Moving from MB5.3 to WHMCS

[Garani]

Sorry to bother the forum, but I really need some more "community" type of answers. I know that a lot of people moved successfully from MB5 to WHMCS, but I still have doubts.

 

We are customers of Modernbill 5.3 and have gotten to a point where we are seriously thinking of moving away from them.

 

This is what we need the system to do:

- Support for selling software licenses

- Support for selling hosting like accounts[*]

- Support for invoicing Professional Service hourly work

- Support for multi level discounts to our resellers

- Support for migration from MB5.3 to your software

- Support for VAT and multicurrency

- Support for API so that we can interact with the billing system from our control panel[**]

- Support for writing our own control panel module

- Support for "by usage" billing

 

[*] We sell online backup solutions and we have written our own module that takes care of calling our control panel and provision for it.

 

[**] Our clients' credentials are checked and logged in Modernbill so that we can seemlesly provide a one-time login experience, plus we pull package configurations from modernbill's user account.

 

Also we need to know if you provide professional service for writing custom control panel modules

 

Thanks to all

[TravisWhidden]

I am also interested in this too. I hate Parallels.

[TommyK]

i'll have a go at this one then..

 

- Support for selling software licenses

This is on the way, beta testing atm as far as i know.

 

- Support for selling hosting like accounts[*]

You can make any package you like and have it invoiced automatically, automatic provisioning for your system probably needs some custom programming.

 

- Support for invoicing Professional Service hourly work

You can only have a text and an amount per row when you make a custom invoice. There is no tracking time or anything like that either.

 

- Support for multi level discounts to our resellers

not sure about this. there is no reseller system incorporated, however there is an affiliate system which might work for you.

 

- Support for migration from MB5.3 to your software

I think so, havnt done it though.

 

- Support for VAT and multicurrency

VAT support is there. There is no multicurrency support yet.

 

- Support for API so that we can interact with the billing system from our control panel[**]

http://wiki.whmcs.com/API:About

 

- Support for writing our own control panel module

http://wiki.whmcs.com/Creating_Modules

 

- Support for "by usage" billing

no, if you don't make one yourself that is.

 

 

I strongly encourage you to install a demo and check it out. It's really easy to get around in, and coming from mb you will probably be surprised with how stuff just works in whmcs.

[AfterDawn]

I think WHMCS better get ready for an influx of disgruntled Parallels MB customers. Thier latest stunt has taken customer disservice to a whole new reality.

I am very interested to hear about anyone's experiences with migrating from MB 5.3 to WHMCS. In fact I would like to hear what people think about the support for this product. I am about half sold on this product, but after MB, I am a little gun shy.

 

Thanks in advance for your input,

Dawn

[romank]

I am very tempted on dropping modernbill 5.6.0 do to the latest stunt... I wonder if importing is seamless, including the stored credit cards..

[chickendippers]

To import stored credit cards you'll need to pay WHMCS to do the migration for you.

[Garani]

i'll have a go at this one then..

 

I appreciate it!

 

- Support for selling software licenses

This is on the way, beta testing atm as far as i know.

 

At the moment I really need something basic: customer buys a 5 license pack of my software. I get an email and I do the provisioning manually. This is what I am doing with MB5.3 at the moment.

 

- Support for selling hosting like accounts[*]

You can make any package you like and have it invoiced automatically, automatic provisioning for your system probably needs some custom programming.

 

Well, let me tell you what I am doing. I have written a CP Module where I retrieve a bunch of custom add-on from the user's order and then I provision for the account. This is pretty much like a "hosting cp" would work, but the add-ons are all different and in MB5 I have pretty much freedom to configure that.

 

- Support for invoicing Professional Service hourly work

You can only have a text and an amount per row when you make a custom invoice. There is no tracking time or anything like that either.

 

That's fine. I am not looking for a timesheet product. Just as long as I can send a batch to the system telling it to raise an invoice with a number of line items that would be fine.

 

- Support for multi level discounts to our resellers

not sure about this. there is no reseller system incorporated, however there is an affiliate system which might work for you.

 

Well, I'll be more then happy to do it like it (should) work with MB5: have user groups and each group has an assigned discount to a price.

 

- Support for VAT and multicurrency

VAT support is there. There is no multicurrency support yet.

 

Being a UK company, VAT was pretty much a given. The multicurrency is not something that I must have now, but should be in the pipeline for development.

 

[qoute]

- Support for API so that we can interact with the billing system from our control panel[**]

http://wiki.whmcs.com/API:About

 

Had a look at it, but it is missing a couple of features that I do need:

 

1) Ability to pull Packages data

2) Ability to pull due Invoices

3) Ability to raise a session ID when the user logs in our control panel, so that when the user goes to the billing system, he will not have to re-authenticate.

 

- Support for "by usage" billing

no, if you don't make one yourself that is.

 

Mmmm so I would have to raise invoices, maybe via a batch system that I write.

 

I strongly encourage you to install a demo and check it out. It's really easy to get around in, and coming from mb you will probably be surprised with how stuff just works in whmcs.

 

Well, to be fair about 2 months ago I did get the 14 days trial, but when moving from somewhere else you do need a bit more then those 14 days. You have to be ready to invest R&D in the new solution BEFORE you even decide to commit to it.

 

I am fine in spending time and money, but I just want to make sure that the humus (ie the userbase of WHMCS) is such that I can feel that this is a worthwhile endeavour.