DragonAss

I'm looking at the various membership billing software available that's not tied to the payment gateway or merchant people. Does anyone have a recommendation?

I prefer PHP with a mySQL backend but I'm open to others (I see a lot of them are written in perl/cgi). The preference is only because I'm familar with working in PHP & mySQL. One thing it really should have is the ability to tend multiple sites -- though I could also just point separate copies at the same payment gateway if need be. An affiliate program is a definite plus but not a deal breaker at the moment. Some accounting would be nice but at the very least it should be capable of easy financial data collection/extraction.

Generally, the more every aspect can be customized, the better.

TIA

AcidMax

Check out www.siteextreme.com and check out Trackman.

Multiple sites
PHP
MySQL
Works with CC Bill, I-Bill & Epoch.

AJ

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greentea

Check out Jesus Bill Ver4.0

He's got the software you need..

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DragonAss

[bump]

Thanks AcidMax... will take a look.

Greentea... I'm sold but need a URL or phone number

Cal

How can billing software not be tied to the gateway or merchant bank? I'm a little confused, since you need it to interface with whatever custom API you are working with.

It sounds like you're asking for ... gateway software that doesn't use a gateway?

www.pennywizepayments.com

or something like

http://www.mansionproductions.com/mpa2.html

If you need something custom I currently use custom signup forms and custom password management scripts, but it doesn't track billing or account, that's all done in the gateway's online admin.

C.

DragonAss

Technically, the software I'm looking for will still tie into the gateway but only to tap it for approvals/declines. The gateway will also have it's own admin interface/managment section, but this would be separate. I'm not too worrried if the software I'm looking for can't do refunds since I can still do these by hand when needed (I'm not even sure gateways can do these "transparently" by using our own software to issue them).

Sort of like a shopping cart, when it taps the gateway for approval/declines it comes back with an answer. According to this answer (and any other variables possibly passed through) the customer might see "Thank you" or "Fuck you and you're no-good credit". At this point, the software I'm looking for might show "Welcome to the member's area" upon approval and also log this new member's info into a database of our own somewhere. Naturally, it would need to update the password file and grant the customer access somwhere alkong the line.

This way, if our member-base grows and the gateway goes belly up (or just pisses us off) we can simply take our members database and point it at another gateway elswhere like a machine gun. I really don't like the fact that IPSPs have so much pull with everyone simply because they control the credit card info of our clients. Reading the boards, I see they can also process using our own merchant accounts (wish I'd known THAT earlier ) but at this point I'm debating which way to go for the long haul. I'm sure there are some downsides to using our own merchant account besides the specious "you risk your ass" claim (you risk your ass now in either case). A couple off the top of my head:

1) Having to manage the billing/software
2) Surfers may not be as trusting - but may know IPSP names

Some of the pro's are:

1) control is returned (software, scrubbing, card info)
2) much lower percentage rates

Anyway, I will probably jump through the Visa IPSP hoops but, at the same time, I'm now looking to get over half of our eggs out of the IPSP basket. If there was more time I'd probably write the software myself -- even if it had to start off fairly bareboned. Instead, we've all got a few weeks to assess the situation and implement our battle plans.