How to Build a Paypal Form
FormSmarts PayPal Integration is your best option when you need to collect data and get a payment on a form. It makes it very easy to include a PayPal payment in your forms, while giving you the power, flexibility and ease of use of a full-featured web form builder.
For example, you can easily build:
- an event registration form (registration form demo)
- a booking form (booking form demo)
- an online order form (order form demo)
- a service request form
- and any other web forms which you want to integrate with PayPal
Tip: The demos above are hosted on FormSmarts, but you can also embed forms on your own website with the code snippet given by the form builder.
Do you need help integrating PayPal into your form?
Ask a PayPal Integration Expert Now
Requesting a Payment on Your Form
To requesting a payment on a form:
- Sign up for a FormSmarts Pro account and create a form
- Set the Return URL of the form to http://www.paypal.com
- Add radio buttons, a drop-down list or a checkbox, and enter the description and price of products formatted as My Product Description ($30 USD), as shown on the screenshot below.
That’s all you need to do. We’ll pick up the products and quantities that were selected, and we’ll redirect the user to a pre-filled page on Paypal for payment.
Billing Multiple Items on One Form
You can as easily charge for several items within a single form submission by adding other drop-down lists or radio buttons formatted as just described.
Adding a Product Quantity Box
If you’re building an order form, you will need to allow the user to enter the quantity or number of products they want to buy.
This can be done as follows:
- Position the quantity field immediately after the one listing products for sale
- Set the field type to Positive Integer.
Handling International Payments
To request a payment in a currency other than US dollars, simply change the currency code in the item’s description. For example, use (€60 EUR) to receive a payment in Euros, and (£60 GBP) for a payment in Sterlings.
The link inviting the user to proceed to payment is displayed in his preferred language, in any of the supported languages.
Reconciling Form Results & Payment
The name and email address submitted as part of form data may not always match those in the Paypal account that was used to send the payment. You will then need to reconcile each form submission with the corresponding payment using the FormSmarts reference number.
The FormSmarts reference number is the 25-character ID that is given to users on the confirmation page, and is shown in the subject of the email notification we send you. The same reference number will appear in the payment details in your Paypal account (Transaction Details screen, under the Custom heading).
How Payment Integration Works
In the current implementation, your Paypal email address must be the same as your FormSmarts login. You can change your FormSmarts login if needed.
To avoid the user having to type the same information twice if paying by credit card, we will attempt to pass on his first name, last name, email and country to Paypal. If you intend to request this information on your form, make sure you name the first name and last name fields exactly like this.
The web form and Paypal integration feature is only available to FormSmarts Pro customers. Lean more about FormSmarts Pro.
Redirecting Users to Your Site After Payment
To redirect users to you website after they have completed payment, log in to your Paypal account, and set the Return URL under Profile > Website Payment Preferences.
Get a FormSmarts Pro Account Free!
If you sign up for Paypal with a premium or business account (it’s free) with our referral link, we’ll refund your FormSmarts Pro subscription as soon as we get an equivalent referral fee from Paypal! See Paypal conditions here.
We welcome your feedback about payment integration.
Posted by FormSmarts on
Tuesday, May 5, 2009 at 5:12 pm in form builder.
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Tags: payment integration, paypal, pro, return url
16 Responses to “How to Build a Paypal Form”
You need a FormSmarts Pro account to use Paypal Integration. Just wanted to make this clear, because although the post is tagged “pro”, it’s not explicitly written anywhere.
A user emailed us asking whether she would need to disclose her Paypal details to FormSmarts in order to use Paypal integration. We want to make it very clear that you do NOT need to disclose your Paypal password in order to use Paypal integration. We will NEVER ask you to reveal your Paypal password. The only information FormSmarts needs to know is your Paypal login (email address).
Well, it’s nice to know I need “pro” to integrate Paypal after trying to make it work four times 
That’s the main reason I came. But I’m doing a public service site and already taking a loss so it would be nice to try this out and make sure it works the way I need it to before I spring for fifty bucks.
Jim,
I’m sorry if we didn’t make it clear that this was a Pro feature. I’ve switched your account to Pro-test mode so you are able to test Paypal integration with your form.
If you have any questions, feel free to use the live Ask FormSmarts box.
Hi,
The forms are very good and paypal works really well!
Any idea when you will be able to add Google checkout support?
Thanks
Hi,
We haven’t got a release date yet, but next version of FormSmarts Payment Integration will include Google Checkout. Subscribe to our Twitter/Facebook feed for updates.
I want to use Paypal integration for prospective members to 1) tell us about themselves and 2) donate the annual membership fee. The problem is that the site visitor would not be choosing from multiple choices, so a pulldown list or a radio box will not work for this (Formsmarts is enforcing a rule that a radio box must have at least two options).
Right now, I have faked that by having a radio box with two choices: one year membership donation or two. The problem is that the PTSA does not want to ask for two year’s worth of donation.
We need the equivalent of Paypal’s “Donate” button (with fixed dollar amount).
Patrick,
Simply contact FormSmarts Support asking that we manually remove the unwanted radio button.
So, this is cool, if i can build a form that not only passes the info on to paypal, but sends me an email with ALL the requested info (even the fields that PayPal does NOT need). Can this be done?
Yes Todd, we pass on to PayPal the information they need to process the payment, such as product details & quantity, customer email and name if available (as you would expect with a shopping cart), while also sending you all the request information. You can get form data both by email and as a downloadable Excel report.
I have a customer that needs a form for accepting event registrations and pay with PayPal. A key piece of this is the pricing varies by the date. So for example:
1st Payment – 8/10/2010 – $950.00
After 8/20/2010 – $1,140.00
2nd Payment – 9/10/2010 – $1,225.00
after – 9/20/2010 -$1,558.00
Can that be done? Also those payment can vary based on options they choose.
This falls into the nothing is ever easy category.
Thanks,
Tom
Tom,
Many of our customers who use FormSmarts to power an event registration form initially sell early-bird registrations at a lower price, then at some date change the registration fee to a regular price. It doesn’t provide much additional customer value for us to automate a process that is only ever going to happen once (twice in your case): just log on to FormSmarts the days when prices need to be changed and update them manually (or ask your customer to do so).
FormSmarts forms are dynamic content, so any change you make in your account will show immediately on your website. There is no need to re-publsh the embed code.
Regarding your second question, you can include as many chargeable items (i.e. priced options) as you need. All selected options will be added up on the payment page on Paypal.
If registrants have to pay twice, I would recommend creating another form for the second payment.
Wow! I am very impressed with your quick reply.
Thanks for the info.
Tom
We would like to add to our membership form an ability for the user to specify additional, discretionary donations he or she might like to make to specific programs (in addition to the fixed, annual membership donation). For example:
Culture Connection Donation: _____
School Level Donation: _____
Then, have all donations (fixed and discretionary, if any) passed on to Paypal. The key here is that the *user* enters the dollar amount for the discretionary donations. Is there any way to do this?
Do I need to have a PayPal account set up before setting this up?
Heather,
You don’t need to have a PayPal account before setting this up, but you will eventually need to create one to receive payments. See “Get a FormSmarts Pro Account Free!” above to find out the advantage of creating this account via this link.
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