Modernbill have released v5 on time! It's out for download now!

Read the release notes on the forum and make sure you don't use your existing DB from what I've heard there is no importing/change over process from V4 yet.

Also it will delete your V4 data if you install over it! (on the forums somewhere)

From what i've read alot of features are not working and I think its to show the core functionality of the system not all the little bits.

I'm not a MB user but I still like to read about new software, please tell us your experiance with the betas as they are released would love to hear about it.

It was rather disappointing for me... the English language translation was terrible, too many features were missing and there was support for minimal registars - not even PayPal. The order form doesn't work and customers have a terrible dashboard. The intergrated helpdesk has no features (but I don't use it anyway). Plus, the default theme is not as attractive as the current graphic-intensive Dolphin-X.

Embarrasingly, I was excited and stayed up all night waiting for the release. This was a waste of time and a disappointment. Truthfully this was a BETA but I expected at least as many features as the current version 4.3.

They released it with errros! like Instead of saying Name server 1, it says TRANS_PANEL_NAMESERVER_1. Also it doesn't support paypal!!

They call it BETA for a reason.

wait until its been out 6-8 weeks, bleeding edge is never a good way to go

do you like the new order form ?

Yeh, but they should atleast put paypal on! It's one of the main used gateways.

It just went into public beta yesterday, this is far from a release candidate. If you read the information they are HOPING for a March release. They only included certain modules as they are testing the new MBAPI and not the entire system in the first phase of public beta.

Its good for a preview, but I couldn't really put it into a production environment (not saying I'm using it live!). A lot of bugs so far, couldn't get the order setup working at all etc.

But every Monday there is a new build!

Is a demo available?

C'mon guys... you signup as a beta tester on the first day of a massively complex piece of software then moan because it's an incomplete package and <shock horror> contains bugs?

Don't tell us about it's problems... do your job as a beta tester and work with the dev team by reporting the bugs so that those of us patiently waiting for a stable release will get it a bit faster :)

ModernBill has made it ubundantly clear that this is the FIRST release of BETA software.

If you can't read, then don't complain. They are very clear that the product is not even close to being finished or complete.

They should have called it an ALPHA release.. not beta.

But anyway, give it a month and then try again. I don't know how you can complain about the english translation, when they have repeatedly stated on their website AND the download area that the release is NOT FINISHED AND TRANSLATION IS NOT FINISHED.

Sheesh.

Jon from ModernBill here.

First, we are very excited about the attention and reception given to our V5 Initial Beta. We have received 100s of notes from early beta testers and well wishers on the successful launch at the initial beta.

As noted, it is an INITIAL beta. Many features are finished but have been intentionally left out of the initial beta. We are looking for our beta testers to push the features that are available as hard as they can. We have set up a feedback channel to give a direct response path to our development team. Bugs will be corrected on a priority system on a weekly basis. We will also be adding back in features as we go for additional testing.

For those of you wondering what all the fuss is about, V5 has some killer functionality, even in this beta. You may want to ask Mr. Zippy to detail all of the features that have never existed before.

As for the demo question, there will NOT be a V5 demo until we are at the production release. We have expectations that our beta testers are actually submitting bugs. For those who say it is buggy, give us 7 weeks and we will have all things going straight. Most errors we are seeing right now relate to environmental differences out on the variety of servers that ModernBill is supported on. As these edge case are identified, the product will stabilize. You can't know what is broke until it breaks in many cases. We look forward to the hard work ahead.

Thanks for all your support. The entire team looks forward to pushing this baby out there. If you have any questions fell free to submit a question at our website.

When it's final, I will upgrade.

It's way better than v4, but it was a shock really that they didn't have Paypal.

The beta #2 has just been released:

http://forums.modernbill.com/showthread.php?t=22423

(New beta version/build is released every Monday.)

I don't see why MB released such a broken BETA, just going to waste their time receiving reports for things they know are broken.

I don't see why MB released such a broken BETA, just going to waste their time receiving reports for things they know are broken.

I was thinking that aswell. Having said that though, I've also seen their forum with lots of (sometimes quite heated) demands for the next version or some beta version. It's impossible to please everyone I guess.

The purpose of a beta is to find the bugs and fix them, and your criticising them for that?

They call it BETA for a reason.


Exactly. No reason to start freaking out. You are NOT supposed to use this in a production setting. I believe they even mentioned what features are going to be setup in the betas. They come out each week on Mondays. The thing is that you have to give them feedback on this. Personally, I'd highly recommend waiting for the final version to come out which will be great, no doubt about it. If you are actually going to test it, then the BETAs are for you.

Glad to hear they have released the beta! Cannot wait until the final stable version is released.

Just the beta word give me the freaks... i will just wait for the full version b4 doing anything...
=P

I guess this means I should not keep my hopes up for them fixing all the bugs in v4 :crying:

Paul, you got that right. They'll fix all the bugs in v4 though, it'll just be called v5. What bugs are you talking about by the way? I've been using v4 for a while now and have absolutely no probles with it or no bugs that I can see. Ours is completely redone too.

I'd expect the final stable version to come out this Summer sometime, towards the end. Better late than never in my opinion.

Paul, you got that right. They'll fix all the bugs in v4 though, it'll just be called v5. What bugs are you talking about by the way?


Please give me a short amount of time to compile a list from my notes :)

Please give me a short amount of time to compile a list from my notes :)


Lol, sure, alright, take your time.

Here is what I have looking for tickets from 2005 till now, these are the ones that are still issues to me. There are dozens others that were fixed after upgrades etc.


Credits to accounts funds not being "credited" on next invoice.

Vbulletin 3.x support promised, released 'fix' but never worked.

Random double billing sometimes with no explanation

When running batch I have multiple invoices which bill $0.00 and I no clue where they come from.

When a client is setup on CC-Batch billing and they decide to pay with paypal
for one month it still keeps billing them in the batch. I realize this has to do with the
batch itself but at least give us a way to disable paypal payments for not paypal billings.

Clients sometimes getting invoices for $0.00 even when I manually paid the invoice.

Invision 2.x support offered but non-working (switched to vB 3.x)

Issues with some refunds not posting to accounts correctly leaving the invoice as past due.

With that being said I have been using Modernbill for 3 years this month and love the product I just hope that with v5 we see some actual fixes instead of just saying 'we don't support that - (yet they offer it as a plug in)' and things get fixed instead of just sitting in the bug tracker till the end of eternity or unless enough people start raising a fuss for them to do something about it.

With that said I can't wait till v5 is stable and ready for some action as it is still be best option available out there for our type of businesses :)

Here is what I have looking for tickets from 2005 till now, these are the ones that are still issues to me. There are dozens others that were fixed after upgrades etc.


Credits to accounts funds not being "credited" on next invoice.

Vbulletin 3.x support promised, released 'fix' but never worked.

Random double billing sometimes with no explanation

When running batch I have multiple invoices which bill $0.00 and I no clue where they come from.

When a client is setup on CC-Batch billing and they decide to pay with paypal
for one month it still keeps billing them in the batch. I realize this has to do with the
batch itself but at least give us a way to disable paypal payments for not paypal billings.

Clients sometimes getting invoices for $0.00 even when I manually paid the invoice.

Invision 2.x support offered but non-working (switched to vB 3.x)

Issues with some refunds not posting to accounts correctly leaving the invoice as past due.

With that being said I have been using Modernbill for 3 years this month and love the product I just hope that with v5 we see some actual fixes instead of just saying 'we don't support that - (yet they offer it as a plug in)' and things get fixed instead of just sitting in the bug tracker till the end of eternity or unless enough people start raising a fuss for them to do something about it.

With that said I can't wait till v5 is stable and ready for some action as it is still be best option available out there for our type of businesses :)


Dang, seems like it is acting up on you. Why not contact them? That's what you pay the license fee for. ;) (if you don't, then I guess you can't). But as I have said, i haven't had any problems at all with their product. Not as far as batching goes or invoices. What version are you using? Assume 4.3.2? If you would like, I can take a look at it for you, however, that will of course require me logging in and I will understand if you are not comfortable with it.

In any case, v5 should fix those bugs/annoyances.

We've been using modernbill since the initial versions, (I wish full source licenses still existed :( ) and love it. That said, there are still alot of problems we have with it and are really looking to v5 going stable.

Although it only accounts for 10-20% of our revenue payments processed through paypal create more of a problem than anything else. Paypal refunds randomly refund against random invoices, random credits, double payments on batcches, and some other oddities.

Most of my issues besides the forum creation issues with VB and IPB are very random and I have opened tickets for all of them and they have been unable to duplicate them. Not that I think they are hiding them just it happens and they don't seem overly concerned when it does if they can not duplicate it when logging in.

The thing that gets me about the forum intergration is 'We now support IPB 2.x and VB 3.0" is posted as being available then when it does not work they tell me the code was supplied by a third party (vB or IPB) and they can not support it nor have any intention of contacting them to get it to work..

With that said thank you for your offer and again this is not really meant to bash them just a hopeful cheer for a nice bright and stable v5 :)

It's way better than v4, but it was a shock really that they didn't have Paypal.

My guess is that they didn't include a few features, such as PayPal, that they feel they have already perfected. Why bother the beta testers with meaningless tasks, such as testing the PayPal plugin, when there are brand new features that have never been in production before?

Give it time. I'm sure with each new beta release, things will smooth out just as they've predicted.