Re: [cobalt-users] off subject- billing

[Kris Dahl <kris@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks for the feedback on that.  So basically, you want it to automatically
bill their cards every month, no questions asked.

That gets a little tricky because we'd have to have those card numbers on
the server , and I am assuming that it would be on a shared server like a
Raq2.  So it'd have to be encrypted when not in use, etc.

Would you be comfortable having the CCs encrypted on the server using PGP,
you keep the private key on your personal machine or offline somewhere.
Every month, when it goes to bill, you connect up over ssh (secure shell) or
https (this would require a secure cert and ssl server) and supply the code
to decrypt.  It would then do all its billing and be done with it.

You already have a online merchant account?  Does anyone else that would be
interested in some software like this also have a merchant account.  If so
whhich ones?  That could be the tricky part.  I hope that they all have
really easy APIs / interfaces to bill using their secure web pages.  But I'd
like an idea of how many different ones people are using

I am assuming its got to bill based upon email adresses/users on the site
optionally as well.

It all sounds do-able.  I was kinda thinking it would be best to go the Open
Source with a GPL or probably Artistic License.  Only thing is I don't have
a whole lot of free time to do it, so my time is more valuable to me right
now--and on the flip side other people could work on it if it was
opensource.  Would anyone be willing to contribute?  I think I would charge
for the service of getting it up and going on the remote machine, but not
for the actual software.

Its a worthy project that I'd like to address.  I know my old boss would
LOVE to have something like that--hes in the sames shoes.  In fact I think
everyone on this list justabout could use it.

Thanks,
-k

on 2/11/00 3:20 PM, RHLinux- WHN at rhlinux@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Basically what i am looking for is to automate the billing in terms of
> recurring charges to their credit card, send them invoices automatically,
> reports, but those are not that important, send a email automatically
> notifying them that their cc will be charged, or its declined, etc..stuff
> like radius server and that sort, i dont need since we are in web hosting
> only...
> 
> you get the picture....if you want, give me a call at 907-349-6441 (hm)
> because i have another company (deal almost done, no $ put down yet) to
> create a program based on my needs (basically automated billing) on a linux
> machine....he quoted $5k
> 
> Thanks
> Gary Peltola
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Kris Dahl" <kris@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <cobalt-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Friday, February 11, 2000 2:05 PM
> Subject: Re: [cobalt-users] off subject- billing
> 
> 
> on 2/11/00 2:12 PM, RHLinux- WHN at rhlinux@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> 
>> Hi Everyone
>> 
>> Since we are pretty much all in the same boat (web hosting)
>> 
>> I am looking for a better automated solution and i would like some info
> (off
>> list) on what billing software your using that is bascially for web
> hosting
>> only...
> 
> What features are people looking for in this?
> 
> Couple of things I'd want:
> * Automated emails of the invoice
> * Ability to charge different accounts different rates
> 
> Charge by bandwidth?
> 
> What other things would be needed?  I can build something specificly for the
> Cobalt gear pretty easily that will do most of this stuff.  I think that it
> may be worth doing.
> 
> What would you want in such a package?