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Loading Deck launch - billing system from £10/month
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Loading Deck launch - billing system from £10/month

jhjh Member

image

What is Loading Deck?

Loading Deck Ltd is a new company dedicated to expertise in web development, consultancy and hosting. Our off-the-shelf services are our apps, which together with our unique and customisable dashboard (coming soon), form your Loading Deck.

What's Included

Loading Deck is pleased to (finally) launch its billing, project and inventory management app as software-as-a-service (i.e. we host it, take care of security, backups etc.) This early release comprises the below key features making it ideal for freelancers and tiny SMEs.

  • Simple, beautiful point-and-click PDF invoices
  • Proforma invoice support
  • Included support for automatic payment collection with Paypal Standard
  • Support for 53 PCI gateways without having to go through your own PCI compliance (via Spreedly.com)
  • Recurring billing with reminders and overdue notices
  • Project management with attachments, tasks and time tracking
  • Inventory tracking with easy simple/bulk management including serial numbers
  • Bulk data import+export to/from CSV
  • Server-side data sorting, searching and filtering

Additionally, development is ongoing with the following features just around the corner (some of these are mostly already implemented but removed for this release to support stability):

  • Brand new mobile-friendly UI with a jQuery customisable dashboard
  • Event triggers to facilitate better business automation
  • Products, product groups and order pages
  • RESTful API
  • Staff permissions
  • Additional FREE payment gateways including 2Checkout and GoCardless
  • Ability to store credit cards against customers for flexible future billing
  • Multi-currency support backed by XE.com conversions to a base currency

Screenshots

Available here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/105147395@N04/10350619194/in/set-72157636696965706/lightbox/

Price

£10/agent/month

Optionally: + £10/month for use of a PCI gateway


Unlike some other services, there are no limits on the number of clients you can have, invoices you can send etc.

Signup Link

Quick Note

Please remember that this is an early release, to help steer development. I have @mpkossen's permission to post it as I know there is demand for it here.

Comments

  • c0yc0y Member

    @jhadley said:
    £10/agent/month

    Care to elaborate?

  • jhjh Member
    edited October 2013

    @Zen For £10 you can choose one of the 53. Generally speaking, I don't think most people would need more than one as they are all presented to the end user as "credit card" gateways however if you do need more than one, please get in touch and we'll work on the pricing. We are however adding additional "core" gateways FOC - these will be GoCardless, 2Checkout and possibly others where the customer doesn't have to enter their CC details.

    @Frost The price is £10 per staff member per month for full use of the platform. There is no VAT and new features, when release, will generally be included in the base price except where there is some variable cost to us.

  • jhjh Member

    Zen said: That was my main concern, I like to serve UK customers via DD (GoCardless) and everyone else via CC. Didn't like the idea of having to pay extra for the separation.

    In your case it makes sense to wait until GoCardless is added to the system and then buy it with the addon for the CC payments. Follow us on Twitter if you'd like to know when that happens.

  • jhjh Member
    edited October 2013

    Jack said: So is this billr with a rename?

    Billr has obviously been a base, but the code has been vastly improved, restructured for multi-tenancy, an awful lot of issues fixed, payment gateways added, a new UI, proforma support added, the entire payments system redone, etc.

    We're in the process of redoing the UI completely, which will basically remove any aesthetic/brand link to Billr.

    Also an external development company has gone over the code.

  • Looks good @jhadley!

  • Neat.

    Out of curiosity. Which programming language is it written in? @jhadley

  • jhjh Member

    Thanks for the comments. It's written in Symfony2 PHP.

  • AnthonySmithAnthonySmith Member, Patron Provider
    edited October 2013

    Nice to see new options.

    Obvious questions are:

    1) Why should I use this over WHMCS as it would be more expensive with less features?

    2) Is it open source?

    3) has the code been audited?

    4) If you are charging this much now with a limited feature set what will be the final price when it is finished?

    5) Can you make a financial commitment to maintaining this for the next 5 years+

    For the record I do not remember the last time I saw a host advert/ used a host that only took 1 payment type.

    Thanked by 1Asim
  • jhjh Member

    Hi Anthony,

    1. This isn't primarily for hosts, so I'm not targeting this ad to hosts and I don't expect many hosts to buy into this. That said, there are a few advantages over WHMCS such as security, the ability to use PCI gateways without PCI compliance and plenty more if you look at the "upcoming features" section.

    2. No - I think that's fairly obvious from the ad.

    3. Formally, no. However, an external development company has spent a lot of time with the code and improved it in line with Symfony2 best practices.

    4. It depends on costs and demand.

    5. Right now from where I'm sat, I think it's very likely I can maintain this for the next 5 years.

  • c0yc0y Member

    @AnthonySmith said:
    2) Is it open source?

    There is a big difference between readable/editable source code and open source, which one do you mean?

  • perennateperennate Member, Host Rep

    @Frost said:
    There is a big difference between readable/editable source code and open source, which one do you mean?

    Well, the answer doesn't depend on what he means -- it's a hosted application (SaaS).

  • AnthonySmithAnthonySmith Member, Patron Provider

    @perennate said:
    Well, the answer doesn't depend on what he means -- it's a hosted application (SaaS).

    Oh I missed that part, then it is worth even less in my eyes.

    @Frost readable/editable I suppose.

    Thanked by 1perennate
  • jhjh Member

    A new update has just been released incorporating new security features, a one-click full Excel report, the ability to see when an invoice has been viewed and GoCardless support at no extra cost.

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