Billing Software?

Author
Discussion

rjben

Original Poster:

917 posts

281 months

Thursday 28th July 2016
quotequote all
Hi,

We have a subscription based service where the customer pays for the service each month. Currently we send out invoices by email and reconcile against payments received to our account when the customer pays - all very painful with lots of overhead.

What we'd like is a service / software package that allows us to enter the clients payment details (either card or bank account details for DD), along with invoice details (via templates) and repeat billing frequency, then the system will automatically bill the client via their payment method and send the client an invoice for thier records. Ideally the system should allow the repeat payment to be changed and report on failed collection attempts. If it could also do our accounts (something like QuickBooks etc) then that would be fantastic.

Does anybody have any recommendations? What kind of thing should we be looking for? We're a bit too young to be considering building our own via API / Payment Gateway, we need to grow a little before we can take on that kind of expense.

Any help much appreciated.

MrSparks

648 posts

119 months

Thursday 28th July 2016
quotequote all
I've just had a subscription based website created and we're using Stripe for automatic recurring payments.

Stripe also integrates with a lot of the major accounting platforms so can automatically raise invoices etc.

Our system is completely bespoke (pretty easy requirement to be honest) but Stripe handles the majority of the work so I'd recommend looking into it.

48k

12,978 posts

147 months

Friday 29th July 2016
quotequote all
Second vote for Stripe here. I'm just building online payments for a client and using Strip is quite straighforward. They have volume based pricing so when your transaction volume grows in to the next band the cost per transaction gets cheaper. The charges are very competitive.

Downside is that you don't receive the money for 7 days.

rjben

Original Poster:

917 posts

281 months

Friday 29th July 2016
quotequote all
Thanks both, I took a look, is it only via API?

48k

12,978 posts

147 months

Friday 29th July 2016
quotequote all
No, there is an integration using their payments javascript (stripe.js) which you drop in to your web page and gives you a UI for the customer to provide their payment details which is hosted on the Stripe servers so your platform does not need to be PCI compliant, it's all dealt with at their end.

If you do need some work in this area, PM me the details and I can point you in the right direction / give you a quote if you like.

uber

855 posts

169 months

Friday 29th July 2016
quotequote all
We have built tons of these billing style platforms

Stripe is awesome and we have used it on builds for years but they are keen on using the blend rate for transaction fees. We have recently got round it using streamline for very low rates and next day clearing and their clone of the stripe API.

rjben

Original Poster:

917 posts

281 months

Friday 29th July 2016
quotequote all
48k said:
No, there is an integration using their payments javascript (stripe.js) which you drop in to your web page and gives you a UI for the customer to provide their payment details which is hosted on the Stripe servers so your platform does not need to be PCI compliant, it's all dealt with at their end.

If you do need some work in this area, PM me the details and I can point you in the right direction / give you a quote if you like.
Thanks. We're not interested in having the client fill in their details online - we take the order then setup the invoice ourselves, hence the need for an admin portal that we can use. We're not interested in providing the client with a fully automated signup / payment service from the site (yet) as the on boarding process requires client interaction with us due to consultation required (it's not a simple service).

48k

12,978 posts

147 months

Friday 29th July 2016
quotequote all
rjben said:
48k said:
No, there is an integration using their payments javascript (stripe.js) which you drop in to your web page and gives you a UI for the customer to provide their payment details which is hosted on the Stripe servers so your platform does not need to be PCI compliant, it's all dealt with at their end.

If you do need some work in this area, PM me the details and I can point you in the right direction / give you a quote if you like.
Thanks. We're not interested in having the client fill in their details online - we take the order then setup the invoice ourselves, hence the need for an admin portal that we can use. We're not interested in providing the client with a fully automated signup / payment service from the site (yet) as the on boarding process requires client interaction with us due to consultation required (it's not a simple service).
That would be a subscription / recurring plan on Stripe, which you manage through the Stripe management portal. Customer still has to key in their payment details to pay though. (which is actually a good thing as it saves you from the legal/PCI/security/compliance issues of storing their credit card details).

An alternative solution is to have some simple bespoke software written which automates your current manual process - which is possible if you bank online as it can scrape your account activity and reconcile against the invoices.

surveyor

17,766 posts

183 months

Friday 29th July 2016
quotequote all
Have a look at freshbooks. Does the recurring invoice thing very nicely - gives the client a portal to retrieve their invoice, and integrates with various payment gateways including paypal and stripe...

Bikerjon

2,202 posts

160 months

Friday 29th July 2016
quotequote all
You could have a look at GoCardless. It makes collecting subscription based payments a breeze. I do this on a very small scale and it also integrates into my accounting app, Kashflow. It means that all repeat invoices are checked off automatically once the customer has setup their direct debit with GoCardless.