Any Paypal users out there .... (UK)

I am in the UK and want to use Paypal as a payment method.
After taking the order in Zen Cart I want the Credit Card to be authorised but not charged to the customer until the goods have been shipped. I got some great advice from FAQ about this

1. Set the payment module into "Authorize Payment" mode (not "Capture" or "Charge" mode).
2. Prepare the order
3. Calculate true shipping charges.
4. Log in to your Merchant Gateway system. Find the transaction for that customer/order. Update shipping costs if appropriate. Now choose to "Capture" the funds. This charges the card and puts the money in your bank account during the next processing cycle.
5. Ship the goods

So now a couple of questions

1 Is it possible to capture the funds automatically from Paypal when the goods have been shipped in Zen Cart (ie a change in order staus) or do I manually have to go into Paypal and capture them each time a shipment is made .

2 If a card has been authorised for say £100.00 but I only ship say £80.00 how do I do this. What do I do if I ship the other £20.00 at a later date .

Thanks in advance

Sounds like you're using PayPal merchant services (ie: Pro 2.0) which is not a feature built-in to the PayPal module that comes with Zen Cart.
You might try using the "Payflow" payment module contribution available in the downloads section; however, I'm not sure if it works with UK-specific configuration needs -- it might be necessary for you to write code to adapt it.

Thanks for that DrByte I will look into what you suggest and get back to you.

We will not be going live on the site until March and are not totally commited yet to using Paypal, but are totally commited to using deferred payments. Do you have any views on what is most suitable??. Would it be possible to write code to capture the funds automatically from Paypal or another when the goods are shipped, or will I need to log into the site and do it manually.

Thanks in anticipation

Many automated payment gateways allow you to "authorize" a transaction, and then "capture" (settle) it later, ie: at the point of shipment.
The "authorization" happens online when the customer places the order, and you then manually do the capture via the merchant's online processing terminal.

I suspected that was the case

Thanks for your help - much appreciated

I offer Paypal but having an "Authorise" would be heaven for me! I drop ship a lot and sometimes the product can be out of stock. So I can contact the customer and if they are not happy it would be great to cancel the "Authorise" rather than refund.

How can I use Paypal to do this?? I found no links reading through their Profile links.

There was no mention of this on the Paypal website, and no contact 'phone number either. I think you will need to follow the advice in DrByte's reply. The client I am working for has now "dumped" the idea of using Paypal and is looking at using the Barcalys ePDQ instead. They do offer the authorise and collect option

Good luck

Sorry, to come into this and revive an old thread, is it possible to setup a standard Paypal business account to do the authorization. I have used the paypal shopping cart in the past and there are fields in the IPN return to indicate that an authorization was made.

I just don't seem to be able find a place in the profile to set the mode.

Forgive me ahead of time as I am new to these boards and to Zen-Cart, but any information would be greatly appreciated.

You can use any PayPal Business account to do Express Checkout or IPN (website payments standard) transactions with Zen Cart.

As DrByte said, if you want to only Authorise the payment then it only works with Paypal Express, otherwise you can configure the standard paypal module with IPN. It notifies you when someone has paid with all Paypal ID IPN details straight into the cart.

You can do this with both a Business or Premier Account.

Thanks!! It took me a couple of minutes to realize that PayPal Express was a payment module in Zen Cart and not a part of pay pal. Can you tell I am new to Zen Cart. Anyway thanks a bunch for the info ... much appreciated.