Questions.... (what else?)

[shannon]

First let me say, I'm very impressed. Downloaded the demo yesterday, started tinkering, and I'm about 90% in love (which is far higher then any other billing solution I've looked at recently) with WHMCS.

 

Couple of things that have cropped up in my testing so far, and I wanted to see if either I could get pointed towards what I'm doing wrong, or simply told either "That's not possible" or "Future Release, wait for it..." or what not.

 

- for cPanel servers, how are the usernames/passwords generated for new orders? It looks as thought the password defaults to a random number string, and the username defaults to the extension? (ie: i place an order for test.com, it gives me a username of just 'com').

 

Is there any way to allow the user to enter a desired username/password at the time the order is placed? (I'm not looking forward to servers with a hundred accounts named "com1...com2....com99").....

 

I did see how you can define "Custom Fields" under a package, and even have them be "Required" and shown on the order form... however doing that places them two pages deep in the "Pending Orders" section... At a minimum, is it possible, or would it be possible, to show said required configured custom fields in the details under "Order Items" on the manage orders screen? (Then we could just copy/paste them into the username/password boxes under the "activate" box) before clicking to accept the order.

 

Of course, the ideal option would be to have the fields from the order automatically pop into the username/password fields for cpanel before activation... (How are folks who auto-activate accounts that clear handle this currently? Just use the autoassigned usernames/passwords?)

 

- Combined billings: (This is more for an authorize.net situation, I know it's not going to be possible/practical with paypal/2co)

If a client has multiple accounts/services, all on monthly charges, all set with matching "Due dates", then in theory only one invoice/charge should be generated / billed on that date, yes? Let's say that billing date is the 13th of the month for this client.

Lets say on the 1st of the month, they decide to sign up for another account. What happens? Ideally what we'd like to work out is the same as what we see everywhere else (ie: Our cable bill, our cell phones, our own bills with our datacenters, etc). At the time of the new account order they get a prorated charge for the number of days between then and their regular billing date, then on their regular billing date they get a single large charge for everything. Going forward they are still charged on the 15th of every month everything.

Is this not possible with whmcs, or am I missing something? I've tried a couple of different ways, and it always seems to generate an invoice immediately for the ones due on the 13th (that say "6/13 -> 7/13") as well as an invoice for the new account (that says "6/1 -> 7/1").. which means they would never match up to the same day.

 

Maybe I'm missing something, maybe it's just not the way whmcs was intended to be used, maybe these things are on the todo list for down the road.. just looking for feedback / ideas before we decide what to do.

[trine]

Usernames will not be com1 com2 etc. this simply happened because you used test.com, which cpanel doesn't allow (the use of "test" as a username).

 

The user can always change thier own password in cpanel. usernames are auto-generated, and is best kept "as is", IMHO. Many people will try to use simple ones, or even excessively long ones. Remember, cpanel only uses a string of maximum 8 characters for usernames.

 

For AuthNet batches, and invoices passed to it, the system can not do it the way you are asking, since it enters collection for each individual invoice, then marks that invoice as paid. You would need to consolidate multiple billing items on one invoice manually in order to do so.

 

Prorating is supported, but you need to enable the feature in your admin area. You can also specify which date each subscription bills on, rather than using the signup date.

 

Although batch invoicing may be nice, it presents some unique challenges... The script would need to total all invoices due or past due on a particular date, and then submit, then on response, mark them all as paid. It doesn't do that. Also although it is possible to have a credit balance on a particular account, the balance must be applied as a discount for payment against a specific invoice.

[Matt]

If a client has multiple accounts/services, all on monthly charges, all set with matching "Due dates", then in theory only one invoice/charge should be generated / billed on that date, yes? Let's say that billing date is the 13th of the month for this client.

Yes, this is how it works. If a client has multiple items, due on the same date, by the same payment method, then just one invoice would be created with all the items on it.

 

Matt

[shannon]

Usernames will not be com1 com2 etc. this simply happened because you used test.com, which cpanel doesn't allow (the use of "test" as a username).

I should have remembered this one, sorry... I assume it uses the standard issue "try and use the first 8 letters of the domain" approach then, similar to what cpanel itself does when creating an account by hand? If so then we're probably okay there. Some clients will complain about losing the ability to choose their own usernames, but since the default mailboxes in cpanel are pretty much useless these days, I don't think it'll make too much of a difference to them. (Some however, will complain simply because that is what clients do.. -grin-)

 

Prorating is supported, but you need to enable the feature in your admin area.

Do you mean the "Prorata Billing" checkbox for each product? The way I read that, with the "Prorata Date" option right below it ("Enter the day of the month you want to charge on") I assumed that was some twisted method where every hosting account on that particular plan is billed on Day X each month (for everybody) instead of "a couple today, a couple tomorrow" depending on when they signed up? Or is there another prorate option I'm missing?

 

Yes, this is how it works. If a client has multiple items, due on the same date, by the same payment method, then just one invoice would be created with all the items on it.

That part seems to be working correctly for me, atleast from what I've been able to test out so far... but when someone who already has a billing date signs up for a new service, it bills an entire month upfront at the time of order, and now they have two billing dates to contend with. We have multiple clients with multiple services, currently they bill all over the place since they are Paypal subs or 2co recurrings... Our goal is to consolidate as much as possible under the AuthNet method and try to get them down to "One billing date, one billing".... A web designer opening their Visa bill and seeing one nice neat lineitem from us for $72 each month is better then them seeing $6 listed twelve times all over the place... (Yes, we've gotten this complaint before. Like I said, clients, and what they do..)

 

I guess we could always manually credit back the difference to the account and modify the "next bill date" on the service to match the other services they have, but then that's one more thing we're doing by hand.. (We've been suffering with a cobbled together inhouse system for too long, while we're fully used to "oh, you have to do this, then this, then this" and working around the limitations in said system, we're eager to find something that cuts -down- on the workarounds.. ehehe... If we could find a system that stops by starbucks and picks up our coffee in the morning, we'd take that too... ehehe...)

 

But at the same time, one must be realistic... I guess there will be some more playing/tinkering and much discussion on this end.

[ur]

We've been looking at this too, but it does require manual intervention to some extent.

[Matt]

If you really do need a feature, we can give you a quote for a priority development on it. Just open a ticket.

 

Matt