PayLinks in v2.x of phpCOIN

From PhpCOIN Documentation

In v2.0 phpCOIN will still use paylinks, but.....

When you setup a billing vendor, you will complete the information for one paylink with parameters. From then on, as long as that vendor is still marked as available, phpCOIN will automatically build a paylink for that vendor for every order/invoice/whatever displayed that meets the criteria for displaying that PayLink.

That means for example, if you have three billing vendors and three products, you make three paylinks. If you have three vendors and five hundred products, you still make only three paylinks.

Since paylinks will be automatic, it also means that if you invoice a client for $50 and they pay only $25, then the next time they login to phpCOIN and look at the invoice, the paylink will automatically be for $25 still owing.

Nothing for you to do to change it, it's all automatic.

And if you add new vendors in the future, or drop existing vendors, phpCOIN will always draw the correct paylinks. It will add a paylink for a new vendor to an old invoice (if unpaid), and will not show a paylink for a vendor you dropped.

And to clarify things even further, in v2.0 "Billing Vendors" are renamed to "Payment Methods". It's more intuitive for those folks who accept Purchase Orders, cheques, etc.

We are also working on an enhanced IPN type module. The idea is that phpCOIN can receive a payment at any time from any source, and still handle it properly.

One last thing we are thinking about is a direct interface to payment gateways. That way, if you have say an authorize.net account, the client will never leave your site. This may or may not be in v2.0, but it will be in v2.1

Several further things to note:

• Replaceable parameters will all use the %PARM_NAME% format throughout phpCOIN. This applies to paylinks and templates.

• Paylinks will automatically search for a value called %CHECKSUM% and if found, will automatically call a function called do_calculate_checksum in /coin_includes/custom.php. The order/invoice amount will be passed in, so place your code within this function to generate a checksum or fingerprint for those vendors that require it.

• Paylinks will have a minimum and a maximum value field. So, if you accept Visa but only for orders between $10 and $100 then phpCOIN will display a Visa paylinks ONLY IF Visa is active and ONLY IF the order is more than $9.99 and less than $100.01

• You can also specify where a particular paylink can be used: orders, invoices, or both