Hi Joe,
Thanks for your reply.
I been using A2b for a few years now and yes you are right some features in a2b are there because they were sponsored.
My post was meant to be a little controversial and I was trying put in words some reasonable thoughts that some people new to a2billing might have, who could be looking for a telecom solution. Those are just a few things that can really stand out and deter some potential new clients. When the statement “full featured telecom platform” is used and client’s accounts can’t be searched by their phone number it makes eyebrows go up.
The auto refill cron is another example. When it runs it doesn’t log anything in the fields “FIELDS description and refill_type” in the cc_logrefill so there is really no way to even find which client is refilled so they can be billed later like running their credit card on file. If I am not badly mistaken running an auto refill to prevent services from being disrupted is one of the most common reason auto refill is used. Putting some details in fields “description and refill_type” would have taken less than 2 minutes to do when the script was made and still probably a 5 minute job.
A combination of too many small things can and often do really raise eyebrows of many businesses owners or anyone who has experience with other common billing software. Especially to someone that doesn’t know history of a2billing. Without knowing the history of a2billing I think a2b would rightfully scare some business owners from trying it.
A2billing as you say been around for 5 years and is really turning out to be an awesome application. With this in mind I would really hate to see some trivia details hinder its development in anyways such as deterring a possibly good paying client.
Quote:
What is regarded as the fundamentals of A2Billing will vary depending on who you ask, and the purpose to which A2Billing is being put. My opinion is that the fundamental purpose of A2Billing is to rate calls accurately, and charge the customer accurately
You are absolutely right however each feature that is added also has fundamentals which come with it.
Example: Its generally customary for coders to add second set of first name, last name, Business name and address fields when the software contain certains specific features or design for specific uses such as.
1. Sales of products or services to businesses
2. Governmental sales
3. Integration of merchant payment gateway
Any ones of the above would require those extra fields automatically and it is standard with almost all billing software that offer any of the 3 mention above. And there are some really good reasons for it. Those extra fields as you say are not directly the fundamentals of a2billing but they the fundamental of most billing application that does any of the 3 mentioned above. I think A2billing already does or is quite suited for all three and I pretty sure Areski and the other developers are reasonably proud of it.
Now that a2billing as came this far it might be a good idea to teak it here and there a little to meet some standards generally found or required in billing solutions. Some employees are paid quite well so labor can be very expensive. the auto refill feature working right and an auto reoccurring payment not only can save companies $$$$ in valuable time it can also significantly increase the quality of service a client gets
If any of the developers of a2b already have a list of features they know are common in telecom solutions but not yet implemented in a2b and can be implemented, it might not be too bad of an idea to do a poll on the forum to see what a2b users would like to see first. I am sure the search by phone number would get a few hits.