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Here are some answers to the on-demand billing and
payment questions we think are important to understand.
Q. Is recurring billing the only type of billing model
for SaaS?
The short answer is no, however many billing providers can only
offer recurring subscription billing. Think about how mobile phone
companies bill:
Mobile phone companies charge you a monthly fee and include a certain
amount of talk time and data with the plan. They also provide free
evenings and weekends. They know their customers don't want to be
cut off when they reach the limit of the plan and they want to capitalize
on the incremental revenue opportunity. They accomplish both by
being able to bill for additional usage, and bill or not depending
on the time of day or the day of the week (Recurring + Metered +
Time of Day).
Imagine then if you were that mobile company's competitor and only
had the ability to invoice the recurring portion.
What billing options do you need to compete in your competitive
world? At IP Applications we provide:
- Recurring billing
- Point in time billing
- One time billing
- Metered billing
- Time of day billing
- Time based billing
Q. I want my brand, not my suppliers brand on my invoices
and any other form of communication with my customers. Is this possible?
A supplier's brand has no business showing up anywhere in your
relationship with your customer. Not on an invoice, not in a footer
and not in a URL, yet we see this every day.
Most vendors provide a place for your logo on the invoice but many
charge extra to remove a "powered by" comment. The most
common thing we see is when you click on a buy button and all of
a sudden see part of the payment vendor's URL.
The bottom line is that none of this is necessary. Work with a
true white label supplier and always make sure your brand is protected
and is the only name the end user will ever see.
Q. How is a merchant account different from my bank account?
Do I need one?
If your business wants to accept funds on-line (credit card or
electronic funds transfer), the best solution is a merchant account.
A merchant account extends a line of credit to a business allowing
them to accepts funds via online payment, and deposits them into
a bank account. If obtaining a merchant account is difficult (we
will discuss how to obtain one in a future newsletter) using a consumer
oriented solution such as PayPal is an alternative. For complete
details and a technical description look up merchant account on
Wikipedia.
Q. How do I know my customer's data is secure?....What
is PCI compliance, do I need it if I am accepting credit cards?
PCI stands for Payment Card Industry which refers to the Payment
Card Industry Data Security Standard which is an independent council
of the major credit card companies. Their goal is to manage the
ongoing evolution of the data security of online credit card information
and transactions to prevent credit card fraud, hacking and many
other security issues. If you intend to accept credit card payments
and handle sensitive customer information you must be PCI compliant.
An alternative to the rather rigorous requirements of PCI is to
use a PCI compliant payment processing partner to handle payments
for you. Our compliance means you don't have to be.
We hope this information helps you navigate the on- demand billing
world.
For more information on IP Applications on-demand SaaS Billing
solutions please visit our product specific website at www.ipapplications.com
or e-mail me at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
.
Kevin Lennox
Director of Sales
IP Applications
http://www.ipapplications.com |
