Hi Marlon,

In no particular order, here's a list of some of the more popular ISP/WISP 
billing packages that we see in the market

Platypus/Tucows
PowerCode
Rodopi
BillMax
Freeside
Emerald / IEA Software

Every package has their strengths and weaknesses -- ultimately, it comes down 
to personal preference and business processes to see what's a best fit

Whatever it is that you end up with...be sure to check out ip pay 
(www.ippay.com) for your back-end payments =)

-Charles

P.S. -- in all seriousness -- QuickBooks does a really good job of hosing 
merchants (especially ISPs) on their payment processing -- we actually just 
helped another ISP/WISP pay for a new billing system with the $400 / month we 
were saving when they switched from QuickBooks Merchant Services to IP Pay

-----Original Message-----
From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On Behalf 
Of Marlon K. Schafer
Sent: Saturday, March 21, 2009 9:52 AM
To: WISPA General List
Cc: memb...@wispa.org; Odessa Office 509-982-2181
Subject: [WISPA] ISP billing/management software.

Hi All,

I just got a notice that Quickbooks is going to REQUIRE an upgrade in order
to continue to keep sending out bills via email.  And we have all of 1 month
or so to get it done....  I HATE Intuit and would like to replace them.

Here's the work flow in our office.

New customer calls in.
Fill out signup sheet with all needed customer data.
Assign static ip to customer.
Enter customer billing info into Quickbooks.
Enter all customer data into Access.
Enter customer username and pass into RADIUS.
Enter customer email account(s) data into email server.
Enter customer data into Postini (if they purchase the filtering).
Type customer signup sheet info into word doc and store in customer folder.
Generate installation work order.
Fill out check list showing what steps have been completed.

This has worked nicely in the past and "only" takes about 30 minutes to
accomplish.  But now we're growing too fast and have gotten too big to
maintain this.  Between tech support calls etc. the office manager is having
to bring in extra help.  It's only a day per week and it's good for there to
be two people there at least part of the time.  No one should work alone all
of the time.  Plus, if she wants to take some time off she will have someone
trained in the basics so we'll likely need to keep some extra help around no
matter what.  This mechanism also gives us a lot of double checks, redundant
data points etc.  With Access and Quickbooks we can run a very nice mix of
reports etc.

We do NOT have a customer trouble ticket mechanism other than the file on
them.  We don't track customers on a per call basis.  That's not too bad
because we're still small enough that we can normally remember problem
customers.

This would probably be a good time to change everything though.

In my perfect world, I'd have a billing system (that handles all of the
taxes for different communities etc.), trouble ticketing, auto server
configuration AND deconfig.  I'd want good reporting capabilities.

I've looked at some of the commercial systems out there, but at $1 or more
per month per sub for a full blown system I'd rather keep putting that money
into the local labor pool.

Freeside looks pretty good but I don't do programming or server admin work
in-house.  I don't mind hiring someone to set it all up etc. and to take
care of the server.  But it has to be an affordable solution too.

What are people using?  Do you like it?

If you had it to do all over again, what would you do?

Vendors please feel free to hit me up.
marlon
509.988.0260
Or talk to Apryl in the office 509.982.2181, she'll know more about what she
does day in and day out.



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