Re: [webmin-devel] Virtualmin integration with billing for hosting companies. Suggestions included.

[Joe C. <jo...@sw...>]

I've noticed that AgileCo have a billing application that purports to 
integrate with Virtualmin.  I haven't used it, but it might be what 
you're looking for.  It isn't Open Source, but it isn't expensive 
either, and seems to have a pretty good sized user base and reasonable 
support from the developers.  Might be worth a look.

My opinion on Virtualmin at this point is that it shouldn't deal with 
billing directly--I think billing is a separate problem, and in the 
cases where I've seen the two tasks integrated it has left something to 
be desired in both tasks.  There is also an Open Source billing 
application called FreeSide which may be of interest--perhaps you could 
integrate the two, or pay someone to do so.

The fact is that anything that deals with money is a huge set of 
problems all by itself, and if the focus of Virtualmin shifts to dealing 
with accounting, all of the technical stuff will take a backseat.  Of 
course, I could be wrong...

But, to address your suggestions, it would be good to make sure that the 
Virtualmin perl API and the command line interface can do the following 
things easily:

Email a specific account owner based on the account name (i.e. email the 
administrator email address rather than the Unix mailbox, just in case 
the user prefers notifications to be sent to a different mail address).

Suspend and re-activate an account.

With just these two features, any billing app that can be configured to 
"do something" based on the criteria you've laid out below, would be 
extremely easy to integrate with Virtualmin.

Beyond that, one would also want the ability to have the billing app 
trigger domain creation with the details pulled automatically from the 
billing database.  So the API/CLI needs the ability to create a domain 
from the default or another defined template.

I suspect most of this can be done already without much effort...And 
even if it can't, I bet it will be possible in a not too distant version 
(a little bird told me).  So, as much as I'd like for all of my software 
to be written by Jamie, he can't possibly stay awake enough to maintain 
it all.  He's already got Webmin, Usermin, and Virtualmin.  That's quite 
a lot, and I don't think we don't need him working on Moneymin(tm), too! 
  ;-)

Brian wrote:
> Hello list,
> 
> I have searched the list but found this has not been
> addressed in full detail; at least recently.
> 
> Have any of the hosting companies using Virtualmin on
> this list integrated with billing software?  This
> software based on webmin appears to be headed in the
> webmin/hoting/billing direction, but is incomplete:
> www.host4net.us.
> 
> What is the roadmap for virtualmin?
> 
> Some suggestions for starting the billing features:
> 
> An account expiration/renewal/due date would be
> useful.
> 
> Automated notices sent at configurable intervals (ie.
> 60,30,15,5,1 days or 30,15,3 days prior to experition
> and then a message notifying of account freezing) to
> domain owners based on a configurable email template. 
> 
> Automated suspension of services would be useful also.