Subscription Agreement Report Specification

The Subscription Agreement Report (SUB) is for use by merchants or payment processing partner, who have integrated the Subscription and Recurring Billing Product. The Subscription Agreement Report gives merchants and processing partners detailed information about outstanding subscribed monthly payments.

Associated specification and documentation

The Subscription Agreement Report is available through PayPal’s website and the Secure FTP Server, which is defined and described in the Secure FTP Server Specification. Subscriptions are created with PayPal Subscriptions and Recurring Billing, as documented in the Subscriptions and Recurring Billing Integration Guide.

Distribution and access

The SUB is available via PayPal's website and the Secure FTP Server (reports.paypal.com), which requires a separate user account for access to the SUB. A user account that is enabled for the SUB is also enabled to create user accounts for the Secure Drop-Box. To ensure data security, SUB users must generate their own user accounts for the Secure Drop-Box.

The following steps describe how to set up and access the SUB using the Secure FTP Server:

1. Create a Secure FTP Server user account. Login to PayPal (www.paypal.com) and create a Secure PayPal Reporting FTP Server username and password. Passwords for accessing the Secure FTP Server cannot be reset by PayPal. To obtain a new password, you must create a new Secure FTP Server user account.

2. Grant access to third-party users. You must explicitly grant access to third-parties by contacting their PayPal Account Manager to supply the following information:

   • Third-parties’ PayPal login username
   • Type of permission: reporting access (read)

The third-party is then notified by email that access to the business partner’s Secure FTP Server has been granted.

3. Access the Secure FTP Server programatically using an FTP client. The hostname of the Secure FTP Server is reports.paypal.com. A user account on the Secure FTP Server has the following directory structure:

/ppreports/outgoing

Schedule

The SUB is generated and delivered by PayPal on a regular (24 hour) basis. With the initial release of the SUB, the SUB is generated and distributed by 9AM daily in the leading timezone of the reporting window.

Data format

You can receive the SUB in either comma separated value (csv) or tab delimited values format. Contact your PayPal Account Manager to set the data format for this report.

Character encoding: UTF-8

The report’s character encoding is UTF-8 (8-bit UCS/Unicode Transformation Format).

Report filename

The filename naming convention depends on whether or not you are using Multiple Account Management.

Single account report

The filename of the SUB for a single account follows this naming convention: SUB-yyyymmdd.reportingWindow.sequenceNumber.totalFiles.version.format

Table 1.1 Subscription Agreement Report File Naming Conventions

Multiple account report

When using Multiple Account Management, the filename of the report follows this naming convention: SUB-yyyymmdd.reportingWindow.sequenceNumber.totalFiles.version.format

TABLE 1.2 Subscription Agreement Report File Naming Conventions

Data retention

The SUB is available via the Secure FTP Server for 45 days after the date of its delivery.

New or revised versions

In the future, PayPal will support multiple versions of the SUB. PayPal will notify you regarding the creation of any new version as well as any deprecation of older versions of the report.

If you wish to take advantage of a new version, you can receive two versions of the same report concurrently in order to test and integrate the new version. You can also receive nonconsecutive versions of the same report concurrently in order to test and integrate the new version. Contact your PayPal Account Manager to enable different versions and request any changes in report distribution.

Notifications

PayPal operationally monitors the generation and delivery of the SUB on a 24/7 365 basis. PayPal maintains two different user contact points for report notifications:

• A business contact point for all notifications related to data integrity, data delivery, and new reporting features
• A technical contact for all notifications related to data integrity, data delivery, system outages, system updates, and new features. PayPal will notify you of the following events related to reporting.
• Delays in report delivery
• Errors in report generation
• New version availability
• System outage
• System update / maintenance (pre-announcement)
• New reporting feature releases

Contact your PayPal Account Manager to provide PayPal with the appropriate notification email alias. PayPal strongly recommends that you create a distribution list or email alias that allows multiple parties to receive communication about the SUB.

File structure

The report can be delivered as either a comma-separated values or tab-delimited file. This section describes the structure of the data file.

A report file can contain a maximum of 1 million records. If the report contains more than 1 million records, the report is split across multiple files. The report is also organized by section, where each section represents a single PayPal account. If you are not using PayPal Multiple Account Management, the report contains only a single section.

Each row of the report consists of a two letter row type, followed by the details specific to that row type. Table 1.3, "Report Row Types," lists the valid row types, along with the sections that describe the data for that row type.

TABLE 1.3 Report tow types

A report file with fewer than 1 million records (a single file) with only one section is organized as follows:

Report Header (RH) File Header (FH) Section Header (SH) Column Header (CH) Row Data (SB) ... Row Data (SB) Section Footer (SF) Section Record Count (SC) Report Footer (RF) Report Record Count (RC) File Footer (FF)

For report files that are split over multiple files, only the first file has a report header record and only the last file has a report footer and a report record count record. A report with two sections split over two files might be organized as follows:

Report data

This section details the columns and related data that is delivered in the report header, report footer, and report record count records.

NOTE: If the report is split over multiple files, only the last file contains the report footer and report record count records.

Report header data

Report header data exists in one row with each element being separated by the file delimiter. All report fields are non-blank unless otherwise noted.

TABLE 1.4 Report header data

Report footer data

Report footer data exists in one row with each element being separated by the file delimiter. All report fields are non-blank unless otherwise noted.

TABLE 1.5 Report footer data

Report record count data

Report record count data exists in one row with each element being separated by the file delimiter. All report fields are non-blank unless otherwise noted.

TABLE 1.6 Report record count data

File data

This section details the columns and related data that is delivered in the file header and file footer records.

NOTE: Each file in the report has a file header and a file footer, even if the number of files in the report is one.

File header data

File header data exists in one row with each element being separated by the file delimiter. All report fields are non-blank unless otherwise noted.

TABLE 1.7 Report file header data

File footer data

File footer data exists in one row with each element being separated by the file delimiter. All report fields are non-blank unless otherwise noted.

TABLE 1.8 File footer data

Section data

This section details the columns and related data that is delivered in the section header, section footer, and section record count records.

NOTE: If you are not using Multiple Account Management, the report contains only one section.

Section header data

All section header data exists in one row with each element being separated by the file delimiter. All report fields are non-blank unless otherwise noted.

TABLE 1.9 Section header data

Section body data

Body data exists in one row with each element being separated by the file delimiter. All report fields are non-blank unless otherwise noted.

Before any rows of body data in the report, a column header row lists the name of each of the fields in each body data row. The column header column starts with CH, followed by the Column Name for each body data field (except for the "column type" field). For example:

"CH","Subscription ID","Subscription Action Type","Subscription Currency","Subscription Creation Date","Subscription Period 1","Period 1 Amount","Subscription Period 2","Period 2 Amount","Subscription Period 3","Period 3 Amount","Recurring","Recurrence number","Subscription Payer PayPal Account ID","Subscription Payer email address","Subscription Payer Name","Subscription Payer Business Name","Shipping Address Line1","Shipping Address City","Shipping Address State","Shipping Address Zip","Shipping Address Country","Subscription Description","Subscription Memo","Subscription Custom Field"

TABLE 1.10 Section body data

Section footer data

Section footer data exists in one row with each element being separated by the file delimiter. All report fields are non-blank unless otherwise noted.

TABLE 1.11 Section footer data

Section record count data

Section record count data exists in one row with each element being separated by the file delimiter. All report fields are non-blank unless otherwise noted.

TABLE 1.12 Section record count data

PayPal-supported currencies

For a list of currencies supported for use with payments and as currency balances, see PayPal-supported currencies.

Version history

See also

• T-codes