What is PayPal Personal Integration?
PayPal Personal integration allows you to securely charge credit cards and collect payments on Order Forms. PayPal handles all the credit card information, providing PCI compliance.
Requirements
The PayPal Personal integration feature requires a Professional level Formsite account and a Business level PayPal account.
This integration processes payments, so your form needs Order Form Items with prices. But you don't need any items to collect credit card information — this will be handled by PayPal.
Create a New Payment Integration
On your form's "Payments" page, click the integration for "PayPal Personal". Then, enter your PayPal email address and an item title and item number. When you're finished, click the "Save" button.
Recurring Billing (Subscriptions)
The recurring billing settings can be used to create recurring subscription charges with PayPal's Subscriptions feature.
When a form user submits a recurring payment, a subscription will be created inside your PayPal account for the recurring charges. The first charge will occur same-day and then the billing cycle will continue until all the charges have been made or there's a billing failure. You can further manage payment subscriptions inside your PayPal account.
Collecting PayPal Payments
After a form user completes the last page of your form, they'll be forwarded to PayPal to pay. PayPal will securely collect their billing information and process the charge. After a successful payment, PayPal's Instant Payment Notification (IPN) feature will update Formsite with the status of the transaction, usually within a few minutes.
PayPal controls which types of payments they'll accept for your account. To allow your customers to pay by credit card, log into your PayPal account and go to their "Settings -> Selling Tools" page. Then, enable the "PayPal Account Optional" setting.
Viewing PayPal Results
On your form's "Results" page, you can view the status of each PayPal transaction in the Payment column. Each row will have a status icon and a "History" link for full transaction history.
| Status | Description |
|---|---|
 |
Successful payment. |
 |
Successful payment, but with additional information. For example, a duplicate payment or refund. |
 |
Waiting for payment attempt or waiting for PayPal IPN update. |
 |
Failed payment or unexpected error. |
Note: Your PayPal account is the final record of all payments and refunds. There shouldn't be a discrepancy between PayPal and Formsite, but if this situation arises, PayPal takes precedence.
PayPal Common Error Messages
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"Things don't appear to be working at the moment. Please try again later."
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This error usually happens when PayPal's "Block Non-encrypted Website Payment" setting is enabled. This setting isn't necessary when using the integration since it already securely submits and verifies transactions. To fix this, log into your PayPal account and go to their "Settings -> Website Payment" page (or directly to this page). Then, disable the "Block Non-encrypted Website Payment" setting.
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