With all key data viewable on one screen, Buddy Systems' ISP Easy billing software provides a straightforward solution at an attractive price.

by Jeff Goldman [November 12, 2001]

Buddy Systems, Inc. was founded in 1993 as a consulting company, focusing on database development for FileMaker Pro. Late in 1995, a friend asked Dan Weiss, the company's President, to develop billing software for an ISP she'd just started. He quickly put something together for her, then spent the next three years turning that solution into ISP Easy, which was first released in January of 1999.

In the meantime, Weiss recalls, Buddy Systems continued to do consulting and database development—and even now, ISP Easy is really just a small part of their sales. "I'd say it's 30 percent of our business," Weiss said. "We view it as an important part, but not necessarily the critical element. The focus of our business is consulting, database development, web hosting, web development, things like that—so ISP Easy just tapped into that effort."

In the current economy, that diversity has been a great asset for the company. Weiss says that the first couple of years were hard, but that the consulting business kept them going-and now the billing software is starting to thrive. "We've established ourselves among the top competitors, and a lot of our competitors are falling away," Weiss said. "We're happy to still be here—it's starting to finally pay off for us."

ISP Easy (800) 783-3346 sales@buddysystems.com

Over 200 ISPs in eight different countries currently use ISP Easy—the next version of the software, due out in the next week or so, acknowledges Buddy Systems' international customers by allowing for extensive localization. "All of the screen dialog boxes and reports will be fully localizable to any language—it's probably the only one out there that can do that," Weiss said. "That's going to be a great feature."

It's all right
ISP Easy runs on Windows, with provisioning on UNIX. The software uses FileMaker Pro as a database—Weiss says that SQL Server is really just a waste of money for most ISPs. "If you're talking about someone who's got 50,000 subs and is growing, an SQL solution is necessary," he said. "But if you've got 2,000 subs, you don't need SQL. You're generating, at most, 24,000 billing records a year, and FileMaker can easily handle that."

Weiss says that ISP Easy's most unique strength is the fact that the system allows you to view all essential data on one screen. While some users might prefer a different interface, he's proud of the one-screen functionality that ISP Easy provides. "Everything that you need is on one screen," he said. "That's something that none of our competitors offer—it's all right there."

A new version of the software is usually released every six weeks or so, and Weiss says the new features are always the result of user input—he's currently working on a vacation feature that was requested by an ISP based in Nantucket. "During the winter, half their users are gone," he said. "It's critical to them that they have an easy way to automatically put people on hold, so we're adding that feature in."

Pricing is simpler than most—you pay $899 per 1000 active accounts, up to 10,000. After 10,000 accounts, you get an unlimited license. Still, that's not a limit on the system—Weiss says that the software has been tested up to 100,000 users. And at the same time, he notes, the low base fee of $899 makes it easy for smaller ISPs to get into the product.

The only additional fee is $349 for three months of upgrades—all phone, email, and ICQ support is free for life. He's able to offer that, Weiss says, both because of the stability of the product and because all new customers receive extensive training during the initial setup of the software. "We generally get under five support calls and under ten emails a day," he said. "It's way lower than we expected, which is wonderful."

In addition, ISPs don't have to pay the upgrade fee every three months to benefit from the new features. "Generally speaking, most of our ISPs upgrade about every nine months," Weiss said. "And when they buy a new 1000-user license, we give them 90 days of upgrades at that point as well. That's a double benefit for them."

Weiss is currently developing a new solution, Web Hosting Easy, which will be released in early December—think of it as ISP Easy for web hosts. Priced at $3995, the product will allow for an unlimited number of subs and domains. "There's no product out there like it right now," he said. "Everyone we've shown it to has been amazed, so we're excited about it."

Getting easier
Chaz Danila is the President of EAZNet, a rural Arizona ISP with about 1600 subscribers using T-1 lines, wireless access, and dialup. Founded in 1997, EAZNet offers its dialup customers discounted plans for 10 hours, 25 hours, and 45 hours per month. Danila says he's been running ISP Easy for about two years now.

What did he use before ISP Easy? "You don't want to know," Danila said. "All I had was a spreadsheet, and as each customer paid for the month, I'd put the money in their column. At the beginning of each month, I would go over the entire spreadsheet, make a list of who needed to be billed and for how much, and send out all those emails by hand. I was pulling my hair out."

Once he decided to go with ISP Easy, Danila says the implementation process was simple—he sent the spreadsheet to Weiss, who created the accounts at no charge. Danila has taken his time to get to know the software, and it keeps getting easier and easier. "Each month, as we get more familiar with it, we save time and find quicker ways to do things using the program," he said. "I'm really satisfied with it."

Danila has regularly taken advantage of the upgrade option, and he says that Weiss has been a great contact, both for support issues and for new ideas. "At least two of my suggestions are implemented into ISP Easy right now," he said. "If I have any problem, I just email it to Dan, and he'll go over it and send it back to me the next day. He's been really helpful."

— End  

Online resources:
		ISP-Billing Directory

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