Paypal REST API Bug - Fee Charged By PayPal NOT SET in Response

Question

UPDATE: Issue applies to both TEST and LIVE API Requests

At first I thought this was a Test Environment bug but I've confirms it applies to production as well. It's critical to know Fees Charged By PayPal.

---

Is there a way to get the Paypal Test environment (developer.paypal.com) to respond with fees charged by PayPal? Neither a Sale or a Sale Lookup seem to return the Paypal Fee seen in live transactions. Are we forced to test with live transactions (not a best practice)? Without the same fee values you see in the live environment, its hard to unit test our accounting system in development.

Request - Credit Card Charge ($43) with Stored Card

        $cardToken = new CreditCardToken();
        $cardToken->setCredit_card_id( $cc->getRefid() );

        $fi = new FundingInstrument();
        $fi->setCredit_card_token( $cardToken );

        $payer = new Payer();
        $payer->setPayment_method('credit_card');
        $payer->setFunding_instruments(array($fi));

        $amount = new Amount();
        $amount->setCurrency('USD');
        $amount->setTotal('43.00');

        $transaction = new Transaction();
        $transaction->setAmount($amount);
        $transaction->setDescription($note);

        $payment = new Payment();
        $payment->setIntent('sale');
        $payment->setPayer($payer);
        $payment->setTransactions(array($transaction));

        $response = $payment->create();

Response - Approved (full response)

PayPal\Api\Transaction Object
                        (
                            [_propMap:PPModel:private] => Array
                                (
                                    [amount] => PayPal\Api\Amount Object
                                        (
                                            [_propMap:PPModel:private] => Array
                                                (
                                                    [total] => 43.00
                                                    [currency] => USD
                                                    [details] => PayPal\Api\AmountDetails Object
                                                        (
                                                            [_propMap:PPModel:private] => Array
                                                                (
                                                                    [subtotal] => 43.00
                                                                )

                                                        )

                                                )

                                        )

Documentation - Fee Charged By PayPal

(Below Image) - details object from the documentation showing a (string) fee charged by PayPal - Which doesn't seem to expose itself in the test environment.

Answer 1

Use the NVP API (GetTransactionDetails request) to return more accurate details in place of or along side the standard REST Responses. If you're interested I can post a PHP Example.

The REST API allows you to do things like manage a Credit Card vault.. so you can store a card and charge a card with the REST .. but when I charge it, I return the NVP API GetTransactionDetails response which includes Fees Charged By Paypal and everything else you need to know about the transaction that was charged via REST. It maybe be a hack and involve an extra API call but it works really well.

Answer 2

This is now available on the REST api. Specifically, via the transaction_fee on the sale object.

You can also access transaction_fee from a payment object by drilling down. Here's a (slightly redacted) example response:

{
  "id": "PAY-5YK922393D847794YKER7MUI",
  "state": "approved",
  "intent": "sale",
  "payer": {...},
  "transactions": [
    {
      "related_resources": [
        {
          "sale": {
            "id": "36C38912MN9658832",
            "state": "completed",
            "amount": {
              "total": "7.47",
              "currency": "USD"
            },
            "transaction_fee": {
              "value": "1.75",
              "currency": "USD"
            }
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

For those following along at home, you can get the value of the transaction fee on this payment with the following simple and intuitive line of code:

payment.transactions[0].related_resources[0].sale.transaction_fee.value

See? Easy. Oh, but just remember - the sale object will not exist until after the payment has been executed.

Here's a massive ticket on the Ruby SDK about how this feature was added, if you want some light reading.

Answer 3

Looks like it's known bug that will be fixed. Don't have the date yet.