Billing is too confusing: how does it work?

Jeff Woods ( jeff@delta.com )
Thu, 24 Apr 1997 16:19:55 -0400

The sheer number of billing options (renewal, invoice, credit card, Email,
postal, etc, etc) makes billing in Emerald a total nightmare. We're
probably MONTHS behind on billing, with our employees manually advancing
expire dates and manually tracking them on paper, because nobody knows how
it works, and there are no docs on how to do it.

Can someone please issue a clear, concise, step by step guide on:

How to set up a new account in Emerald
This user may be using a credit card to pay in advance
This user may be on terms, paying at the end of the services
This user may be paying off of a paper invoice sent by mail, in advance

How to BILL *all* user accounts -- paper invoices, credit cards, whether
renewals, new accounts, customers on terms, etc, at the appropriate time; a
single step, please, ensuring that NO invoices are missed, and that no
accounts expire inadvertently. Just one group of settings, so that when
one "batches" invoices, they ALL get created.

For example, I created two web-hosting user MBR's today. I set up their
services. The defaults it set when the account was created were "paid thru
today" and an expire date 14 days from now. One account was a credit card
account, so I set that up as such. One was to be invoiced in advance of
the services, so I set it as such. NEITHER invoice was created when we
did a batch invoice job! WHY NOT?

Finally, how would one account for signup fees in this billing process?
The $75 domain name startup fee needs to appear on the bill, whether
Emailed or snail-mailed, and there seems to be no mechanism in Emerald to
allow for this.

We paid $3000 for the software, and are STILL waiting on simple, English
documentation on how to use it, while doing the billing the old fashioned
way -- by hand. Why aren't there docs for this thing yet? Even a
two-page simple step by stepper on how to enter new accounts and to bill
them would be helpful. The rough docs posted in February are of little help.

Thanks for any help anyone can offer.