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Since the release of the E-commerce module, I have been waiting for it to come to state where we can start using it. I had moved from Helm, and while DNP had better features in many areas, the billing system of Helm, although fairly simple, was much more usable. Practically, we lost the billing feature since we switched to DNP.

But the E-commerce module of DNP looked very promising, and given how great DNP developoers are, I knew soon it will be improved and enhanced and fixed so we would be able to really use it.  And sure enough, it has come a long way since it's initial release.

However, it is still quite not there. I kept coming back to these forums to see how others felt about it, and not to my surprise, only a few have probably been able to really use it.

It is not far from being usable though. My requirements may very from others, but the following critical features, I believe would make it useful for most people:

• Being able to import existing clients and services into the E-commerce module, and being able to create invoices manually in the control panel:
  Both of these can be achieved if we could manually create invoices for customers and/or add services to existing customers. While the storefront can be used to create new customers, to add services/invoices to existing customers, we must know the user name and password. Having it in the control panel without having to go to the storefront (for which we no longer have a link when logged as an administrator, by the way!)

• While creating invoices manually, we should be able override the specified price, or add discount to them.
• Having an other/misc item type where we can add a description and price of services that are not already defined in the storefront, so we can charge customers for custom services. (ssl installation, email restore from backup etc.) While these can be added as add-ons, being able to add an item on the fly with price and description will make it much more flexible

• From customer's point of view, a place to view the re-curring charges/invoices with the next due, and last pahment date, linked to the payment method. While the invoice list could be enhanced to show this information, or the services, I think having an additional page to view the re-curring payments/invoices will be better. Right now, the only way to find out about re-curring charges is to go to MyServices->service details and even there, while it shows the re-curring period and amount, information on the last invoice/payment and the next due date are not available.
• Change Invoice structure to clearly show initial charge and re-curring charges. Right now, just an entry is shown in the invoice with no information on the billing cycle and re-curring amount. Also show the billing address on Invoice!

There are a number of other features that will make the E-commerce module a very strong and compelling billing option:

1. Ability to bind a payment method to a specific cycle: So we will only accept Paypal for yearly billing, as monthly becomes too much of a overhead and we will only offer credit card for monthly billing options.
2. Create a set of User Controls/custom controls which can be dropped on any other asp.net website, so we can integrate the storefront with the corporate website keeping the layout, look and feel of the corporate brand as well as the master navigation of the site. This solves the problem of too many.
3. Promo Codes! Once you have the discount option on the invoices, it becomes easy to add a promo-code engine. All hosting companies are running promotions all the time!
4. Change 'My Ecommerce' menu option to 'My Billing' or something. My Ecommerce is doesn't exactly make sense from the user's point of view.
5. The shipping address! Please change it to billing address. The service oriented industry has little to do with shipping address.

All of these sound really good, be interested to see what paul and the team have to say

I agree with the comments. We have changed all our templates to be based around 'quotations' as the invoices are not customer facing enough. E.g.  need to be able to add.

1. Get Tax to add-up correctly.
2. Ability to add VAT no.
3. Agree with previous comments above

The section that needs the most work is the purchasing section. It would be much better to be able to use a shopping basket that allows adding quantity of each line ite, like Exchange Business Plan - quantity 5 rather than having a Plan Addon (with no visible desciption!) that is the additional mailboxes.

Hope this makes sense. 

Holy Crap what a detailed request!!!

I AGREE with EVERYTHING you have listed!!!

Could I add a few things?

1) dynamic logos for resellers so that they can brand their ecommerce site (when not using the above mentioned custom usercontrols)
2) default ecommerce site, and by this I mean that when I go to www.myhostingsite.com, the first thing I want to see is the storefront and NOT the login page.  I should be able to set which storefront to use based on the URL so that when I get a reseller, they can set it to their default storefront based on www.resellerhostingsite.com.

While the TAX/VAT Issue is not critical to me right now, I am sure it is a deal breaker for the users in Europe and other countries.

The customized logo is something that had been requested as a part of DNP, not just Ecommerce. It seems to be on the To do list as long I can remember.

Now that I have looked into the E-Commerce feature more, there are many minor issues that make it un-friendly for the Admins.

For example, when as an Admin I go into a customers account and look at their 'My Services', I don't have any option to Cancel, or Delete these services. The only way I can do this is by going to my E-commerce Admin's customer services. Where all customer services are listed in a grid, without any search features, without the ability to sort them by column. Imagine 100 customers with 300 services and you trying to find out which one to work on from one list. Particulary given the fact that customer's mostly have services that named the same 'Gold plan', 'Silver Plan' or whatever you are going with. If a customer has two 'Gold plans' you don't know which one to work with unless you remember the 'Created' Date.

Proposed solutions: 

Logged as an admin/reseller, if I go in the customers account and looked at 'My Services', I should be able to cancell or delete them.

Also, on the 'Customer Services' list, we should be able to search by user name. Same goes for the 'Customer Invoices' list, where we should be able search by Invoice ID, User Name and possibly a date filter (Due, Past Due etc.)

Make thse lists sortable by columns.

And I am coming back with more. GTG now. 

Whats the issue with the VAT works fine here in the UK.

Think the older version did allow you to enter a number of items you wanted.

I think the quick signup could do with some work, it's not very quick at the moment.

The VAT does not add up on the invoice. The Tax settings we have are

Tax status = active
Country = United Kingdom
State = England
Tax Type = Percentage
Amount = 17.50

Is this correct? Do I have to do anything else? 

When a hosting space is deleted from DNP, and there is a corresponding service in E-commerce module, the service does not automatically cancel. In a mixed case where we have some customers without the E-commerce services and some with, it is going to be a big problem.

The other way it works fine. If I cancel a service in 'customer services'  in E-commerce module, the corresponding hosting space is automatically cancelled.

When a payment is approved in the offline payment mode, it does not automatically activates the Invoice. We then have to go to the corresponding invoice and activate the services. I am not sure if this because manual activation is always required, or it is the case of offline payment only.

The E-commerce Admin menu, it disappears when I go to 'Customer Services', 'Customer Invoices' or 'Customer Payments' and the only way to go to any other E-commerce section is to go back (or click on account home) and then select an option from the menu again. There is no need for these extra steps. The E-commerce menu used to be on the top navigation and always accessible regardless of whether we are in account home or working in a hosting space. It was better that way. Why was it brought down on the account home side menu which seem to have no benefit but makes things less accessible?

Nice!! DNP is a great product and I have said before the only downfall at this time really is the ecommerce module. We have had some real issues with it as we did adopt to use it staight away. We did have to stop suspended and cancellation tasks for the same reason, people don't appreciate emails bugging them when they aren't even using your services anymore.

We looked at WHMCS to then handle all billing but still beleive once DNP get to work on the ecommerce module, that it will also be inline with the amazing features you would expect and already have with the rest of the working DNP.

On this note, can anyone provide steps to create a manual invoice as we have a customer who just upgraded his annual plan and we have no GUI to do this..... mmm

Thanks 

SaintMak:

On this note, can anyone provide steps to create a manual invoice as we have a customer who just upgraded his annual plan and we have no GUI to do this..... mmm

Thanks 

I have done this, I have some notes somewhere see if I can find them, from memory you just need to change the itemID your are billing them for.

I am going to write about something that I should have written long time ago, when E-commerce module was first released. I hope the developer team on DNP will acknowledge and appreciate the effort we are putting into improving a vital aspect of DNP: a reliable and usable billing system.

Here is the design changes in E-commerce module that will accomodate the features that are currently lacking:

The ORDER:

The process of a service ordering (from the customer's side) and provisioning (from the service provider's side) and billing (invoice from service provider and payment from customer), all of this starts with an ORDER.

The customer places an order, with one or more items (and add-ons, generic term: options), each of this items (and options) MAY have a one time (initial, non recurring, cost: setup fee for example) and/or a recurring  cost (based on the billing cycle selected). In addition to the items (and options), the following fields information are included in the order: Applicable discount (fixed or percentage), Tax/VAT, promotional coupons (when applied).

Based on this order from a customer, the first invoice is created by the service provider, which includes the line items, initial cost (setup fee) and recurring fee (first installment/cycle).

Once the initial invoice is paid, the services on the order are provisioned/activated by the system.

Based on the recurring charges on the order, subsequest Invoices will be created at the end of each billing cycle.

The customer has access to their ORDER history.

When a customer wishes to CANCEL AN ORDER, a CANCELLATION ORDER is issued by the customer, which includes line item (service to cancel) that refers to the line item on the ORIGINAL ORDER that initiated the service.

When the cancellation order is processed, the service is cancelled, the line item on the original order is marked cancelled, and the recurring charge/invoice will no longer be generated.

THE  CUSTOMER HAS ACCES TO THE HISTORY OF ORDERING THE SERVICE, AND CANCELLING SERVICE in their ORDER HISTORY.

All invoices created based on an initial order are linked to the ORDER, so the customer knows it is based on which ORDER.

THE E-commerce module currently DOES NOT KEEP THE ORDER RECORDS. The order is placed by the customer alright, based on which the Invoice is generated, and then the order vanishes.

Lets quickly review the importance of this order thing:

• It is the reason for the whole business process.
• The customer and service provider needs access to the order history
• A cancellation request is also an order from customer (cancellation order) and the service provider needs keep a record of that. It also allowes the service provider to charge a cancellation fee (line item) if applicable.
• The important information like discount amount, promo-code applied and VAT/TAX is also kept with the original order, based on which the subsequent Invoices are generated by the service provider.
• The security and audit information are also kept with the order, like the IP Address, DateTime or Order etc.

The Invoice is from the service provider to the customer. The order is from customer to the service provider. Multiple invoices will be created based on the initial order if the order has any recurring charges.

I sincerely hope that I was able to make a point here. It has been several days we are discussing this on the forum and not one comment has been posted by the developer team. I remember the days when they used to promptly respond and aknowledge suggestions, and even implemented them as soon as possible. Things sure have changed a lot around here.

 Haider,

I'm agree on all your points. From my experience if you want a response then send you questions to support@dotnetpanel.com.

 This forum is not very good at getting responses from the dev team.

This forum is not very good at getting responses from the dev team.

I disagree with this statement.  you could say things like "imo, this forum..." but please do not make such a blanket statement.  The dev team has been VERY good at responding to posts in the forum.  As for right now, DNP has become a huge project and is probably all consuming of their time.  Also, the forum has a large enough user base that it can answer many questions without the involvement of the dev team.

Rest assured however, that they have read this thread and will have evaluated the suggestions.

Hi Haider,

You put together a nice conclusion to what is need but I beleive today we also have to add some form of Fraud detections to the list, as that is the only reason I don't use the built-in DNP signup form. I was getting so many Fraudulant signups, so I suggest MaxMind preferrably or some other good company would do.