How to Create Recurring Payments with Google Cloud Functions and the Routefusion API

Ciao! At Routefusion we love programmable money. So today, to start the new year, we are going to do a brief tutorial on how you can create recurring payments using Google Cloud functions and the Routefusion API!
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This tutorial will assume you already have a GCP account and project setup, with billing attached.

It will assume you also have the Gcloud command-line tools installed.

It will also assume that you have signed up on Routefusion and copied down your developer keys, created a beneficiary and have that beneficiary_id.

This tutorial will assume a few things:

You already have a GCP account and project setup, with billing attached.
You also have the Gcloud command-line tools installed.
You have signed up on Routefusion and copied down your developer keys, created a beneficiary and have that beneficiary_id.

If you need to create GCP account, you can setup an account here: https://cloud.google.com/, and if you do some searching around you will find out how you can get lots of free credits.

If you need to create a Routefusion account you can sign up here: routefusion.com.

If you need to download gcloud command line tools you can do that here: https://cloud.google.com/sdk/docs/install

Step 1: Create your repo and file structure, download the routefusion SDK.

Open a terminal, create a new directory called cron-send-payment, and run npm init.

> mkdir cront-send-payment

> cd cron-send-payment

> npm init

Hit enter through the instructions for npm init, and then check out your file structure.

> ls

It should have only created you a package.json

Now create your index.js file

> touch index.js

Next, install the routefusion node SDK

> npm install --save routefusion-sdk

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Step 2: Create Your Function

The next thing we are going to do is open our favorite code editor and create our Routefusion function. For ease you can just copy the code I wrote ;)

// index.js

// Initialize routefusion-sdk
const rf = require('routefusion-sdk').Instance({
  RF_CLIENT_ID: process.env.RF_CLIENT_ID,
  RF_SECRET: process.env.RF_SECRET,
  RF_BASE_URL: process.env.RF_BASE_URL // will default to sandbox
});

// Create a cloud function that takes in stream data 
exports.CreateTransferRoutefusion = (req, res) => {
  // Decode the stream data into JSON
  const PubSubData = JSON.parse(Buffer.from(req.data, 'base64')
	
	// Create our transfer object
	// developer.routefusion.co
  const transferData = {
    beneficiary_id: PubSubData.beneficiary_id,
    source_amount: PubSubData.transfer_amount,
    auto_complete: true,
    source_currency: "USD"
  };
  
	// Make our recurring payment!
  rf.createTransfer(transferData)
    .then(resp => {
      console.log(resp);
    })
    .catch(err => {
      console.log(err)
    })
};

A quick rundown of this function. We are initializing the Routefusion SDK

We then create a cloud function named CreateTransferRoutefusion

We JSON'ify (if thats a word) the data, and create our transfer object. Then we make our recurring payment! Super simple 😉

Step 3: Create Your Environment Variables

You will notice that we have environment variables set. With cloud functions all you need to do is create a .env.yaml file in project directory and add in your ENV vars.

> touch .env.yaml

Open your editor and paste in the below variables. Be sure to change the credentials to the ones found in your Routefusion developer tab on routefusion.com

# .env.yaml

RF_CLIENT_ID: 0C270CB98CFD4DE4BBD45BA179B67307F263DA92C66572A2A8D043E55FC826B5
RF_SECRET: 723Ae7657b97722DA2D4a964EB1D137d21B4A81e88AF368F1e990B8b2F5727C0
RF_BASE_URL: <https://sandbox.api.routefusion.co>

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Step 4: Quick Cleanup of Directory

For good measure let's create a .gcloudignore.

> touch .gcloudignore

Open your editor and paste this in .gcloudignore

# .gcloudignore

# This file specifies files that are *not* uploaded to Google Cloud Platform
# using gcloud. It follows the same syntax as .gitignore, with the addition of
# "#!include" directives (which insert the entries of the given .gitignore-style
# file at that point).
#
# For more information, run:
#   $ gcloud topic gcloudignore
#
.gcloudignore
# If you would like to upload your .git directory, .gitignore file or files
# from your .gitignore file, remove the corresponding line
# below:
.git
.gitignore

node_modules

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Step 5: Create Your Gcloud Pubsub Topic

If you are not familiar with PubSub, take some time and read about it here: https://blog.stackpath.com/pub-sub/

Ok, lets create our topic. Open your terminal and type the following

> gcloud pubsub topics create create-transfer

Wow, that was easy! Now make sure you topic was created

> gcloud pubsub topics list

It should give you output that looks like this

> gcloud pubsub topics list
---
name: projects/YOUR_PROJECT_NAME/topics/create-transfer

Sweet! Now let's create our cloud function.

Step 6: Create Your Cloud Function

Similar to creating a topic we use the Gcloud command line tools. Super convinent. You can find a list of all the Gcloud function commands here for reference. https://cloud.google.com/sdk/gcloud/reference/functions/deploy

From your terminal with a working directory inside of your directory we setup earlier run the below command.

> gcloud functions deploy CreateTransferRoutefusion \\
  --trigger-topic create-transfer --runtime nodejs10 \\
  --env-vars-file .env.yaml

After the command runs maker sure it was created by running the below command

> gcloud functions list                                                                          
NAME                       STATUS  TRIGGER        REGION
CreateTransferRoutefusion  ACTIVE  Event Trigger  us-central1

Great, now our function has been created! Now for the last part.

Step 7: Create Your Cron Job to Send Recurring Payments

For this tutorial we are going to automate the paying of our rent every month. Earlier at the start of the tutorial we mentioned we are assuming you have created a beneficiary. Make sure you have that beneficiary id, and lets get our function live!

From your terminal run the below command.

> gcloud scheduler jobs create pubsub PayRentMonthly \\
  --schedule "0 0 1 * *" --topic create-transfer \\
  --message-body "{"beneficiary_id": YOUR_BENEFICIARY_ID, "transfer_amount": YOUR_RENT_AMOUNT }"

That command creates a cron job that will publish a message with the transfer details on the first of every month.

Just to double check that it was created lets run the scheduler command

> gcloud scheduler jobs list
ID              LOCATION     SCHEDULE (TZ)                TARGET_TYPE  STATE
PayRentMonthly  us-central1  0 0 1 * * (America/Chicago)  Pub/Sub      ENABLED

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Step 8: Sit Back and Relax, You Will Never Forget to Pay Your Rent Again!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. If you want this payment to go live, all you need to do is submit compliance documents on routefusion.com. We will approve your account for production access ASAP. Once you are approved you will link a bank account and everything will just work! How fun is that.

If you have any questions or want to discuss any cool ideas you have for programming money, please email the team at engineering@routefusion.com

We love to chat about all sorts of ideas and problems.

Happy Coding!