[thelist] Automated payment systems and discounts

[Bob Meetin]

Perhaps the original thread had over-morphed and needed a new Subject? 
Feedback is appreciated, especially the automated payment solution bit.


If you do act as a hosting go-between, do you commonly mark up the 
hosting charges say 25 - 50% or perhaps a flat fee to account for 
managing the account? I ran into one business that marks it up 
many-fold, somewhat shockingly so and has gotten away with it but I'm 
sure doesn't land many kudos.  What is fair?


Next chapter in the thread. Probably many of us manage web hosting and
perhaps separately, email hosting, for our clients, which of course
leads to regular charges from the service providers and maybe some
"administrative" time. In my case I use different services for
webhosting and email hosting because email hosting is not a core
competency of the web hosting provider (diplomatically put).

Unfortunately for me and some of the rest reading this message I do not
yet have an automated billing system to handle payments efficiently,
thus am currently invoicing quarterly and regularly see payments one to
two months later. That's quite a lot of holding time due to my laziness.

Q1) General feedback please?
Q2) Any suggestions on automated and/or recurring payment solutions?
Yes I can set up recurring payments through PayPal, but there is a fee
and it "feels" awkward.
Q3) Payment discounts - any feedback on offering payment discounts such
as 2%10, net30?