billing solutions for hosting douglas johnson, swsoft product marketing director wednesday, may 9,...

Billing Solutions for HostingDouglas Johnson, SWsoft

Product Marketing Director

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

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May 2007 Billing Solutions for Hosting Providers2

How Tough Can it Be?

• Customer orders service for $10/month - just use a spreadsheet

• Customer joins mid-month• Customer requests a refund• Marketing wants to run a

promotion – 10% off if enrolling before 30 days

• Accounting reminds us that we need to charge tax

• Customer pays late – finance charge applied

IF (today = customer_bill_period)THEN Create_Invoice;

Create_Invoice{

Invoice_Item = Service_Item_Charge_Amt;}

Pro_Rate_Charge{

Invoice_Item.Charge_Amt = Invoice * (days_of_service / 30);

}

Pro_Rate_Invoice();

Calculate_Refund{

IF (Refund_Allowed) Invoice_Item.Refund_Amt =

Pro_Rate_Charge;}

Calculate_Discount{

IF (Promotion_Code_Valid) Invoice_Item.Charge_Amt *=

Discount_Amt; Pro_Rate?}

Calculate_Tax{

IF (Tax_Zone in Zone_Array) Determine_Tax_Amount; IF (Pro_Rate)?; IF (Apply Credit);

}

Calculate_Finance_Charge{

IF (Overdue_Balance > 90 days) Determine_Finance_Chrage_Amt; IF (Good_Customer);

}


• Deployment of new services Have billing issues delayed the launch of a new service?

• Flexible pricing and promotions Can you respond to market changes in 1 day?

• Integration with multiple systems Do you have legacy systems which you want to retain or new services which run on

unique platforms?

• Customized workflow and internal controls Do you have internal controls required by legislation for you and your customers?

• Online account management Can customers manage their account and payments online?

• Automated renewals and service messages Can you improve customer retention and revenue per customer?

Billing Challenges


• A business support system automates and integrates all aspects of service delivery through a web-based storefront and management control panels.

• Both PEM and HSPcomplete provide a full set of bundled functionality.

• Storefront

• Order Processing

• Workflow

• Service Plan Management

• Discounts, Promotions

• E-Commerce

• Reseller Support

• Trouble Ticketing

• Fraud Screening

BSS Features

• API and SDK

What is a Business Support System?


• Your BSS ties together your other support systems.• For each process decide to use BSS functionality or build an

interface to an external system

SOAP

SOAP

SO

AP

SO

AP

Core Services

Billing Manager

Eco

mm

erc

e

Bill

ing

Ma

rke

ting

Re

selle

r

CR

M

Su

pp

ort

In-House System

Custom Application

Virtuozzo

Plesk

3rd Party Application

CustomerControl Panel

Domain Registrar

AccountingSystem

Trouble Ticketing System

ProvisioningSystem

Payment Gateway

ResellerControl Panel

OnlineStorefront

Billing can be a Central Point for Your Operations


PEM.Billing Core Service Gates (~10) Plug-Ins (~30)

Order Processing

Workflow Engine

Taxation & Payments

Notifications

Reporting

Promos & Discounts

Service Plan Manager

E-Commerce

PEM Gate

OpenSRS

GoDaddy

Payment Gate

Manually Provisioned Items Gate

Authorize.Net

PaymentTech

Domain RegistrationGate

OpenSRS API

GoDaddy API

PaymentTech API

Authorize.Net API

Overview of PEM.Billing Architecture


System Included withPEM.Billing

Extended by API and Service Gates

Customizable storefront

Fraud screening system

Centralized account management system

Trouble ticketing system

Resource usage accounting

Reporting

Workflow

Tax computations

Payment gateways *

Domain registration with name spinning *

Network and resource provisioning *

Accounting system

• PEM.Billing delivers a solution that can be integrated and customized according to service provider needs.

* Pre-integrated plug-ins available to interface with external systems

PEM.Billing Components


• PEM.Billing supports hosted services:

Multiple Service Offerings• Domain Registration• Shared Hosting Plans• Virtual Private Servers• Dedicated Servers

• Application Hosting• DSL and Cable • VoIP and IM• Provider defined plans

• Disk space• Mailboxes• Bandwidth• Domains

Resource Based Billing• Applications• Services• Provider defined resources

Open Interfaces• Payment gateways• Domain registrars• Control panels

• Internal systems• Third party systems• Provider defined interfaces

PEM.Billing Hosting Provider Features


• Service Provider Develop service plans for resellers

and end users Online marketing of promotions View system-wide sales and usage

reports

• Resellers Multiple levels of sub-resellers Customized branding Unique service plans

• End Users Upgrade from control panel Pay bills, view invoices Submit trouble tickets

Feature Highlight - Multiple Levels of Control Panels


• Configure the workflow to fit the provider’s operations• Flow can include automatic and manual steps• Billing Manager is shipped with few pre-defined workflows

FraudScreening

Success

Charge Credit Card

Mark OrderAs Fraud

Put OrderOn Hold

Provision Services

Order Placed

Yes

No

Feature Highlight - Workflow Builder


• Insert customer communications into your workflow• Re-brand email and customer notifications• Retain a copy of all customer communications• Notify via HTML, text, PDF, or SMS (using third-party gateways)

Order Accepted

Manual ProcessComplete

NotifyCustomer

(email)

High Bandwidth

Usage

Automated ProcessComplete

NotifyCustomer

(email)

Bandwidth usage warning – HTML version

Customized Communications


• Customize your web store Look and feel Ordering sequence

Add Hosting Plan

Add Resources

Collect Payment Data

Add Domain Name

Feature Highlight – Web Store


• PEM Billing Manager can be expanded to bill services not traditionally offered by hosting providers

Feature Highlight – Ancillary Services


• Drill down reports for service providers and resellers

Feature Highlight – Robust Reporting


• Real-time Payment Processing Modes of operation: pre-authorization only, authorization and capture

• SDK (future) delivers rapid integration Rapidly add new payment gateways and connect to external systems

• Reconciliation support Verify cash billed against cash in account

• Direct Debit and GIRO Support Supports integration with bank systems for direct debit, GIRO

Payment GateAuthorize.Net

PaymentTechPaymentTech

API

Authorize.Net API

Billing Manger Core

Feature Highlight – Payment Gateways


• Score based fraud system Over 20 fraud plug-ins: Black IP, Black email, excessive order amount, originating

country, phone numbers, black credit cards, etc. Configure scores and workflow

• Create new filters Integrate or design your own fraud filters using the SDK (future)

CalculateFraud Score

Order PlacedFraud Screening

Complete

RejectOrder

ManualApproval

NoScore TooHigh?

RejectOrder?

Yes

No

Yes

Approve?

No

Yes

Feature Highlight – Fraud Screening


Business Concern Small Solutions* Custom Solutions† PEM.Billing Advantage

Rapidly launch new services to keep pace with market needs.

X Inflexible, difficult to add new services.

X Complex, long lead times and development schedules.

Resource based billing provides rapid deployment of new service plans with different resources.

Storefront integration provides instant awareness of price changes and new plans.

Integrate with multiple delivery systems.

X Inflexible, difficult to integrate.

APIs usually exist, but can be difficult to integrate.

Open API allows integration with new application servers for new service delivery.

Provide online account management to reduce service costs.

Some functions are automated.

Depends upon installation.

Delivers full management of accounts including different roles and permissions.

Scale to accommodate new customers.

X Limited by hardware, requires upgrade.

Supported Distributed processes enable the addition of hardware nodes to support nearly unlimited accounts.

• SWsoft Billing Manger delivers a pre-packaged solution that can be integrated and modified according to service provider needs.

* Solutions priced at or below $300/server and install without customization † Solutions which must be customized by a professional services team over a 6+ month deployment schedule

Competitive Marketplace for Billing Solutions


Roadmap - PEM

4.1.6

May June July Aug Sep

4.1.7 4.2.1 4.2.2

• Reseller capabilities• Resell based on fixed margin, not resource consumption• Use provider’s merchant account to charge reseller’s

customer• Apply finance charge to reseller for CC processing• Credit limit for resellers

• Subscription management• Improved synchronization logic• Install new resources into customer subscriptions

• Domain management – support bulk availability request

PEM.BILLING 4.1.6 Top Features

• SDK for creating domains and payment gateway plug-ins• System

• Customize menus per reseller• Rich text editor to modify notifications and css/html• Enforce password change on regular basis

• Operations• Archive orders on completion• Add internal domain transfer procedure

• Service Plans• Promotions and refund improvements

PEM.BILLING 4.1.7 Top Features

• Windows Support• Windows 2003 Server• MS SQL for database

• Key administrator support• Direct provisioning of Plesk service plans• OPEN FUSION support

• Single sign on support

PEM.BILLING 4.2.1-2 Top Features

.BILLING


Questions and Answers

Conclusions:• Billing – it’s not as easy as it looks• Billing – you can spend time billing customers or getting

new customers• Billing – should not be the deciding factor in whether or

not you can launch new services or respond to competive pressures in the marketplace

billing solutions for hosting douglas johnson, swsoft product marketing director wednesday, may 9,...

Documents

billing solutions

storefront billing

billing issues

billing challenges

tax customer

customer orders service

billing core service

hosting providers