What exactly do you mean by this? How does it work?

<smart-ass response>
1. Automate - To control or operate by automation.
2. Billing - The act of invoicing a client a certain sum of money for jobs/acts done.

What part is that not clear? :stickout
</smart-ass response>

Seriously, it's just where a host bills a client automatically within a certain time period.

Here's an example : I host with hostabc.com. At sign up I provide my CC details, and agree to hostabc.com to debit me the hosting fee monthly. On the 28th of each month (or whatever date) hostabc.com automatically deducts the hosting fee from my CC card without having to contact me. This can also be an automated process on their part or they can do it manually.

So then whats soo tuff in providing this service?? :)

These threads will answer your question.

http://www.webhostlink.com/showthread.php?threadid=2419

http://www.webhostlink.com/showthread.php?threadid=1545

Generally speaking it's the hosts who find it hard to do automated billing unless you already have a system in place (a la Alabanza style), since there's so much going on behind the scene through automated billing.

Hmmm.. Coz I was just thinking, and turns out to be a easy thing to implement. Thanx for the threads though. :)

humm .. but if you have a merchant account with recurring billing .. then automated billing is really no big deal right ?

Yes, that sure makes it easier! -but the trick is to tie it all together. Automated account setup plus automated billing. Also, someone posted something about software billing that made me jump. I have to check back on the thread to see if anyone knows more about it...

(will edit this if needed to explain)

Automated Account setup.. hmm.. that wouldnt be very tuff either :)

So whats the Fuss all about? :)

Setting up an automated billing system is simple in theory, but a lot more complicated in practice. The basics of it *are* pretty simple if you're familiar with programming and databases.

The hard parts come in assuring security, robustness, and correctness. QWK.Net, for example, is extremely... shall we say, anal.... about making sure that mis-charges don't get through to customer cards. So there is a lot of logic and sanity checking to make sure bogus charges don't get through. This saves us from unhappy customers, chargebacks, and staff time spent voiding transactions.

Security is also a big issue when designing something that's going to have all your customers' credit card data on it. I could write pages and pages on that, so I'll just leave well enough alone. :)

Anyway, the devil, as always, is in the details.

Very true. The detials is the devil! But using SSL with PHP isnt all that tuff :)

Well, I might just get something going once I am done with my current project.

Thanks everyone

Hey Travis,

Don't forget pro-rating, processing refunds, account upgrades, etc....

The FUN stuff! :D

Matt
mlightner@site5.com

I am having second thoughts on this. All thanx to Matt, Bleep! ;) But the details are the challenge in it. I am gonna do this once I am done with the current project, you can bet on it :)

Hehe :D Glad I could be of assistance!

I have faith in you kunal... You CAN do it!

Matt
mlightner@site5.com

Sure you can do it. It's not that writing this sort of application is difficult... you just need to be very thorough, and plan out all possible situations as best you can. You also need to do constant error, sanity, and integrity checking.

It's all fun, though. :)

Well could some-one "write up" like a feature list or something? Coz frankly, I havent been able to come up with one from these posts. So?

Frankly, I'd be interested in how to set up automated billing too. I'm in the process of researching setting up as a reseller, and I'd like to be able to auto-bill my clients. I understand that it's not an easy thing to explain in a post, but is there somewhere I can read about this?

Auto-Host 2

I guess you can google it cause i cant post URLS

but we just started using it and it seems pretty good

Originally posted by wiley
Auto-Host 2

I guess you can google it cause i cant post URLS

but we just started using it and it seems pretty good

And bumping a 4 year old thread = priceless.

Thread closed.

-Steven