At present there are various billing software such as WHMCS, Blesta, Hostbill are available for hosting but all of them lack detailed approach and accounting needs of all size of vendors.
If ERPNext is made available for Web Hosts and Hosting Companies then it will be great addition.
Primary areas can be covered:
API based Provisioning Automation - cPanel, Plesk, VPS, Dedicated Servers.
I agree, I have been using the above eg. WHMCS etc. This would widen ERPNext’s exposure. Can ERPNext be provisioned from a from whms/cpanel like wordpress?
ERPNext have API for most of the stuff, if Bench Central is made Public then such provisioning will be most easy by building a module in WHMCS. At Present there no easy way around, unless you can hack and create a workaround.
I hang around a couple forums heavily inhabited by hosting companies. These companies are eager to find more alternatives.
The fact that erpnext already covers so much their systems do not (mostly WHMCS, hostbill and blesta ) indicates to me that if erpnext engages in developing a solution for hosting auto-provision would over night make it an heavy contender to the crown now in power of WHMCS.
My name is Max and I am heavily interested in a integration similar to what you mentioned above, back in 2017. I am wondering if you you or any business that you know have hosting solution that utilizes ERPNext?
I use ERPNext mostly for services but hosting provisioning automation and other hosting specific automations are not implemented as module or ERPNext domain yet.
No progress so far on my end and not sure about others.
Hey @max_morais_dmm, Thats awesome!
I have seen your videos on youtube couple of years ago. Some of enhancement to seconds, minute or hours, days based billing would definitely create way for further integrations with other cloud/infrastructure provisioning systems.
@yashodhan currently, I’m working in a project called Studio, that’s the glue of ERPNext and provisioning systems.
Also here at aptitudetech, we are using that system to build our customers, we did various integrations to collect data from Amazon, VoIP and Office365 for billing.
The Studio is already Open Source, but it’s in primary state, where we are testing the capabilities of that layer.
@mattlongfield It’s an Frappe App, but, it’s made for developers
It’s an JavaScript Sandbox for code on Server Side, you can think on this like “Custom Scripts” but they run and have secure access to the full backend of ERPNext.
There’s various capabilities I may can show, but I think a video can tell better than thousands of words.
Everything on that code, is being processed on the server side of ERPNext.
Thanks for taking the time to explain and make/post the video.
What is the exact ‘bench install-app’ usage that installs studio so I can play with it myself?
I want to try to spark a conversation to see if there is any interest in an integration with a system like Plesk. Like mentioned by @yashodhan, there is a massive need in the hosting market for a detailed approach to hosting company billing and other ERP functions that ERPNext has already mastered.
I do not have the resources or technical Frappe knowledge but if anyone is will to contribute, I would love to be involved.
Let me know if this seems at all Interesting,
Max Vogel
Max Vogel Group | Managed Cloud Services maxvogel.com
And here there’s an Invoice with all subscriptions the customer have, and lots of information associated with these subscriptions, in the month, in the billing rapport section
For sure these are only the main screens, there are also many other small screens, I wish it can give you an inspiration
All of the data gatered to fullfill the invoice, is made with these 2 main screens, and actions on the video on that discussion, that make the integrations with third-party providers
Also we are releasing another plataform that aren’t tight with ERPNext, for eachone that wants to manage subscriptions in a powerfull manner, but dont want to spend time building everthing from the zero in ERPNext, but that can be easily integrated with ERPNext, since everything is made on top of frappe
