal to have the digits emailed to you? I want to install this module, but I dont wanna get into trouble for it.

Please please let me know, this can help me out a lot. I hate taking CC numbers over the phone.

Please consult your attorney and credit card processor for information on what's legal.
Additionally, please don't spam mod authors with PMs when you've already asked a question on the forum.

Sorry, I didnt mean to PM you in a negative manner.

I have just installed this module and all seemed well untill I placed an order and the confirmation to me and the customer said

Payment Method
------------------------------------------------------
Gift Certificate/Coupon


No part cc numbers or security number recieved in email or in admin

any clues?

Cong

I cannot get this to work. SSL is enabled and mod installed, but dot next to the order status in admin is yellow/orange. Can not get it to turn green. I have credit cards enabled.

same error here plus i don't get the extra emails and the payment module is stated as "Gift Certificate/Coupon"
i'm usin ZC 1.5.

This module won't be updated for 1.5- it's really not PCI (obviously). Conor may update his Manual Card for 1.5.0 - not sure.

I noticed earlier someone changed the options from monthly to weekly, but didn't explain how. Can someone please tell me how to do this as we want ours to run over 6 weeks, not months. Also is there an option somewhere to enable me to change the name to Layby instead of Installment Plan?

Am posting here as per your request. I have a payment gateway installed (NAB Transact), but customers are still being asked to enter their credit card information on my website and not being taken to the NAB module to make their credit card payment. How do I fix this please?

I have version 1.3 of installment.php installed on v1.3.9h. It shows up under the payment screen and seemed to work ok. But when I check the order, it shows the order was paid by gift certificate/coupon and no cc info is listed. If I understand the docs correctly, half of the CC number is kept online, and half is sent to the email address in the config?

Checking the Payment Modules screen, Pay Deposit is listed with a yellow circle. The configuration I have for the module is as follows: Enabled - True, Collect CVV - True, Payment Zone - None, Order Status - Pending, Sort Order - 3, Nbr of Payments - 4, Minimum - 1000.

I have credit cards configured in Configuration->Credit Cards

I have Transaction Express gateway sorted 1, and PayPal sorted 5. The CC gateway is working, and SSL is enabled.

I am using the coupon module, but for my test order it didn't meet the criteria so no coupons were applied.

Any ideas on what might be wrong?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by aestheticdesign

I have version 1.3 of installment.php installed on v1.3.9h. It shows up under the payment screen and seemed to work ok. But when I check the order, it shows the order was paid by gift certificate/coupon and no cc info is listed.

---

I just tried installing this plugin on a fresh install of 1.3.9h. Same result as my production version. The module shows up with a yellow dot under Payment Modules, and when I review the order, it shows being paid by Gift Certificate/Coupon with no credit card info. The emails I received also show payment by Gift Certificate/Coupon and no credit card info.

Has anyone been able to get this plugin to work with 1.3.9h?

I have Installment Plan on Zen Cart 1.3.8a and same problem:
Yellow light.
No stored or emailed CC info.

Is there something we are missing? Some line or file we have missed?

Any help would be appreciated.:smile:

I am running into the same problem, getting the little circle to turn green and not yellow. I have SSL and everything was easy to install but this will not change. Suggestions?

I have added the payment module. I assume that it captures all of the credit card information to the database so you can make manual charges to credit cards in future months? When i do a test purchase, it says that method of payment is giftcertificate/coupon and does not capture any credit card information. Have I done something wrong?

Hi Scott...will this module work in V 1.50? I installed it however some odd things happen:

1) Once edited the radio button is yellow never goes to green like a complete installation

2) It appears as a payment option and calculates the payment but when I do a test purchase with it, it does not capture any credit card informaiton to the database.

3) Under the acknowledgment email it says method of payment: Gift Certificate/Coupon

I installed the off line credit card payment module into V 1.50 and that works ok....

any ideas what is wrong?

The CC stuff was removed from the Zen Cart core in 1.3.9. This module is no longer supported. You can use Ceon's Manual Card module, but it doesn't have an installment option.