I was wondering if any hosts, would like to see custom customer tracking/billing software. Totally geared towards web hosting, and every aspect of maintaining and keeping track of customers and their domains, contact info etc. I was contacted a few months ago to do this, however there was a lack of communication to start the job. I would go off and do this on my own, however i don't run a web hosting company so i dont exactly know what you guys would like to see. Anything is possible, this program can be as large as need be. I will problably charge $10-20 per license depending how the beta testers feel.

Give me a list of what you would like to see in such a program. And i mean a complete list, of things you do everyday, and would like to see intergrated into customized software geared totally towards web hosting.

Thanks,
Anthony

Please check your PM inbox. If you have skills please contact me ASAP.

I would be interested in such a program if it was entirely offline. There are many billing scripts available but they all have to be run online, i would like something that i could use offline and maybe update to a .txt file via FTP when someone using the computer comes online to enable backup/remote access.

However, it would take me a good few hours to type out exactly what would be needed in such a program - and you would have to take into consideration the different control panels available if you intend to integrate with them.

An interesting project that I would be interested in hearing more information on when it is available.

Please keep me up to date if this idea becomes reality.

My Intentions are to make it non web based. The software will be written in C++, and run on all versions of windows. If you would like to email me your ideas, that would be great.

Thanks,
Anthony
sites@freeplace.net

A non web based billing software for a hosting company!! Hmm not sure how popular that would be. Now making it both could have some meaning. Make it so it's online but you can export and import and it can be run offline as well.

Just a thought.

Like I stated in my above post, there are already a lot of online based software that can do this - I personally feel a gap in the market for an offline based program that can be backed up online.


But overall its up to the designed which he choises to do.

Originally posted by vigor
My Intentions are to make it non web based. The software will be written in C++, and run on all versions of windows. If you would like to email me your ideas, that would be great.

Thanks,
Anthony
sites@freeplace.net

Bahhh, WINDOWS :puke:

Windows is a good choice - since around 80% of users have it :stickout

I don't think you're going to get much out of an offline billing software. However, I'm not the programmer and he can choose to do what he wants. I think it's going to be time wasted.

I think the ultimate billing software would be one that is offline and online at the same time.

Where as the billing info, IE. credit card info is kept offline.

Something that would incorporate a FTP process to update invoices that customers can see online.

An a reverse process where customers can update their billing info online (encrypted of course), you login online decrypt the updated info with a key, download a file of all updated info to your local computer tio update your offline billing system, then the update file is deleted.

When the invoices are created they are FTP'ed to the site for online viewing, card are charged, and another FTP process is sent as to paid or unpaid invoices.

Just rambling, just my opinion. :(

Obviously a totally offline system would just be a fancy interface for MS-Excel. What you may want to consider is a local tool capable of updating itself from the Host's online client database to calculate income then create local fields for: offline transactions, domain pointers, etc.

Have to warn you though, any billing system nowadays that's not a custom app is in direct competition with Siebel (http://www.siebel.com) and they're very-very good at what they do.

Sincerely,

-Matt

Online/Offline would not be a problem. I do this primarily as a hobby, and to see how far i can take a program, what ideas i can come up with that have never been done. I have 7 years expirience working in visual basic & c/c++ & delphi, so anything is possible :) It just comes down to what everyone needs, hell i would problably even distribute the program as freeware. Like i said i just enjoy writing software :)

Some current ideas...
Store "offline" customer name, address, phone, email, credit card, domain, service plan, what they pay, customer since date, when they are billed, previous billing history. With all items interactive, to edit etc. Print options to print invoices, the ability to automatically input invoice into new mail on outlook, and send when they are billed. Have the option to FTP html/php/asp files so users can visit a html page with their previous billing information, that will connect to server and update html/php/asp file whenever they are billed, the file will also create password entry's etc.

Just a few ideas, so far. looking for more :)