Is WHMCS as good as I am led to believe?

[Ollyski]

Hi all, please pardon my scepticism.

 

We've been badly let down by Modernbill with the whole protx / 3d secure thing.

 

To the effect we couldn't take any new orders, and resorted to using Paypal, hitting 40% of our revenue. It's been a great month.

 

Modernbill seem incredibly casual and don't seem to be in any particular rush to offer 3d secure / protx direct support, and I'm fed up.

 

In effect, all we want is something that works, and is patched properly when a major change takes place on credit card processing. How Modernbill have treated this is horrifying. I have asked when 3d secure / protx will be supported, and they reply "Early September". This was back at the beginning of the month- it's not like it's important!

 

A few questions please, really sorry if they are already answered, I need to make 100% sure we can move over to this product.

 

- Is 3rd secure / protx direct 101% supported? Can we take Maestro, Mastercard, Visa, Visa Maestro Solo? Is there a list of cards that ARE supported?

 

- We currently run a batch daily with recurring payments through Protx Direct. Again, can we run this with no trouble at all, with 3d secure enabled?

 

- Can we automatically charge VAT @ 17.5%, and exclude it for non EU countries?

 

- I understand the product is primarly based for web hosts. Can we use it to sell game servers? inx-gaming.co.uk - please click buy now on the game servers tab (If I am breaking any rules by doing this, please remove!). This is what we have at modernbill at present. We're able to customise the fields and store them in the db. Can we do this with you guys?

 

- Can we skin the order form to match our site?

 

- Our game servers are setup instantly by our own script. Essentially our script queries the mysql database and looks for pending orders that are paid. It then pipes over the specific variables into our own central database. Do we have full unrestricted access to query the database, i.e. modify our current script to work with WHMCS?

 

- When something major changes, such as 3d secure, are you proactive in releasing patches? I'm worried about being abandonded like we were with Modernbill.

 

That's it for now, if you got this far, thanks for reading

[othellotech]

Welcome Mr Warburton

 

The development team behind WHMCS are very pro-active in getting fixes and essential patches done - in days/weeks rather than months with many systems, and quite open to paid mods and enhancements - I'm *sure* you'll be glad to switch from your current system.

 

For the VAT question - yes, you can create tax-rules, exclude countries etc.

 

We dont use protx, so cant answer those questions - a bit of judicious use of the search link on the forum will help

 

Much of the order process can be "skinned" by the editting of the .tpl smarty php templates, so integration should be nice and simple.

 

There is an API and you can create your own "server" control extensions to do a number of things - although its very shared hosting oriented at present, I'm sure that Matt and the team could create a custom product type for gameservers with your funding and assistance.

 

Download/Install the trial and start being pleasantly suprised to have a billing system that just works ..

[Ollyski]

Good to see a recommendation from yourself Mr Golding

 

Will download the trial and have a go

[Ollyski]

Have just gone ahead and ordered.

 

How long does it normally take to activate, can't wait

[Matt]

It's usually instant! Is your license not activated yet?

 

And ProtX does work, and we had the new ProtX module out by the 4th August after their changes on the 1st. Regarding "We currently run a batch daily with recurring payments through Protx Direct. Again, can we run this with no trouble at all, with 3d secure enabled? " - obviously the batch you run of recurring payments does not use 3d secure because the client isn't present but WHMCS will run all due charges each day automatically for you.

 

Matt

[Ollyski]

I have a payment receipt, just not anything else. Order will be under olly @ (url in my dig)

 

As another small question, for each game server (package) we use modernbill package id.

 

Does WHMCS work the same- i.e. each package a customer purchases has a clearly defined package id in the db?

 

Thanks

 

EDIT: I was being a fool. Found the Download now, sorry!

 

One other question....

 

 

Given we use addons on each package, how safe would it be to import a modernbill database?

 

Would it keep the client ID / package ID's the same?

[Matt]

The import assigns new client ID's and package ID's but each package a customer purchases does indeed have a defined package id in the DB.

 

Matt

[Ollyski]

Thank you for all the help. I will give the import a miss as we rely on the package ID's. However we will setup and start using for new customers.

 

This looks like an excellent product already

[othellotech]

You'll see forum posts from "Matt", some people incorrectly think its a persons name, but it actually stands for the

Multiple

Automated

Technical

Typists

an advanced group of robo-droids who answer support tickets at 3.17am with the right answers, etc ...

 

Oh ok, I have no idea - but my experience is generally "same business day" for things that are not automated.

[pacwebhosting]

Bit late as you have purchased!

 

But yes it does everything we ask of it with minimal effort!

 

Planning to use the 2 modernbill manuals I printed out for bonfire night! - shame you can't sell the licences for it! never mind will put them on the fire also!

 

Paul