Gday and greetings from Australia!

I am currently looking for a PHP script to intergrate into my current website that is able to do all of the following...

- Have web based client section
- Show/Print Invoices (from Client admin)
- Clients Pay Invoices
- Send enquiry to management (like a Trouble Ticket system)
- Give me the ability to upload data and present it to individual clients...
ie. They get me to do a website, I upload a design draft and ask them to log in and have a look. They are then able to respond via this client area and all correspondance (back and forward) is logged and shown on page! They are also able to upload files or attachments and its goes from there.

As far as recurring payments go, and hosting and domain names, I am quite happy to enter that manually into an invoice so that is not a priority.

Most billing systems can do the first 4, but it has to be set up to do the last option. It is the most important to me as I want to base everythign online (sort of like eLance or something)

Any help or advice on script choice would be fantastic! Also I have a limited budget (about $100 - $150) although any script that satisfies this criteria may be worth its weight in gold!

Ive had a look on Hotscripts, but there is nothing really that offers project management and invoicing (account management) in the one package. I could always intergrate it together, but Id rather spend the money, have the support and a quality product made for my industry...

Thanks in advance
Luke

Originally posted by pacesetter
I could always intergrate it together, but Id rather spend the money, have the support and a quality product made for my industry...

Is your customer's privacy an important factor in this project? "Scripts" for large solutions are not recommended. Although they are the easy way out, and appear to work well, they are probably not a wise decision.

Clients pay a lot of money for a business solution, which takes into consideration a customer's privacy, safety, and overall security. You should be taking into consideration a Secure Sockets Layer, and at the very least, MD5 hashing BEFORE data is sent back to the server (i.e. done on the client side with ECMAScript).

Secondly, you must consider your database. Relational databases are a science within their self. Relational databases should be well constructed, paying attention to redundancy and efficiency. The logic manipulating the data should also be well designed. Use of an algorithm is very important. You do not want to waste bandwidth by having to make several connections, and you want to keep the hard drive as unused as possible.

Some of these "scripts" even have backdoors and security flaws that will expose and exploit a customer's information. Should you insist on one of these "scripts," have an educated individual check over it. Make sure there is nothing that will put your customers at risk, and make sure that your own servers are not being exploited.

Arcane, I agree with you 100% about the design and implimentation of such a script. Also, most of these GPL scripts are outdated so no doubt there are security holes in there somewhere.

Although these appear to be main concerns, I dont think there would be to "important" information for a backdoor entruder to use. Sure they would stumble across the design breifs and converstations, and a list of invoice for my client, but nothing like CC details or anything as Im looking for something to offer them to pay by credit card, and if they choose it, let an external site like PayPal process it. Not a single client of mine has asked to use credit yet so the Pay Invoices feature might not neet to work.

Finding a script that looks nice, has project management with file upload and messaging system, and a invoice/billing module is very hard... Even the expensive scripts arent what Im looking for.

- Pacesetter

I was just going to post a thread looking for the same thing. Please let me know if you find something of use.