WHNBilling Software v1.5

What would you pay for a turnkey billing solution?

When Web Hosting Network started in 1997 we lugged around a credit card terminal to make sure we did billing on time!

Since then we knew we needed a better solution for the age old problem of billing.
We shopped around for a long time trying just about every billing software product we could get our hands on. The products available weren't suited to our needs and more revolved around ISP billing rather than hosting billing. We got tired of looking and finally decided to write our own - it ended up the project was so big that the company we paid to complete it didn't want to finish!

So we decided to build our own system in house. It's written in PHP with a
MySQL, which means its very robust and fast.


System Requirements

Linux System
PHP4
MySQL
*CPanel for automated signup script

Feature Highlights
1. Automatic credit card billing on anniversary date of account signup
2. Allows both NON-CC bills and CC bills (for users to send check / MO)
3. Interfaces into CPANEL with full automated signup and instant credit card processing on signup
4. Integrated Fraud detection (if supported by your clearing house)
5. Quick and easy navigation system allowing you to get to the information you need fast!
6. Heavily Encrypts all credit cards before storage in MySQL
7. Users can login themselves and update billing information, view accounts and invoices
8. Allows one time charges to a customer account
9. Full Support for packages
10. Fully integrated refund system
11. Interfaces seemlessly into Cybercash
12. Custom Report Generating system for:
Revenue/Signups/Customers/Transactions.
13. Easy to setup signup emails, invoice headers and footers
14. Ablity to email all customers in billing system using one form.
15. Cpanel Version: Ablitiy to cluster servers and setup WHNBilling to setup accounts on any server you specify
16. Multi-User login ability
17. 2 step Account Additon with ablity to auto-create invoices
18. Automatic notice sent to customers with declined cc, instructing them to update their account

And tons more features!

We believe WHNBilling is one of the best Hosting billing solutions available...not just because we wrote it...because we trust it with our own company every single day! Now with all that said, what do you as a web hosting company, feel you would pay for a product such as this.

We have set it up so that its as simple as a 4 step process to setup on your server as long as you have PHP4 and MySQL. We are looking at offering this product anywhere from $300 to $600, a onetime fee, and another one time fee for yearly support.

The reason we are marking this is because we know what a web hosting company wants, after all, we are a hosting company. We have also discussed the fact that we may also give discounts to small startup hosting companies and resellers.

Thanks

where can i find the software? any demo available at the moment.

I am interested.

:)

Yes superman, where can we view a demo? go online via icq.
Originally posted by Superman
WHNBilling Software v1.5

What would you pay for a turnkey billing solution?

When Web Hosting Network started in 1997 we lugged around a credit card terminal to make sure we did billing on time!

Since then we knew we needed a better solution for the age old problem of billing.
We shopped around for a long time trying just about every billing software product we could get our hands on. The products available weren't suited to our needs and more revolved around ISP billing rather than hosting billing. We got tired of looking and finally decided to write our own - it ended up the project was so big that the company we paid to complete it didn't want to finish!

So we decided to build our own system in house. It's written in PHP with a
MySQL, which means its very robust and fast.

Feature Highlights
1. Automatic credit card billing on anniversary date of account signup
2. Allows both NON-CC bills and CC bills (for users to send check / MO)
3. Interfaces into CPANEL with full automated signup and instant credit card processing on signup
4. Integrated Fraud detection (if supported by your clearing house)
5. Quick and easy navigation system allowing you to get to the information you need fast!
6. Heavily Encrypts all credit cards before storage in MySQL
7. Users can login themselves and update billing information, view accounts and invoices
8. Allows one time charges to a customer account
9. Full Support for packages
10. Fully integrated refund system
11. Interfaces seemlessly into Cybercash
12. Custom Report Generating system for:
Revenue/Signups/Customers/Transactions.
13. Easy to setup signup emails, invoice headers and footers
14. Ablity to email all customers in billing system using one form.
15. Cpanel Version: Ablitiy to cluster servers and setup WHNBilling to setup accounts on any server you specify
16. Multi-User login ability
17. 2 step Account Additon with ablity to auto-create invoices
18. Automatic notice sent to customers with declined cc, instructing them to update their account

And tons more features!

We believe WHNBilling is one of the best Hosting billing solutions available...not just because we wrote it...because we trust it with our own company every single day! Now with all that said, what do you as a web hosting company, feel you would pay for a product such as this.

We have set it up so that its as simple as a 4 step process to setup on your server as long as you have PHP4 and MySQL. We are looking at offering this product anywhere from $300 to $600, a onetime fee, and another one time fee for yearly support.

The reason we are marking this is because we know what a web hosting company wants, after all, we are a hosting company. We have also discussed the fact that we may also give discounts to small startup hosting companies and resellers.

Thanks

I am also extremely interested!

The Demo will be available very soon. Once its avail, I will post it in our WHNBilling Page (http://www-hosting.net/billing.html)

PS: You can signup for the Mailing List and I will be sure to send you a notice of the Demo. I figure the Demo will be avaiable in about 2-3 days

Regards
gary

I have go through the scree shots, it looks great!

:beer:

Just wonder is it comes with a customer signup scripts which will add the customer's profile automatically to the WHNBilling?

Yes, it comes complete with the automated signup scripts which integrate into WHM

What is the discount for start up hosting companies? (not resellers)
Originally posted by Superman
Yes, it comes complete with the automated signup scripts which integrate into WHM

These have yet to be set, thats why i posted the thread, to see what companies would be willing to pay for a turnkey solution such as ours.

I feel as a hosting company, I would pay around $400 to $600.

Compared to large billing systems thats are geared toward ISP's but claim to be for web hosting companies, I figure this is a great price. More then affordable for any new or existing hosting company.

I figure we would offer a $100-$200 discount for brand new companies and resellers.

What cc merchants does it support.

ie WORLDPAY, REVECOM etc

At this time, only cybercash

We do have plans to add others. We selected Cyber...because we use it...

When are you going to add revecom/instabill ?
Many hosting companies use them...

Yes, Revecom would be great...

Obviously we would like support for the most commonly used transaction engines.

If you are using a particular transaction engine that you would like us to consider supporting, please email me:

simon@www-hosting.net

regards,

Simon

I know everyones been eager to try out our long awaited WHNBilling System!

The Demo is now avaiable! To view the Demo, go to http://whnbilling.www-hosting.net/

We will be releasing the pricing later this week. We plan on making it affordable yet at the same time try re-coup our costs of building the software. If you have futher questions regarding this new product, email us at info@www-hosting.net

affordable..i hope so :)

:agree: :agree: :agree:

Great man!

it looks great ...

Great, I gotta check this thing out.

Update: We have completed the addition of Authorize.net and are in the final stages of testing it

Hello everyone!

We now have our store online! Check out the WHNStore (https://www.shoppingq.com/peltola/Qadmin/Qstore.cgi) for pricing.

We have created two versions of our software, one designed for resellers and new companies and one for existing companies.

The pricing we feel is very affordable for any web hostign company, after all, this is a billing solution with complete automation, cutting your costs probably by 70% to 80%

With CPANEL interfaced, you no longer need to sit in front of your computer screen and add accounts!

If you havent seen our demo, Check it out Today! (http://whnbilling.www-hosting.net)

Price is okay, i'm not sure a lot of people who are just starting out dont have $400 or so laying around. I know it can cut costs as well as time.

Anyway, how will the product be delivered? Will you mail a hard copy to USPS, email the product with documentation or provide instant download along with documentation?

I wish the prices were cheaper... then I might consider it.... $400 is steep for me... Especially for someone that's just starting up....

I would like to know if WorldPay and revecom integration is coming

An eta would be good, if you are not sure then also tell us that way we can look somewhere else.

It just seems that no billing system has integration for those cc merchants. For people outside US that is one of the only solutions for cc acceptance.

I like your product and I wish you could integrate them.

Hummmmm we too would be very interested if it were integrated with Revecom.

I feel the price is adequate for any company. If you are a web hosting company and have at least 50 accounts paying $10 a month, that's $500 a month, more then enough to pay for the software.

We tried our best to figure out a price for the software but it comes down to the fact that we put in a lot of work into this and as you can see, we even went to the extent to give a discount for new companies. Do you see any other billing program do that? I don't think so.

For companies that do not want to shell out $400 or $600 all in one sum, we have worked out a lease feature where you can pay $50 per month for 18 months. Once the 18 months is completed, you own the software

As for worldpay, it will *not* work. We have looked into this and its the way Worldpay requires you the merchant to enter the customers data into their website. It will not work with our software since our software is designed around gateways such as Cybercash and Authorize.net

As for the software, you will get a tar'd package once payment is confirmed.

Originally posted by c0bra
Hummmmm we too would be very interested if it were integrated with Revecom.

We are looking into Revecom to see if we can integrate it into our system. Keep in mind as the previous post states, our system works around credit card gateways, We have already added Cybercash CashRegister and Authorize.net which are to major players in the gateway's, so our system will work with quite a few companies.

Personally, as a owner of a hosting company, price is not a factor, if i was a new or existing hosting company. I want the satisfaction that my customers are billed correctly and I am getting all the revenue i am suppose to be getting when it comes to billing. I can tell you I lost tens of thousands of dollars in the past, just because I didnt have a turn key system. Our system is designed for the web hosting company in mind. If you seen the demo, its cut and dry, theres none of the non-sense features you see in programs such as BillMax and Rodophi, features I as a web hosting company would never use.

Revecom

How do you run transactions with Revecom? Do you have to login to their website and run a transaction?

I'm planning on using Echo as a gateway. Can they be supported?

www.echo-inc.com is their website.

Teck, we will look into it, but cant make any guarantees of course.

Simon and I are looking at all the major gateways and will try our best to add them. The problem lies in documention. Every site we visit with requests has no development doc's unless your a customer of theirs. Also understand that it does take a few weeks to add a gateway and test it thoughly, so we are trying our best.

Many of these companies such as Worldpay, they require the customer to login to the website and add the customer information rather then though a gateway such as Cybercash and Authorize.net

echo-inc does have their documentation online. it's just a real pain trying to find it. all the variables and stuff are all there. they will even set you up with a test account to see if your script is working correctly.

Great, do you have a direct link to their doc's?

there are some things here:

http://www.echo-inc.com/ECHO/ECHOnlinePolicies.htm

and

http://www.openecho.com/

surf their site a little more and you might find a few other links. i cant find them now as my internet connection sucks.

Does this system offer recurring billing?

I fooled with the demo but didn't see it anywhere.

Thanks in advance.

Its completely automated

RevEcome requires you to log in and authorize transactions. So I'm 90% sure there will be no RevEcom with WHNbilling.

Gary,

Hows the status with the implementation of Echo coming along? If you ever did implement this, it would be worth a lot. There has yet to be a solution created that will cover many gateways.

Teck

I tired their website 5 different times and everytime i got a NO-DNS error

Originally posted by Superman

Many of these companies such as Worldpay, they require the customer to login to the website and add the customer information rather then though a gateway such as Cybercash and Authorize.net

But with worldpay you can have your own form and then post all information except for the cc details.

I am sure one day someone will be willing to do things for non US companies :)

We would like to thank everyone for making WHNBilling a great success. We have had orders from some of the bigger hosts that often frequent this board and their reviews of the software have been very good!

We would like to let everyone know of a few things we have been adding

1. WHNBilling is in the final testing phases for a NT version, we are still working on the authorize.net version, we do have a working version of WHNBilling with Cybercash

2. If you feel you dont want to pay a full lump sum, You are now able to lease WHNBilling for $50 per month, simply select the option when you go though our Shopping Cart (https://www.shoppingq.com/peltola/Qadmin/Qstore.cgi)

*Teck, we have put Echo on our list, at this time we are however working on the NT version, as soon as thats finished, we will get to work on the Echo ver

*Eddie, we will not be able to support WorldPay or Revcom, due to the fact they have a webbased interface unlike Cyber or Authorize

I doubt many are using it, but hopefully more will in the near future. skipjack.com has been an excellent solution offering included features that you have to pay for with most others.

Robin

Teck - We are very close to adding Echo, it seems its pretty close in configuration to authorize.net :)

Gary,

I'd be pretty interested to hear about Planet Payment intergration... They are an arm of Authorize.net so should be pretty easy too add (if the authorize.net doesn't already mean it works). From what I can see they only difference is they support internations customers and billing currencies.

I just PM'd a link to you, you might find useful...

Greg Moore

Gary, did you get my email recently about the contacts at Echo? If so, let me know. Also, if you can support Echo, you're the man! Has it been hard doing it?

Originally posted by teck
I'm planning on using Echo as a gateway. Can they be supported?

www.echo-inc.com is their website.


The price is good - but be careful. We just recently stopped using our ECHO account because of the lack of support and customer service we received.

I'm now using a more expensive solution - but I'm alot happier.

For example - when I called ECHO to ask about setting up something for recurring billing...I was transferred to three different people (I swear to you - no one even KNEW what that was!!!!!!!!!) and finally ended up talking to their "internet specialist". Turns out, he was just the guy who created their website and couldn't help me. His supervisor was supposed to call me back...that was a month ago...still waiting for his call.

It seems to me that the people at ECHO are not very internet-wise. Their site is pretty bad...and they recently sent out an email to all their customers that had everyone CC'd. This meant that if ANYONE replied to that email, we all got that reply. I almost ended up shutting down my email account because of the idiots that wouldn't stop replying to the email.

Anyway, I just get a really bad feeling with ECHO.

--Tina

look at skipjack.com go to their demo. built in auto recurring charges through a simple web page setup. they have VPOS (virtual point of sale) that you can process secure transactions where ever you are as long as you have internet connection. tech support has been excellent.

actually skipjack doesn't setup merchant accounts directly... similiar to authorize.net has main resellers.

robin

Originally posted by rastoma
look at skipjack.com go to their demo. built in auto recurring charges through a simple web page setup. they have VPOS (virtual point of sale) that you can process secure transactions where ever you are as long as you have internet connection. tech support has been excellent.

actually skipjack doesn't setup merchant accounts directly... similiar to authorize.net has main resellers.

robin


I've been extremely happy with EMS (emscorporate.com).

We've been with them for a couple of months and everything has been really smooth. Their system integrated INCREDIBLY EASILIY to our custom ordering system.

We did run into one snag - because they never told us about getting pics of our business. The photographer they hired couldn't get ahold of me (or didn't - I'm still mad about that!) so the pics were never taken. They froze our account until the pics were taken.

Anyway, overall - I'm much happier with EMS. They also let us charge annually for our hosting accounts. Something ALOT of merchant accounts/credit card processors will not allow.

ECHO will not allow you to charge for annual hosting. With us, it was rough - we ended up having to charge some of our customers $2.00 a month...something the customers didn't even like.

--Tina

WHNBilling would kinda create recurring billing for Echo, right?

How do they stop you from charging annually. Can't you just charge someone that higher price and when the year ends charge it again? How do they make you not do this?

what's the big deal about charging annually?

See, the problem with ECHO is that they make you sign an agreement not to charge annually, in advance, for hosting. They also ask for a breakdown of your pricing structure. If you get caught charging annually - your account is cancelled.

Yes, you can integrate ECHO with your own stuff for recurring billing. BUT, think about it, who wants to pay 30 cents + 1.50% for a $2.00 monthly hosting charge?

Granted, if you are charging more, it might be worth it.

Anyway, EMS doesn't interfere with your pricing structure and they actually do have a recurring billing system built in (if you want to use it).

EMS was also >>ALOT<< easier to integrate into our system. They seem to actually understand how the internet works.

--Tina

Originally posted by teck
what's the big deal about charging annually?


The turnover rate for hosting companies going out of business is very high.

If someone charges 1000 people $99 upfront for annual hosting...and then goes out of business 2 months later...there are going to be massive chargebacks.

--Tina

I have all my agreement forms right here. I guess I'm going to comb through all these small text to find that annual charge thing.

Other than that, I spoke with the people at Echo numerous times and they have always been helpful to me.

Wonder if they are willing to negotiate the annual agreement. Maybe giving them a higher %.

in regards to payment planet, authorize.net actually goes directly through the payment planet servers...so it should work with our authorize.net system.

echo integration is up to testing stage...just waiting for them to actually play ball and give us a testing account.

if they don't like annual account charges, I would look elsewhere :)

cybercash and authorize.net may be a little bit more expensive, but they're very stable and reliable...that's why most of the larger hosts use them :)

regards,

Simon

Simon,

Sounds great! By the way, is XpressCheX going to be implemented too? Also, what about their EchoBatch thing where you can submit batches for processing? Will you implement that or does WHNBilling have it's own way to bill customers every month?

I was going to email this but I guess this info could benefit others.

XpressCheX will not be implemented very soon, Echo works the same way as Cyber or Authorize, for recurring invoices, the system will run on a nightly cron and send any pending invoices to your merchant for approval.

We have currently froze version 1.5 to work on the following gateways

For Linux:
Cybercash (http://www.cybercash.com/cashregister/sales.html#prices)
Authorize.net (http://www.totalmerchantservices.com/default.asp?ID=10982)
Echo (http://www.echo-inc.com/)

For Windows:
Cybercash
Authorize.net (still being developed)

At this time there will be no new additional gateways added to WHNBilling.

Due to time constraint's, we will only commit to new gateways unless you are committed to purchasing a copy of WHNBilling at full retail price. If you are still interested in integrating a gateway that is not on our list, email me directly at gary@www-hosting.net with your request. Please send me as much detailed information including urls to their website and document information

Teck, it looks like we are going to stop on the completion of the Echo, as far as i understand the main reason they have restrictions in their terms of service that conflict with the features of WHNBilling, and therefore we don't want to be liable to our customers for offering a merchant connection in conflict with the agreement signed between the hosting provider and Echoline

Aw man! :( So what conflicts are there if I may ask?

I was going to sign up fpr this but I want to rent it instead of buying it all at once but I kept on getting this in your shopping cart

WHNBilling Pro $900.00 $900.00
Options: Installation: WHN will Install, Add $250.00
Payment Option: I Request a Monthly Fee (Rent), Add $50.00
12 Months of Upgrades: No

I thought that it would be
250 for the install
50 for the first month rent
300 is what it would equal

So could you please tell me what to do or how I got that price becuase even 12 months rent plus install would only be 850

Can you use the program without the automatic CC billing ?

Thank you,
Domenico

Hi Iron

The way our shopping cart works is it works with total $$ and theres not feature that allows us to remove the total $xxx, thats why we added the checkmark option, once we see that in the form, you are sent a contract which must be signed and returned and then we send you the program via internet.

As for any additonal features such as Upgrades and Installs, those are billed in full, so if you select

Monthly $50
WHN to install full - $250

Your first charge will be $300.00
Recurring $50.00

Hope that clears it up :)

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Domenico, Our system does require a cc gateway to get the full functionality, if you didnt want to run it without billing, you would run into problems, you would however be able to view pending invoices etc..

To see how the program runs without billing, just check out our Demo since that is not tied into a cc gateway

Originally posted by teck
Aw man! :( So what conflicts are there if I may ask?

The main reason is for the Annual Billing, since we do not limit the amount of packages you can add, and you do run a annual account, you run the risk of loosing your merchant account. Our system does run without any problems with Authorize.NET and CyberCash's CashRegister Programs

1. Can you make this work with Verisign?
2. What would you charge to compile the MCK thing if we used CYBERCASH?

As posted in previous posts, Version 1.5 is frozen with only Cybercash and Authorize.NET support. If you want an additonal gateway, you must email us at info@www-hosting.net with the request and all url's and support documents attached so we can view it and see if it can be added. This must include all instructions that the gateway will normally send you to add their gateway to your software.

As for the setup fees, we charge $250 for a full install, this is for both cybercash and authorize

PS: We are currently rebuilding our web store, it was deleted without reason with the company that was hosting it. It should be backup in a by next week since i need to start from scratch

Originally posted by Ironlung
1. Can you make this work with Verisign?
2. What would you charge to compile the MCK thing if we used CYBERCASH?

do you have any screenshots since your demo seems to be broken?

Superman;

We are looking for things your software has and we are looking into all our options. We don't need automatic CC billing yet so my question was if we could use your software without the Credit Card options.

So I guess that you edit out the Credit Card payment option from the customer signup and you are set to go.

Am I right with this or terribly wrong here?

The demo doesn't work so don't you have a demo for us so we can try it out locally?

Does it integrate with cpanel? How?

Thank you!
Domenico

Originally posted by Domenico
Superman;

We are looking for things your software has and we are looking into all our options. We don't need automatic CC billing yet so my question was if we could use your software without the Credit Card options.

So I guess that you edit out the Credit Card payment option from the customer signup and you are set to go.

Am I right with this or terribly wrong here?

The demo doesn't work so don't you have a demo for us so we can try it out locally?

Does it integrate with cpanel? How?

Thank you!
Domenico

Atwist, the demo is now avail, i rebooted our server and it was operational

As for the 2nd question, we can not give you a local copy since the demo is identical to our full version. If you want a version, simply email me and we can work out the payment details

As for the automatic cc billing, it will work identical to our demo version, where it will spit out invoices but at the same time, you will have to manually mark each as paid or not. I do not recommend you using our product if you do not have a cc gateway, Our system is designed for automatic billing, theres no sense in getting if it you dont want automatic recurring billing nor have a merchant or cc gatway such as Cyber or Authorize

WHNBilling is designed around cpanel so all you have to do is install it, make sure your configuration is setup for each Cybercash and Authorize and your ready to go

First of all, I do want to say that I was very impressed with WHNBilling when I evaluated it. The user interface is very simple and very fast, which is something that most billing software I've looked at lacks. The software itself is quick, and I didn't have any significant problems with it. I was able to set up accounts very easily, and while there were some things I missed that I'd seen in other software, for the most part I was impressed.

However, this software was not actually something we could have used, and I suspect many other companies would be in the same boat. If you need to actually do invoicing for your customers, (and by invoicing I mean having the system send out an e-mail to a customer requesting payment, giving the customer x number of days to pay, and then if they haven't the system shuts them off), this software is not for you.

Although they say that it does invoicing, apparently the way WHN defines the word "invoice" is how the rest of the world defines the world "receipt". It does not send out an invoice to the customer, and it does not track those invoices.

When I couldn't make the invoicing features work, I e-mailed the developer, Simon Weller, to ask about invoicing. He replied:


that creates an invoices into the system...doesn't send an invoice. The invoices are sent when you charge the account.


Which I took to mean the system only sends an "invoice" *after* you've processed the credit card. Which is what the rest of the world calls a receipt. It apparently will not send an invoice for the customer to use to mail in a check (although the software gives options to pay by check - I'm still not sure how that works). I asked Simon to clarify, but simply got a response back saying the software couldn't do what I wanted it to do and I should look elsewhere.

I do want to publicly thank Gary and Simon for working with us to get an NT version working, but had they used the correct wording (receipt instead of invoice) on their program and promotional materials, it would have saved us all a lot of time because the system simply doesn't support invoicing. Maybe some day they will have developed it to the point where it does, but right now as near as I could get it to work all it will do is process credit card payments - and it's very good at that if that is what you need the system to do.

If you aren't doing credit cards at all (and have no intention to do them), try CBMS (you can find it mentioned around here somewhere). But that software doesn't do credit card processing, so...

Those of us who need both invoicing and credit card processing have to go back to the drawing board, because neither WHNBilling nor CBMS do it, and BillAdmin is no longer a public software.

Jason

Hi Jason

I knew it would only take time for you to post in WHT

Anyway, heres the answers to your questions

1. WHNBilling will not work for you because you clearly run Windows and Authorize.net, which we do not support

2. WHNBilling does in fact send out invoices, I have a number of customers that are invoiced rather then credit cards, and it works quite well, they get sent a invoice along with our mailing address, when we get their payment, we simply update the invoice as paid

3. Its clear your confusing WHNBilling to a full ledger accounting system, We never claimed from the getgo that our system is a full accounting system, theres a difference from a billing system and accounting system, If you want to run your account, check out Quickbooks Pro which does the job just fine

4. I also suggest with the email you had sent to simply contact a developer to make your own system. The key to WHNBilling is just like you said, its simple to use, and its automated. If we were to include every request from every hosting company (and yes we reviewed them all) WHNBilling would be worth over $8,000 a pop.

5. We have had many companies take a copy including such large companies such as HostRocket, which we are glad to say has given it 5 out of 5 stars.

WHNBilling is not designed for every single host in mind, such as any other product, but what we have done is taken the first step to focus primarly on web hosting companies...because we are a web hosting company and we know what a web hosting company wants.

I am sorry WHNBilling isnt for you, and like I told you in the email, theres programs such as Rodophi, which you can spend $4,000.00 on or many of the various programs that claim are for hosting companies but are for ISP's

Originally posted by Jason Ellis
First of all, I do want to say that I was very impressed with WHNBilling when I evaluated it. The user interface is very simple and very fast, which is something that most billing software I've looked at lacks. The software itself is quick, and I didn't have any significant problems with it. I was able to set up accounts very easily, and while there were some things I missed that I'd seen in other software, for the most part I was impressed.

However, this software was not actually something we could have used, and I suspect many other companies would be in the same boat. If you need to actually do invoicing for your customers, (and by invoicing I mean having the system send out an e-mail to a customer requesting payment, giving the customer x number of days to pay, and then if they haven't the system shuts them off), this software is not for you.

Although they say that it does invoicing, apparently the way WHN defines the word "invoice" is how the rest of the world defines the world "receipt". It does not send out an invoice to the customer, and it does not track those invoices.

When I couldn't make the invoicing features work, I e-mailed the developer, Simon Weller, to ask about invoicing. He replied:



Which I took to mean the system only sends an "invoice" *after* you've processed the credit card. Which is what the rest of the world calls a receipt. It apparently will not send an invoice for the customer to use to mail in a check (although the software gives options to pay by check - I'm still not sure how that works). I asked Simon to clarify, but simply got a response back saying the software couldn't do what I wanted it to do and I should look elsewhere.

I do want to publicly thank Gary and Simon for working with us to get an NT version working, but had they used the correct wording (receipt instead of invoice) on their program and promotional materials, it would have saved us all a lot of time because the system simply doesn't support invoicing. Maybe some day they will have developed it to the point where it does, but right now as near as I could get it to work all it will do is process credit card payments - and it's very good at that if that is what you need the system to do.

If you aren't doing credit cards at all (and have no intention to do them), try CBMS (you can find it mentioned around here somewhere). But that software doesn't do credit card processing, so...

Those of us who need both invoicing and credit card processing have to go back to the drawing board, because neither WHNBilling nor CBMS do it, and BillAdmin is no longer a public software.

Jason

Superman;

Ok, I understand but say the first 100 people sign up and everybody wants to pay with a cheque ?

The CC billing will not be used so what about that? The software will work I guess. I don't really understand your answer.

I know there are others without cc billing but at first we don't want/have CC billing so can't it just be installed and used without the Credit card option in the HTML ?

When we have CC billing we can add the CC option in the html again?

Can it be used at first without having a CC gateway?

Am I right or terrible wrong here?
Please take some time to answer this questions.

Tank you!
Domenico

Hmmm, I just saw the post by Jason and know I know the software does not do any billing.
Oh man, how could you have missed such a thing!!!

Too bad most company's still don't listen to it's maybe future customers :-(
What a disapointment, again... :-(

I guess we have to take another look at CBMS but that one doesn't integrate with cpanel at all.
Aaaarggghhhh, software writers please ask the users what they want first!

When does the new cpanel come out that does some real billing and auto invoicing?
I see a billing option in the cpanel demo from wizardshosting. Does someone know wich program does that?

THANKS!
Domenico


BTW
2. WHNBilling does in fact send out invoices, I have a number of customers that are invoiced rather then credit cards, and it works quite well, they get sent a invoice along with our mailing address, when we get their payment, we simply update the invoice as paid

What have you got to do with a company's invoicing? When you buy the software we still need you? What kind of software is this anyway...

Hi Everyone

I would like to thank everyone for making this post so popular, but the fact is the post was meant to advertise our new product and it has turned into a Q & A with over 70+ posts.

I have requested WHT to lock this thread. There is a new post (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11628) that has some updated information, and pricing

If you have questions about WHNBilling, please email me at gary@www-hosting.net and refrain from posting your questions on the new post

Please superman, answer my questions...

Originally posted by Domenico
Please superman, answer my questions...

Domenico, As my last post stated, the thread is locked (at least it was suppose to be) and if you have questions please email me

No futher questions will be answered in this thread

looks like the new thread you started is now locked.

As requested, this thread is being closed. please contact Gary directly if you should have any further questions or comments about the billing system.