Key terms

This article explains key terms used in this section.

Provider

Provider is one of the key entities of the billing platform. In the BILLmanager allows you to create several providers. Creating more than one provider may be necessary if you have several projects that use different currencies for payments.

For example, Company N has created the provider N-1 for a project offering shared hosting services. The currency of Russian ruble (RUB) is set for that provider. At a later point, Company N starts reselling domain names. The company then needs to use the Euro (EUR) for domain name sales. Company N creates the new provider N-2 with payments in Euro.

Company

Company is the entity to which all accounting documents are linked. Companies conduct business activity and provide services to customers. In BILLmanager you can create several companies to simplify interaction with different clients (for example, if a provider works with clients from different countries), optimize accounting activities and other purposes.

Employee

Employee is a user created by the provider to solve particular tasks. Permissions can be set for each employee or a department of employees. Read how to create employees or departments in Departments and staff.

For example, the provider has a technical support service, which consists of several employees. For this service, the provider creates "technical support department" in BILLmanager and provides access to Support section. Now employees of that department can handle clients' requests.

Administrator is the provider's employee, which has access to all functions of the billing platform. Usually an admin — a user with full permissions — is created in BILLmanager immediately after installation.

Client

Client is a person, which registers itself in BILLmanager. It can be either a real person or an organization. Client uses BILLmanager for placing orders, paying and managing of goods and services. Client creates its users and payers.

Administrator has a number of options for managing client accounts. In the Clients section of BILLmanager, you can add new clients and edit existing clients, monitor their expenses, payments, accounting documents, and send messages to clients. If necessary, the administrator can enter the control panel with the permissions of the selected client.

Also, the administrator of BILLmanager can arrange clients in groups. Read more in Client groups.

A client can have different states:

• Active — the client has active services;
• Not active — the client has no active services. The status will change for Active, as soon as the client makes a payment and activates the service.

User

When a client registers itself, BILLmanager will simultaneously create a user with the same name for that client. Client can also create users in its account.

For example, the client is a company, which has several employees. Then for each of the employees, the company can create a user in BILLmanager and set up permissions

Payer

Payer — is the entity to which all financial operations of the client in BILLmanager are linked: payments, invoicing, issuing acts of completion and financial notifications. Several payers for one account can be created in the client area.

Read more about payers in Parameters of payers and companies.