I am new to business. I have recently set-up a hosting resellers account. Something I am unclear about is how to bill customers for this service.
Currently for my web design work I take payment through PayPal which is fine for one off payments.
With hosting it’s different in that the fee is re-occurring. Is it just a case of sending the customer an invoice every time the service is due to end and asking them to renew it? What software could I use to keep track of who’s hosting ends when? Or are there systems that will do this all automatically?
Sorry if these seem like basic questions, but it is something I am unclear about. I am concerned about loosing track of a customer and accidentally letting them have free hosting.
Thanks for taking the time to help me out, I really appreciate it.
What software could I use to keep track of who’s hosting ends when?
The package you should have got with the reseller account. Reason one why hosting is among the worst run businesses online. Given how business online is run in general, that’s really saying something.
In other words, if you have this problem, you’ve got bigger problems than this.
Most web-reseller packages come with what’s called WHMC, it will be your key to setting up things on the business level you need.
It’s your key to a quick and easy setup of Billing, Checkout, and Billing Information Client Side. Think of it as your entire business, which it mainly is. Without WHMC, or similar applications, you’ll have to build your own system or as you said, manually invoice clients through Paypal.
You can set recurring payment option in paypal so you can get ontime. For tracking renewals , if you have many accounts then develop software to trace.
Another option you could utilize is offering your clients the option to pay yearly instead of monthly. I offer this to my local clients and all of them choose to go this route. I offer them a 10% discount on the cost if they pay for a year up front instead of month-to-month. I simply explain that domain names are registered yearly and so you will obviously need hosting for the year as well, why not renew both at the same time and not worry about renewal or payments until next year?
I also offer them a discount so it will save me in the per-transaction charges each month. It pretty much evens out cost-wise and it is much easier to keep track of yearly renewals than each month to month.