Hello

CBsubs is a nice software for small web subscriptions but we need to decide whether we can continue using it for business users or not.

For this, we would need to know whether CBsubs can make the following :

- 1. invoicing : need to issue, print and send invoices even when customer has not paid yet (compulsory for business users with compulsory subscriptions to be renewed)

- 2. invoicing : need to export and print a list of invoices (csv) and all original invoices in batch for accounting purposes

- 3. subscriptions : is it possible to import old subscription and old paiement baskets from CRM data so that we would have an history for each customer

- 4. if this is not possible, do you know what invoicing software CBsubs would be able to link to for serious invoicing features ?

- 5. Would you consider the urgent development of such features if not yet present ?

- 6. What other subscription software with invoicing abilities would be compatible with CBsubs ?

- 7. We are struggling to use CBsubs in a professional way and there is not much left for this but without serious invoicing abilities we would be obliged to drop it.

Thanks for helping

Hi activha,

To be fair and clear: CBSubs is a features-full automated online memberships solution for Joomla and Community Builder. It is not a complex and feature-full invoicing and not at all an accounting engine. We are planing to extend its invoicing features in future releases in 2016 and 2017 to follow the evolution of international accounting rules and regulations, but have currently no plans to build an accounting software out of it. However, we will most probably add CSV export functions into accounting software (we will need that function ourselves too by mid-2016 with new accounting regulations).

To reply to your individual questions (numbered above):

1. CBSubs can issue invoices for single payments using the Offline engine. For autorecurring invoices, this is not the case yet, but I believe that in conjunction with some of the Ogone payment methods this should be possible today.

2. You can export as HTML (or print to PDF) invoices from the "Sales tax report" by clicking "View" under the Invoices column. There is no Export to CSV feature yet, but it's something that we plan to implement throughout all of CB and all plugins backend in 2016 as they are now all AhaWow driven! For CSV export, it's possible using PhpMyAdmin with a custom-developed SQL query, or using a CSV MySQL export utility.

3. Old subscriptions can be imported in CBSubs from CSV files through the "Import" menu. Old payment baskets can't be imported into CBSubs as such feature doesn't exist in CBSubs, and isn't planed. The question of how many baskets/invoices to keep in CBSubs online sure arrises after many years of use.

4. I am not aware of any really "serious invoicing features" software for Joomla and even less for the web. Among the heavyweights, maybe Magento or ODOO could do the trick for you. ODOO if you also use it for accounting, inventory management and other complex ERP tasks. ODOO is mainly available as a SAS service, as for self-hosting, upgrades are a nightmare except by paying for the upgrade service. But it is also requiring "serious configuration and customization efforts" (much more complex, even compared to CBSubs).

5. We are planing to improve our invoicing features of CBSubs in 2016, and it is among other urgent tasks for CBSubs and Community Builder (such as exporting to CSV and other cool features planed for next year.

6. I haven't played with ODOO, so I do not know its importing facility, but a friend is importing his invoices made in VBA using SQL queries into OpenERP 4, so it's feasible. (And that friend is now looking/struggling to upgrade to ODOO 9 manually with custom queries as no upgrade scripts are available). I have played a bit with Magento a year ago, and it looked really heavy on configuration and CPU use.

7. We share most of the same features requests above for our own use of CBSubs here on Joomlapolis. Using our own software is important for us, as it helps us find issues and improvement potential. It is no guarrantee of a delivery delay, as you know that we have many fronts on which huge work is being done, but it's sure a good start.

Hope the above replies help getting a better picture and finding solution for the short term, whily showing that CBSubs will be goign into the right direction in 2016.

Best Regards,