DotNetInvoice v2.1

asp:review

DotNetInvoice v2.1

An ASP.NET-based Billing Solution

By Anand Narayanaswamy

Management of billing and invoicing is an important aspectfor every business establishment. Imagine you run a Web hosting company with200 customers or more. It would be extremely difficult for the billingdepartment to manually send invoices and reminders when a payment is due.Moreover, you also need to take care of new customers who sign up for servicesby adding them to a billing system. To properly centralize all billing relatedfunctions, you need powerful Web-based software. The advantage of using server-sidesoftware is that your customers can directly pay for the relevant services byvisiting the appropriate URL.

The billing software market is currently dominated by PHP-basedproducts, such as ModernBill, ClientExec, WHMCS, and others. The disadvantageof these products is that they are primarily developed for Web hostingproviders and cannot be used by other providers, such as Internet ServiceProviders or computer dealers, as they do not provide suitable interfaces.Moreover, many of these applications require access to a Linux server to work properly,as well as knowledge of PHP for customization.

Hence, when I searched for an ASP.NET-based billingsolution, I found only one product that suited my needs: DotNetInvoice (http://www.dotnetinvoice.com). Atfirst I thought the product was a simple application, but I was amazed when Isaw the powerful features of the product. The vendor has utilized the richfeatures of ASP.NET 2.0 and AJAX toenhance the user experience. DotNetInvoice is compatible with SQL Server 2005,SQL Server 2005 Express Edition, and SQL Server 2000.

The vendor doesn t provide a downloadable trial version ofthe product, but they have hosted the full application as an online demo (http://www.dotnetinvoice.com/asp-billing-demo.aspx).This is an excellent way to showcase the product to the global community as itenables prospective customers to test drive all the features in a live workingenvironment, without any need to download or install the application.

Once you ve purchased the product, a download link isautomatically e-mailed to you. The installation procedure includes uploading offiles, modification of web.config with the required connection string, andexecution of database scripts. I was able to log in to the administratorinterface without any problems. The product ships with two interface modules:one for administrators and the other for clients. While administrators havefull control over the entire system, clients are limited to viewing theirpurchase details by logging in to the system.

Figure 1: A view of the administratordashboard.

Figure 2: A view of the client s dashboard.

The administrator dashboard enables you to add new clientsand view any past due invoices; your totals for the day, week, month, and year;and much more. Moreover, the system can automatically deliver invoices on arecurring basis. This feature is a big bonus for service providers as they won tneed to e-mail invoices manually to their customers. A complete list of all thefeatures included with the product, along with the relevant screenshots, can beviewed at http://www.dotnetinvoice.com/asp-net-billing-script.aspx.

An interesting feature of DotNetInvoice is that itautomatically processes real-time credit-card payments through Authorize.Net,PayPal Payments Pro, and Standard PayPal. It also supports offline paymentmodes, such as a bank check (but an administrator should manually record thetransaction by logging in to the system). The vendor is planning to provide supportfor more gateways in future releases.

Figure 3: Paying an invoice.

The vendor provides complete source code with purchase ofthe product, which allows you to modify the billing script easily. You can evenadd custom fields by editing the appropriate ASP.NET page, and you can easilymodify the e-mails generated by the product by editing the required template. DotNetInvoicealso includes a reporting module where administrators can view monthly andyearly sales summaries in grid and chart formats.

Figure 4: A sneak peek of a generatedreport.

Currently, administrators must manually generate aninvoice for their clients for a specific purchase. One feature I would like tosee is that DotNetInvoice provide a facility by which clients can directly purchaseproducts by visiting the relevant URL without waiting for the link generated bythe administrator. I think this feature will be of great use for Web hostingproviders. I would also like to see the implementation of automatic generationof invoices in PDF format as and when a payment is made using the product.

The vendor provides excellent support through e-mail andmaintains a discussion board at http://forums.dotnetinvoice.com/forums/.I must say that DotNetInvoice is a clean, easy to use, lightweight product andcan be used by Web development firms, contractors, consultants, and any otherservice providers who wish to automate their billing processes quickly andeffectively.

Anand Narayanaswamy,a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP), works as an independentconsultant and runs NetAns Technologies (http://www.netans.com),which provides Web hosting services based in Trivandrum, India. Anand also worksas a technical editor lead for http://ASPAlliance.com.He runs http://www.Learnxpress.com, http://Dotnetalbum.com, and http://Csharpfaq.com. Anand is the author of Community Server Quickly (Packt Publishing). Youcan explore more information about the book at http://www.communityserverbook.com.Find out more about him at http://www.visualanand.netor e-mail him at mailto:[email protected].

Rating:

Web Site: http://www.dotnetinvoice.com

Price: US$295