When I started my hosting company, I was instantly attracted to the big name
billing software companies. ClientExec, ModernBill, etc. I looked for the one
with the prettiest features and the most amount of options, and went for it. I
picked ModernBill.

After installing it, I found that the number one problem was importing
current customers. Sure there were ways to do it properly, but to a beginning
host, it was much too complex, with much too cryptic help docs, to be able to do
efficiently and quickly.

The second major problem, was the inability for ModernBill to support
recurring billing with 2checkout. This is a huge problem, because every month I
had to actually track my customers down and ask them (beg them) to pay their
bills on time. I actually lost a customer because they just didn't reply. 

Last but not least, was the support. It could be days before your trouble
tickets were even responded to, quite often with the admins asking one single
question each time. This meant one problem could take upwards of a week or two
to actually get resolved. Not acceptable. The forums had a whole lot of good
information on them, but if you tried to ask a specific question, answers would
rarely come. The admins promised more features, hacks, custom scripts, images,
etc etc. But they never came. There was one forum in particular with the admins
saying they would upload the PSD files for the menu so that users could change
them to their own language. That post had been made 6 months prior to when i saw
it. And still no files.

I found out that my hosting provider (I operate off a reseller account) did
everything by hand, and though I felt they were being a little TOO simplistic
about it, they had the right idea, almost. So I decided to get my refund from
Modernbill (which actually took nearly a week for them to even acknowledge my
request) and to build something custom. My very own billing script with my own
interface and my own feature-set.

I worked on the signup form for weeks. Automated emails, crontabs, php and
mysql like mad. It wasnt perfect, but it sure did the job. Half automated and
half done by hand, I felt, was much better then fully automated, but never
working.

And with this, I learned an important lesson. As nice as it is to have flashy
software, sometimes its just better to stick to the basics, and keep it simple. 
Doing things yourself may take more time but in the end you get what you want
and you aren't waiting for anyone else to help with it.

By Chris Jones

fireballhosting.com

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