Decentralised vs. centralised external billing?

AGXL · January 9

Hi,

Some time ago, for data protection reasons (my company has to be GDPR compliant), an expensive management consultant suggested that I decentralise the billing system and manage it for each server location via the upmind platform. With hindsight, I don't know if this was a good idea. I created 50 brand accounts with upmind. These accounts all need to be managed individually. Some time ago I got a free Clientexec licence for a private VPS. I also have a WHMCS licence somewhere.

To cut a long story short: My question to you would be whether I should run the billing portal decentrally with upmind, which is of course much more time-consuming and cost-intensive, as I have to manage each one individually, or whether I should use a central billing portal for all server locations with e.g. Clientexec or WHMCS? Which is better?

I would appreciate your expertise.

Neoon · January 9

Who in the fucking mind, would choose a SAAS platform for billing.

techdragon · January 9

@Neoon said:
Who in the fucking mind, would choose a SAAS platform for billing.

Like people don't use Stripe and PayPal?

I guess the issue with Upmind is they're collecting ALL your customer and service data. Risky.

Neoon · January 10

@techdragon said:

@Neoon said:
Who in the fucking mind, would choose a SAAS platform for billing.

Like people don't use Stripe and PayPal?

I guess the issue with Upmind is they're collecting ALL your customer and service data. Risky.

You use them as payment processor or payment gateway but the billing and invoicing still runs on your machine.

Amadex · January 10

I'm using Upmind.

techdragon · January 10

@Neoon said:

@techdragon said:

@Neoon said:
Who in the fucking mind, would choose a SAAS platform for billing.

Like people don't use Stripe and PayPal?

I guess the issue with Upmind is they're collecting ALL your customer and service data. Risky.

You use them as payment processor or payment gateway but the billing and invoicing still runs on your machine.

Depends on how it's integrated, but with WHCMS and similar, sure. You're right.

techdragon · January 10

@Amadex said:
I'm using Upmind.

Any thoughts on it? Have you tried HostBill in comparison? What integrations / platforms are you using it alongside? Direct Admin, Virtualizor etc.

Would you say it's production ready or just working beta?

mikho · January 10

Is it one company that owns all locations? Or different sub-companies that handle each location?

I can't see that it wouldn't be GDPR-compliant to have all customers' data in one system, external or internal.
unless you have different companies for different locations.

AGXL · January 10

@techdragon said:

I guess the issue with Upmind is they're collecting ALL your customer and service data. Risky.

You're right, collecting customer and service data can be risky. Especially if there is a data leak or security breach at some point.

AGXL · January 10

@mikho said:
Is it one company that owns all locations? Or different sub-companies that handle each location?

Thank you for your expertise.
One company is responsible for almost all locations, there are only a few exceptions.

AGXL · January 10

@techdragon said:

Would you say it's production ready or just working beta?

In my opinion, Upmind is definitely still in the beta phase. There are still some problems and I know the following error message by heart: “We've encountered a network error”. I have now spent a very long time with it and found a dozen bugs or small technical problems. Don't even get me started on the translation. I think Upmind has great potential, but it still needs a bit of work.

pwd · January 11

No way SaaS - Self hosted all the way.

how · January 11

HostBill

Decentralised vs. centralised external billing?

Comments