Billing and tracking pre-paid time

[carrcomp]

Hey all,

So, I'm trying to find a good way to track pre-paid time that my customers would have purchased.

I also need multiple people to have access to this at multiple locations.

Any billing systems supply this functionality? Can't seem to find anything decent

 

[acscva]

What we have done in the past is ring out the invoice for say 20 hours block of time for example $1400. Then when the customer paid the invoice we would in turn return the invoice for store credit. Then we would ring each service order invoice and apply the credit to the invoice. So basically when you looked at their credit balance you would know how many hours where left.

Not the best but worked for us for over 10 years doing it this way.

 

[carrcomp]

What we have done in the past is ring out the invoice for say 20 hours block of time for example $1400. Then when the customer paid the invoice we would in turn return the invoice for store credit. Then we would ring each service order invoice and apply the credit to the invoice. So basically when you looked at their credit balance you would know how many hours where left.

Not the best but worked for us for over 10 years doing it this way.

My problem isn't how to manage it (accounting wise I'm fine)

My problem is tracking it and it's usage when my helpdesk agents are working from home, so they are all remote.

mhelpdesk as far as I can tell doesn't track anything like that .. and I'm considering zendesk which also doesn't seem to have anything built in for that kind of tracking.

I don't think paypal does either, which would be great.

 

[cyabro]

We've recently started using Toggl for time tracking on jobs.
It has a basic free version for up to 5 users and this is all we are using (4 users.)
Works great and I really like the iOS app.

They have 'Projects' and Clients so it should be pretty easy to setup for tracking your prepaid customers.

 

[SprinterTech-WI]

repairshopr does I know --- it allows a credit on the customers account, and then you can deduct from that credit.

 

[uprighttech]

You can do this using contracts in AutoTask I believe. I'm sure other PSAs like ConnectWise would also work. Not a cheap option, but it would probably pay for itself by keeping billable work from falling through the cracks.

 

[skdmaster]

You can do time block tracking with CommitCRM.

 

[carrcomp]

You can do time block tracking with CommitCRM.

Will that allow you to show that the customer has XX minutes pre-paid, and allow you to deduct from that time?

 

[BuRaK]

I created a sweet looking excel on Google docs and gave permission to client to review their service log

 

[drpcfix]

Wow - Toggl looks pretty sweet.. If that works like I hope it does, I'm going to integrate them into RepairShopr via their API.

Thanks!

 

[skdmaster]

Yes you can setup a client with 10 hours of time in a block and if you bill 15m increments (can be any number/value) you then do an invoice that goes against the time block. You can customize the invoice layout to print time balances for your clients if you want. When you also invoice a client if you go over the time block they have available it will notify you. They have a demo on the site to give it a try.

 

[carrcomp]

Wow - Toggl looks pretty sweet.. If that works like I hope it does, I'm going to integrate them into RepairShopr via their API.

Thanks!

Toggl looks good ... what I'm concerned about is not so much tracking the time that a call goes for, I was hoping to automate the tracking of pre-paid time.

SupportPay was looking good, but they work in USD and not CAD.

 

[Frick]

Probably overkill for you, but Autotask allows for many different types of billing and they can be assigned as contracts per client. It then allows you to keep track of time worked and deducts it from the setup blocks of time.

 

[carrcomp]

Probably overkill for you, but Autotask allows for many different types of billing and they can be assigned as contracts per client. It then allows you to keep track of time worked and deducts it from the setup blocks of time.

Looks pretty good, and it has quickbooks and mobile applications.

Any idea on pricing or should I just get a quote to find out more?

 

[Silvermyst]

I created a sweet looking excel on Google docs and gave permission to client to review their service log

I would love to see a sample of this, if this is a (free) way, I can totally do that. Wonder if google docs have good add-ons for this type of stuff.
Maybe there's an app that can do all this AND export the data in google docs.