Braintree configuration recurring payments

[connectJason]

I have Braintree set up, although I don't think it's fully set up to handle recurring payments.  I see in the braintree admin area (not in blesta) there is a recurring billing area says plans need to be created in there and need to store customers in the vault.  Are these actions that need to be done manually, or does the Phillips Data Gateway take care of these things?   I am assuming it's not automatic, since I have customers checkout with Braintree, and in the braintree admin area, they aren't in the "vault"   If this doesn't work for recurring billing without extensive customization, would be good to know, and if that is the case, thank you in advance for anyone's response.  

[Tyson]

Blesta itself handles recurring billing (i.e. autodebiting cards when payments are due for open invoices) based on your settings. The vault refers to storing cards offsite (with Braintree rather than in Blesta), which the Braintree gateway currently does not support. Storing cards offsite with Braintree would be "Token Storage" as described in the documentation.

So to summarize, the Braintree gateway supports recurring payments because that is handled by Blesta. Customer card data is stored in Blesta rather than with Braintree in their vault.

[connectJason]

interesting, in the blesta admin it says no payment accounts for a client that just paid, is the data stored in the database somewhere? I don't think I want to do that and worry about PCI, so braintree not a good idea if that is the case.  

[Tyson]

The card data would be stored as a payment account if the customer chose to store it, but they don't have to. If they did, the card could be used for autodebiting in the future. In any case, the card data has to pass through the server, so you would still need to be PCI compliant. You can use a token-based gateway like Stripe Payments to store cards off-site and also not pass them through the server.