Overwhelmed and need some help, please

[RAS]

I am very excited at my discover of WHMCS - however...i need some answers before committing to this product. I am a business owner and not a "web guy" - although i do have some experience in developing several Joomla! sites.

 

1) My business is completely unrelated to web hosting. We offer a physical rental service to real estate agents. Clients enroll into a membership plan with monthly recurring fees and an annual membership fee. Options of upgrading and downgrading their plans are available. Would WHMCS work for us? I would not want any mentioning of anything related to hosting or the sort visible to my clients.

2) Is this something a novice can handle providing I pay WHMCS for installation & configuration?

 

3) Do i need a dedicated server? Currently we use DreamHost for hosting. Would we be able to use WHMCS using DreamHost? If not, any inexpensive alternatives?

 

4) Our service requires registration and clients to keep a credit card on file at all times. We have used community builder for joomla for this process. Once the client is enrolled we have a separate form to place their individual orders. This has been a hot mess. No type of dashboard or control panel for clients to see order status, order history etc. With WHMCS would I be able to create a custom order form within the product itself for our clients orders?

 

5) I know this is only a billing system and not accounting. We currently use QuickBooks as our accounting software. Does anyone know of a bridge between WHMCS and QB? Does WHMCS do any type of reporting that is importable to QB? Or is there accounting software that WHMCS is compatible with?

These are probably really basic questions for some of you guys/gals, but as I stated...Im just a business owner trying to learn some of the tech side and implement the best system for our company. Any help is very appreciated. Thanks you in advance!

[easyhosting]

 

1) My business is completely unrelated to web hosting. We offer a physical rental service to real estate agents. Clients enroll into a membership plan with monthly recurring fees and an annual membership fee. Options of upgrading and downgrading their plans are available. Would WHMCS work for us? I would not want any mentioning of anything related to hosting or the sort visible to my clients.

 

Yes WHMCS can be used with non web hosting businesses and their is no mention of hosting

 

2) Is this something a novice can handle providing I pay WHMCS for installation & configuration?

 

Yes a novice can use WHMCS. it is very simple to use and has a great support network if you do get stuck

 

3) Do i need a dedicated server? Currently we use DreamHost for hosting. Would we be able to use WHMCS using DreamHost? If not, any inexpensive alternatives?

 

No you do not need a dedicated server to run WHMCS, this is just placed in a foldr on your normal hosting .

 

4) Our service requires registration and clients to keep a credit card on file at all times. We have used community builder for joomla for this process. Once the client is enrolled we have a separate form to place their individual orders. This has been a hot mess. No type of dashboard or control panel for clients to see order status, order history etc. With WHMCS would I be able to create a custom order form within the product itself for our clients orders?

 

yes the WHMCS order form is customisable

 

5) I know this is only a billing system and not accounting. We currently use QuickBooks as our accounting software. Does anyone know of a bridge between WHMCS and QB? Does WHMCS do any type of reporting that is importable to QB? Or is there accounting software that WHMCS is compatible with?

 

I believe WHMCS is compatible with QB

 

These are probably really basic questions for some of you guys/gals, but as I stated...Im just a business owner trying to learn some of the tech side and implement the best system for our company. Any help is very appreciated. Thanks you in advance!

 

Why don't you take out the 15 day free trial http://whmcs.com/freetrial.php and give it a go.

[usa2k]

If your products are subscription based, and you do not need fancy Trouble Ticket Support, automated cPanel account creation, and such, ...

You might be best looking at PayPal with their recurring basic payment processing, and for get about changing Hosts, or plans, and forget about WHMCS. You simply have a business PayPal account that lets you display a subscribe button on your site. PayPal does all the secure processing and charges a small fee (Same as when you have WHMCS and use PayPal.)

 

https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/xcl/rec/subscr-intro-outside

Just thinking ...

Edited March 28, 2010 by usa2k

[easyhosting]

If your products are subscription based, and you do not need fancy Trouble Ticket Support, automated cPanel account creation, and such, ...

You might be best looking at PayPal with their recurring basic payment processing, and for get about changing Hosts, or plans, and forget about WHMCS. You simply have a business PayPal account that lets you display a subscribe button on your site. PayPal does all the secure processing and charges a small fee (Same as when you have WHMCS and use PayPal.)

 

https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/xcl/rec/subscr-intro-outside

Just thinking ...

 

if you r ead the OPs questions, he already takes CC payments, wHMCS ios exactly what he is after as it will hold all his clients account details, invoices etc

[RAS]

hey folks - thanks for the quick responses. impressive.

 

easyhosting....wow. looks like this will be a fit then. I am really excited. I have been looking for something like this for several years now and have even tried oDesk to get someone to custom build me something equivalent to WHMCS without knowing it existed. Thanks for your help. I would like to try the trial but may just bypass and go straight to purchase with installation & integration.

 

usa....i have recently considered the paypal option, but as a standalone it just wont be completely what i really need. we can setup recurring billing within QB as well, but im looking for full automation from the backend of the site. thanks for your response though.

 

once again, thank you guys!

[RAS]

I have another question about CC processing if anyone wants to take a crack.

 

I have always used QB/Intuit Merchant Services...we kept the CC on file and had recurring payments. However, this is the most important aspect of our company....we lease, install and service real estate yard signs to agents. The big issue is not charging the monthly membership dues or A La Carte services....it is when products are not returned to us we charge the customer an unreturned products fee. Customers of course are never happy about these fees but they are clearly outlined in our Terms of Service.

 

So...invoicing a customer for these fees and hoping they pay the bill will not work. We have to keep a card on file and process payment ourselves. Think Blockbuster Online or Netflix - if you dont return the movie they are auto charging you. Same thing here.

 

After years of doing business i have found myself a bit confused as to the difference between a "Merchant Account" (which ive always had) and a "Payment Gateway" - i get the basic concept, but based on my situation im not sure if I can just use a payment gateway or do i need both a payment gateway and a merchant account. Again...keeping the card on file is a must. Also how do I go about passing PCI certification?

 

To recap:

 

-We offer memberships with annual fee and recurring monthly dues

-We also offer a La Carte services with no membership fees

-We need to charge clients for unreturned products at our determination

 

Thanks for the help!

 

MJ

[ephost]

This might help...

 

1) A Merchant Account is what you need to accept visa, mastercard, amex and discover. This is your ABILITY to even accept these cards for payment and requires you to have a direct contract with an aquiring bank or 3rd party processing entitiy who already has such a relationship.

 

2) Think of a Payment Gateway as a credit card terminal in cyberspace. A payment gateway and a credit card termainl do the same thing- they facilitate the acceptance of credit cards and communicate with your merchant account bank or 3rd party processing entity.

 

The lines have been blurred a bit as a payment gateway has become a few things. Companies like PayPal are also a payment gateway in that they facilitate payments. However, in this case the payment is not only credit cards but also other forms of payment. e.g. paypal funds

 

Joe

[rdavis]

Food for thought!

 

We have a merchant CC machine, and have used it allot but that use is at a higher transaction cost than a gateway that is virtual. Further more keeping CC #'s is a large liability these days with hacking and key-stroke virus's & trogans.... a payment gateway substantially reduce this liability. Especially if your forthcoming website is PCI compliant, as it should be. This situation also promotes re-occurring changes to a clients CC that is already on file in your gateway system, and can be used at anytime in quick order by the client all 128 bit encrypted transactions.

 

A word about the other ways to pay by:

Paypal has cost us a major amount of money over all. They are a last resort for us. Additionally, they are really getting bad theses days about charge-backs and getting into your bank account with out your knowledge. Plus the additional hassle of days of your money just hanging out there for days on end, or at least 3 days to start with. I could go on about many others, but I'll chill.

 

<<snipped>>

 

Anyway so much for my soap-box speech. But my point is if you decide to use WHMCS as we have for years, you can't go wrong with that choice! Just surf the web for users and comments and you'll agree.

 

I hope things work out!

[rdavis]

Food for thought!

 

We have a merchant CC machine, and have used it allot but that use is at a higher transaction cost than a gateway that is virtual. Further more keeping CC #'s is a large liability these days with hacking and key-stroke virus's & trogans.... a payment gateway substantially reduce this liability. Especially if your forthcoming website is PCI compliant, as it should be. This situation also promotes re-occurring changes to a clients CC that is already on file in your gateway system, and can be used at anytime in quick order by the client all 128 bit encrypted transactions.

 

A word about the other ways to pay by:

Paypal has cost us a major amount of money over all. They are a last resort for us. Additionally, they are really getting bad theses days about charge-backs and getting into your bank account with out your knowledge. Plus the additional hassle of days of your money just hanging out there for days on end, or at least 3 days to start with. I could go on about many others, but I'll chill.

 

<<snipped>>

 

Anyway so much for my soap-box speech. But my point is if you decide to use WHMCS as we have for years, you can't go wrong with that choice! Just surf the web for users and comments and you'll agree.

 

I hope things work out!

 

 

In addition there are payment gateway modules out there that addon to WHMCS. Their license fees are low, but using a gateways power is substantial because there are modules out there will access the Trident/MeS gateway system ....(my point).... the same gateway that the major players like 2CheckOut, PayPal PayFlow, Authorize.net and many other substantial payment gateway companies use for (ALL) their transactions. So why not go to the horses mouth yourself by using WHMCS payment gateway features and bypass additional layers in doing so, plus reap all the additional benefits yourself instead of putting money in someone else's pockets.

 

I hope things work out!

Robert