Accounts System General Features :

• EASY HTML CUSTOMIZATION
Accounts System is completely template-based for quick and easy changes to the members area layout. You can use your own template, or use on of the included 5 templates that can be quickly customized using a text or html editor to modify the CSS and HTML tags. You can quickly change the registration fields that are displayed and required by modifying the setup file, as opposed to making complicated changes to the HTML pages and code.

• MULTIPLE CURRENCY
Supports multiple currencies. Examples - '$' '£' '¥' '€'

• EASY CONFIGURATION
Includes a web-based administrator for easy configuration changes.

• INTEGRATED SHOPPING CART
Accept orders online for each of your hosting plans and domains. Each hosting plan can be a recurring or one-time fee, with the option of charging a setup fee. Customers can register for an account if they do not already have one, then place their order and receive approval in real-time. Accounts System can of course register the selected domain and setup the domain on your server instantly.

Below are the steps a client would follow when ordering with Accounts System:
1. Add the desired domain(s) and hosting plan(s) to the cart.
2. Look at the shopping cart and view the total fees, or redeem any coupons that they have been issued.
3. Login and/or register for a new account if they have not done so already.
4. Proceed to the checkout page.
5. Fill in any custom attributes you have specified. (Allows you to collect custom information)
6. Choose their desired payment option from the accepted payment list. (You can define these - Credit Card, Checks, and 3rd Party Redirect)
7. Submit the order for processing.

If a supported gateway is being used, Accounts System will attempt to bill the card, and will return the client to the correct page. (Approved, declined, invalid card) If approved, the order is then stored in the database, and both the client and the manager can view the order and billing details online. Once payment has been verified, Accounts System will automatically update the order status to 'Complete'. If you are using one of the supported registrars, Accounts System will automatically register the domain in real-time. If you are using one of the supported provisioning products, Accounts System will automatically provision the domain on the appropriate server at this time as well, and generate the welcome e-mail with the DNS, FTP, and control panel login detail.

• AUTOMATED BILLING
Accounts System can perform billing on the following occasions via supported gateways:
- At checkout when the new order is entered.
- When recurring hosting plan fees become due - completely automated.
Also, if payment is made by alternate means, such as a check or wire transfer, manual payment can be entered against outstanding charges.

• SUPPORTED PAYMENT OPTIONS
Accounts System supports the use of multiple payment processors at the same time. For example, you could use this feature to accept credit card payments via Authorize.net, as well as PayPal, E-Gold, and Check payments.

• AFFILIATE SUPPORT
Affiliates can sign up for an affiliate account through Accounts System. They can select to be paid by an Account Credit, PayPal, e-Gold, e-Bullion, or GoldMoney. The payout formula can be a flat rate per referral, or based on a percentage. The affiliate can view their referrals & sales online at any time. Credits for referred orders are not applied to the affiliate's account until the admin changes the order status to 'complete'. Also, payouts can be delayed to prevent payouts on refunded or fraudulent orders.

• NEWSLETTER FEATURE
Unlimited newsletters can be defined that users can manage in their account area. They can choose to subscribe or unsubscribe to these newsletters, and when the admin/manager sends an e-mail to the subscribed users, Accounts System can personalize each e-mail with the user's name, as well as add a custom 'unsubscribe' link at the bottom of the message.

• RC4 DATA ENCRYPTION
All stored credit card numbers are encrypted with your own private key before writing them to the database. The encryption/decryption used is RC4, and the key file can be stored anywhere on your server, providing another layer of protection against hackers.

• TAX CALCULATION
The administrator can set a tax rate and it will be included in the order total at checkout. (This feature can be disabled)

• SECURITY & FRAUD PREVENTION
IP addresses for each order is logged.
E-mail addresses can be blocked by domain to prevent fraudulent orders. (Example: hotmail.com, yahoo.com)
IP addresses or entire IP blocks can be prevented access to prevent fraudulent orders or wasted bandwidth.
Option to require users to validate their e-mail address before they can place an order.
Blocks users from registering another account with the same e-mail address.
Requires users to validate e-mail or password changes by e-mail before making the changes final.
Generates long session ID's, and users are logged out after 30 minutes of inactivity.

Client Area Features

• CUSTOMER ACCOUNT ACCESS
Accounts System enables your customers to login and view/edit the following records:
- Order History and Order Details
- Domains and Hosting Plan Status, and the links to the Control Panel for each domain.
- Cancel Current Hosting Plan(s)
- Billing History and Billing Details
- Credit Cards on File
- Newsletter Subscribe/Unsubscribe Form

• AFFILIATE ACCOUNT ACCESS
Accounts System enables your affiliates to login and review the following records:
- Orders they have referred, Order amount, ID, and Status
- Credits that have been applied to their account, and the credit status
- Payout history and status

• CREDIT CARDS ON FILE
Customers can place orders using a credit card they have placed on file, add a new card, or update an existing card that has expired or declined for any reason.

• SUPPORT TICKET SYSTEM
Customers can access a built in customer service module to create a sales, billing, or customer service ticket.

• LOST PASSWORD FINDER
Customers can use the lost password finder to be reminded of their account password.

Manager Area Features

• SECURE PASSWORD PROTECTION
Define username/password for the Accounts System management area to limit access to only authorized managers.

• CUSTOM HOSTING PLANS
You can set up unlimited hosting plans that can be billed once through infinity, or they can be free. The options also allow you to setup a one-time setup fee that is billed with the initial order. If the hosting plan is a recurring one, you can set how often you would like it to be billed before it expires, if you want it to expire. Also, each hosting plan will have a specified server for provisioning, if you want Accounts System to automate the provisioning..

• ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT
The account management center, which allows you to search for a specific customer, and then add/search/view/edit all their account details, such as orders, hosting plans ordered, billing history, and credit cards on file.
Account search criteria allowed: Name, Company, E-mail, Phone, City, State, Zip code, Country, and Affiliate. (Referred By)

• AFFILIATE MANAGEMENT
The affiliate management center, which allows you to search for a specific affiliate, and then add/search/view/edit all their account details, such as referrals (hits), orders, payout options, and payout history. Pending payouts can be made and updated to a paid status here.
Affiliate search criteria allowed: Name, Address, City, State, Zip, Country, Payout Type, and Period added.
Affiliate payouts can also be generated for a specified period. (Example: all referrals up to 1 month ago)

• ORDER MANAGEMENT
The order management center allows you to manage your orders. You add/search/view/edit all orders in the database.
Order search criteria allowed: Order status, Account, and Period added.

• DOMAIN MANAGEMENT
The domain management center allows you to manage your customers domains. You can add/search/view/edit all domains in the database.
Domain search criteria allowed: Domain Name, Hosting Plan, Account, Period added, & Next Recurring Charges Due Period.
Domains can be canceled to halt further billing and revoke user access at the end of the current billing period.

• CREDIT MANAGEMENT
The credit management center allows you to manage your credits. You can add/search/view/edit all credits in the database.
Credit search criteria allowed: Account, Type, Status, Amount, Creation Date, Applied Date, and Note Keywords.

• BILLING HISTORY MANAGEMENT
View a customer's billing history, and the details of the transaction.
Billing History search criteria allowed: Account and Subscription.

• PAYMENTS AND AUTO BILLING MANAGEMENT
View a list of due/overdue subscriptions, make manual payments, send a payment notice, or bill all due accounts. (Via a supported gateway)

• HOSTING PLANS
View a list of available hosting plans, add new hosting plans, or edit/delete/make unavailable existing hosting plans. Also, you can associate each hosting plan with a specific server if you want Accounts System to automate the provisioning.

• CUSTOM CHECKOUT ATTRIBUTES
You can define custom attributes that will be displayed on the checkout page. These attributes will consist of whatever information you want to collect from your customers at checkout, and save it to their order. You can display a text box, (for the user to type info into) a checkbox, (for the customer's response to a Yes/No question) or a custom drop-down menu with up to 10 custom options. For each of the options, you can define a default answer to make things easier for your customer.

• PAYMENTS AND AUTO BILLING MANAGEMENT
View a list of due/overdue domains, make manual payments, send a payment notice, or bill all due accounts (via a supported gateway).

• QUICK STATISTICS
Your statistics area will allow you to view the following quick reports:
All Orders-to-Date, All Orders Today, All Pending Orders, All Completed Orders, Total Domains, Total Accounts, Total Due/Overdue Domains, Total Current Logins, Total Current Cart Sessions.

• INCOME REPORTING
Income reporting options allow you to track subscription levels by period, customer, and subscription(s) ordered. The following reports can now be run to determine income by:
a) Value of all transactions.
b) Value of all transactions during a specific period.
c) Value of all transactions from a specific customer.
d) Value of all transactions for a specific hosting plan.

• MASS E-MAIL
Accounts System can generate e-mail lists for mass mail by specific account and subscription type and status details. Accounts System will customize the e-mail with the customers name. You will be able to specify the message, subject, from name and e-mail address, and priority level.

• NEWSLETTER OPTIONS
The manger can add/view/edit newsletter lists, as well as view the sign-up statistics for each newsletter. The manager can generate mailings to any of the newsletters, and personalize the message with the users name and an 'unsubscribe' link.

• EXPORT ACCOUNT DATA
Accounts System can generate account data exports by specific criteria, such as name, location, affiliate, hosting plan(s) ordered and domain status. This feature allows you to quickly export key client account data to another program, such as a spreadsheet. You can specify the field delimiter, the fields you wish to export, and how to order the exported fields.

• NOTES
You can create administration notes for each account and order record. These notes can only be reviewed by the administrator, and not by the customer.

• ENTER MANUAL PAYMENTS
The manual payment feature allows you to enter manual payments for customers who made a payment via check or over the phone. The customer's account will automatically be updated as billed and current.

• MISC.
Admin can clean up the session database to remove all outdated sessions and cart items.

Administrator Area Features

• SECURE PASSWORD PROTECTION
Define username/password for the Accounts System administrative area to limit access to one authorized administrator.

• E-MAIL OPTIONS
Define e-mail for alerts and notices.

• TAX OPTIONS
Define tax options.

• AFFILIATE OPTIONS
Define affiliate options, payout options and frequency.

• PAYMENT PROCESSOR MODIFICATION
You can easily configure your merchant account right through the admin control panel - no messy config files! This will save you a great deal of headache when you setup Accounts System, or if you change payment processors later.

• HTML LAYOUT ADMIN
Ability to control the HTML headers, footers, font and background colors through the admin section.
The administration area now enables you to upload headers and footers. No files to edit, just paste your HTML into the admin area. You can also create custom Company Information, FAQ, Contact Info, Policy, and Privacy Statement Pages via this section.

• TEMPLATE BASED E-MAIL SYSTEM
Now you can edit the e-mail templates via the admin section. This feature allows you to turn on/off certain e-mails that are sent out on specific occasions. (New order, domain provisioned, registration, receipts, declines, etc.) You can specify exactly what information you want sent to yourself, the customer, affiliates, and registrars, and when to send it. There are a total of 20 e-mail templates you can define in the admin section now.

Accounts System Supported Domain Registrars

Accounts System supports the following registrars for full domain registration automation. You will have the ability to define your own pricing structure for each TLD (Top Level Domain), such as .com, .net, .org, co.uk, etc. You can define two price sets for each TLD, one for the domain only, and another price for the domain with hosting. This gives you the power to discount your domain registration pricing if the customer purchases hosting with a domain, instead of purchasing just the domain. You can also define a setup price for the registration of each TLD.

You can also define which TLDs your customers should be able to search for and order via the Accounts System shopping cart, so your customers cannot purchase any domains that you do not wish to accept. Keep in mind that if you do not want to sell domains at all, you can remove these features from the software and sell hosting services only. Or visa-versa for that matter.

If you do not have or want to setup an account with one of the following supported registrars, Accounts System will create a queue record to notify you to register the domain manually.

All the integration modules listed are included in the base distribution of Accounts System at no extra cost, so all you need to do is configure and go!

Enom
Accounts System automates the registration of new domain sales ordered by your customers.

Tucows openSRS
Accounts System automates the registration of new domain sales ordered by your customers.

Total Registrations
Accounts System automates the registration of new domain sales ordered by your customers.

Nominet
Accounts System automates the registration of new domain sales ordered by your customers.

Melbourne IT
Accounts System automates the registration of new domain sales ordered by your customers.

Manual Entry
Accounts System creates a queue record to notify you to register a domain manually.
 

Accounts System Supported Gateways and Payment Processing Methods
 

Supported Gateways:
If you use one of the following gateways, Accounts System collects and stores credit card info and sends it to one of the supported gateways for a real-time response at checkout. Your customers will not need to leave your site during this process; the process is entirely transparent and secure. Once the payment is verified in real-time, the domain registrations(s) and domain provisioning commands will be sent to the queue, for automatic processing. A welcome e-mail is also sent, including the pertinent information, such as FTP and Control Panel login, if applicable.

In the event that recurring charges become due, Accounts System will automatically connect to these gateways and bill the credit card on file. This allows Accounts System to automatically suspend/unsuspend the user's domain(s) based on their billing status, without any intervention or maintenance on your part. In the event that the card on file expires or is declined, Accounts System will notify the user to login to their account and update their billing information, and will then attempt the charge again. If they fail to do so prior to the defined grace period, their overdue domain(s) will be suspended until they provide Accounts System will a valid card, or make alternate payment arrangements with and you reconcile their account using the manual payment feature.

Note: All of the following gateways, with the exception of Verisign, require that Curl be installed on your system. Verisign has their own SDK that must be installed. Read more about Curl under 'Accounts System Requirements'. If for some reason you do not have and cannot get Curl installed on your server, we do have a few web hosts we can recommend you to.

-> Authorize.net
-> Paysystems IMA
-> Versign Payflow Pro
-> Ibill
-> Planet Payment
-> ECX
-> RTWare
-> Echo
-> Netbilling
-> BluePay
-> eProcessing Network
-> SkipJack
-> Protx VSP Direct
-> PlugnPay
-> DPILink
-> eWay
-> SurePay
-> SecPay

Supported Payment Processors
If you use one of the following payment processors, Accounts System will generate a payment link after checkout so the user can make payment. Once payment is received, Accounts System will communicate with the payment processor in the background to confirm payment has been received. Once this is verified, Accounts System will update the order status, as well as send any domain registrations and domain provisioning commands to the queue for instant processing. If the customer cancels prior to completing the payment, their order and services will remain in 'pending' status, so there is no risk of the customer accessing their account for free.

In the event that recurring charges occur, Accounts System will e-mail the user a new payment link so the user can make payment. The payment links can also be viewed in the user's account area at any time. If they fail to make payment prior to the defined grace period, their overdue domain(s) will be suspended until they provide Accounts System will a valid card, or make alternate payment arrangements with and you reconcile their account using the manual payment feature.

In the event that payment is made for recurring charges, Accounts System will communicate with the payment processor and update the account so the user's domain(s) are not suspended. If payment was made late and the user's domain(s) were already suspended, Accounts System will automatically unsuspend the domains.

Note: Unlike the gateways listed above, none of the following require Curl. Most of these are also free or very inexpensive to setup, while the above all require a merchant account (to our knowledge) and may to great an investment for a small or startup web hosting company.

-> 2Checkout.com (Full integration & Automation)
-> Paypal.com (IPN supported for both one-time purchases and subscriptions)
-> WorldPay.com (Full integration & Automation)
-> Nochex.com (Full integration & Automation)
-> Netpayments.com (Full integration & Automation)
-> LinkPoint Basic (Postback for full automation currently not supported)
-> E-Gold (Full integration & Automation)
-> E-Bullion (Postback not yet available, will be supported when available)
-> GoldMoney (Full integration & Automation)
-> Crowne Gold (Full integration & Automation)


Supports Pay By Check
Accounts System will display your check payment instructions to the user after they place their order. When the payment is received, you can enter it manually against their account.