The Billing Solution Search

[VOIPoTim]

After we looked into it more, we don't see any real possibility of a WHMCS module since WHMCS does not handle usage/variable billing (needed for usage based and international). Any solution with real automation is going to have to be custom built so we do plan to launch a billing addon next year for resellers.

Our reseller program is the only one of its kind. It's a little different than hosting since there are thousands of hosting reseller programs out there. So there really aren't any entry level commercial billing solutions for VoIP providers out there since there really haven't been any entry-level reseller programs in existence until now. There just hasn't been a market for them since no one could be a reseller to begin with.


There is nothing preventing a reseller from using WHMCS manually though. You just have to do the math yourself vs it calculating things dynamically.

For the first year or 2 of VOIPo, we used a very simple approach with WHMCS with virtually no automation.


Here is an example of a very simple, easy way to use WHMCS manually and be fully up and running including an order form within 30 minutes.

It's really not much work to maintain at all.


Basic Setup:

1) Setup WHMCS Items for your base plans.

2) Add a field to the WHMCS Order Form asking where they'd like a phone number from (you could collect a city name, zip code, etc)

3) Use the WHMCS order form to take orders.

4) When an order comes in, setup the new account in vPanel using the area they put on the order form phone number selection. E-mail their account info.

For 99% of people, this will be it and there will be nothing else to do. Customers will be automatically billed each month by WHMCS.


International/Usage Billing:

If you choose to offer international or usage based plans, here is how to handle that.

1) Set aside the same day each month to run your usage/international billing. You could do this on the 1st to keep it simple since all vPanel limits reset on the 1st of each month. On that day, login to vPanel and pull the usage report for that month under the usage tab.

2) Create a "Usage Invoice" manually in WHMCS for each client with billable usage. WHMCS will not calculate things for you, so you do need to do the math yourself, but it should be pretty quick.

This is essentially the exact setup we used for VOIPo initially and we did our first million with it. It's not perfect, but it does show that simple methods can work very well.