Parallels Plesk Billing - 6.0 Administrator’s Guide
Parallels® Plesk Billing
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ISBN: N/A
Parallels
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USA
Phone: +1 (425) 282 6400
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© Copyright 2009,
Parallels, Inc.
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Contents
Preface 8
About This Product ........................................................................................................................ 9
Typographical Conventions ......................................................................................................... 10
Feedback ..................................................................................................................................... 11
Parallels Plesk Billing Licensing 12
Upgrading Free Version of Parallels Plesk Billing ....................................................................... 13
Upgrading Current License Key .................................................................................................. 14
Rolling Back to Your Previously Used License Key .................................................................... 15
Getting Started 16
Overview ...................................................................................................................................... 17
Domain Registration .......................................................................................................... 18
Hosting Provisioning .......................................................................................................... 18
Payment Gateways ........................................................................................................... 20
Administrator Interface ...................................................................................................... 21
Client Interface .................................................................................................................. 21
Order Interface .................................................................................................................. 22
Configuration Wizard ................................................................................................................... 23
Domain Registration Settings ............................................................................................ 24
Parallels Plesk Panel IP Settings ...................................................................................... 24
Payment Gateway Settings ............................................................................................... 24
Encryption Settings ........................................................................................................... 25
Tax Settings ....................................................................................................................... 25
Fraud Settings ................................................................................................................... 25
Setting Up Global Account .......................................................................................................... 26
Setting Up Payment Groups ........................................................................................................ 27
Configuring Order Forms ............................................................................................................. 29
Setting Up Control Panels ........................................................................................................... 30
Setting Up Domain Registrar Modules ........................................................................................ 31
Changing Company Settings ....................................................................................................... 32
Setting Up Administrators 33
Viewing Administrators ................................................................................................................ 33
Creating New Administrators ....................................................................................................... 34
Setting Up Administrator Groups ................................................................................................. 34
Editing Administrator Profiles ...................................................................................................... 35
Configuring Administrator Interface ............................................................................................. 36
Using the Dashboard ......................................................................................................... 36
Using Bookmarks .............................................................................................................. 39
Choosing Interface Language ........................................................................................... 40
Choosing Interface Theme ................................................................................................ 40
Viewing System Settings 41
Viewing Module Information ........................................................................................................ 41
Viewing License Information ........................................................................................................ 41
Viewing PHP Information ............................................................................................................. 42
Preface 4
Viewing System Information ........................................................................................................ 42
Viewing Parallels Plesk Billing Version ........................................................................................ 42
Enabling Parallels Plesk Billing Automation 43
Understanding Events ................................................................................................................. 44
ProcessInvoices ................................................................................................................ 45
ProcessPaymentQueue .................................................................................................... 45
ProcessSuspensions ......................................................................................................... 45
ProcessUnsuspensions ..................................................................................................... 45
ProcessUsage ................................................................................................................... 45
ProcessCancellation .......................................................................................................... 45
ProcessExpiredCreditCards .............................................................................................. 45
ProcessDomainSynchronization ....................................................................................... 46
Setting Up System Queue ........................................................................................................... 46
Setting Up the Cron Job .............................................................................................................. 47
Step 1. Copy the Remote Access Hash ............................................................................ 48
Step 2. Check Your Cron User Permissions ..................................................................... 48
Step 3. Set Up Your Crontab to Run runevents.php File .................................................. 49
Managing Cron Job in Linux .............................................................................................. 50
Setting Up IP Queue .................................................................................................................... 51
Setting Up Payment Queue ......................................................................................................... 52
Enabling Auto-Suspend ............................................................................................................... 53
Unsuspend/Auto-Enable ................................................................................................... 53
Configuring Payment Settings 54
Setting Up Encryption .................................................................................................................. 55
Adding Payment Groups ............................................................................................................. 56
Configuring Gateways ................................................................................................................. 56
Setting Up Authorize.net ................................................................................................... 58
Setting Up PayPal ............................................................................................................. 58
Using Virtual Terminals................................................................................................................ 59
Configuring Hosting Settings 61
Adding a Server Group ................................................................................................................ 62
Adding Panels to a Server Group ................................................................................................ 63
Centova Cast ..................................................................................................................... 64
Cortex ................................................................................................................................ 65
cPanel ................................................................................................................................ 66
Cube Panel ........................................................................................................................ 67
DirectAdmin ....................................................................................................................... 68
EMS-Cortex ....................................................................................................................... 69
eNomHost .......................................................................................................................... 69
Parallels Plesk Panel ......................................................................................................... 71
Parallels Pro Control Panel ............................................................................................... 72
Configuring Domain Settings 74
Configuring Registrar Modules .................................................................................................... 74
Adding a TLD ............................................................................................................................... 75
Editing TLDs ................................................................................................................................ 76
Setting Up Domain Sync Count ................................................................................................... 76
Adding ID Protect as an Add-on for Domains ............................................................................. 76
Step 1. Create a Custom Question ID Protect .................................................................. 77
Step 2. Add the ID Protect Option to the Domain Product ................................................ 78
Preface 5
Setting Up Invoices and Billing 79
Understanding Billing Modes ....................................................................................................... 79
Anniversary Billing Mode ................................................................................................... 80
Monthly Billing Mode ......................................................................................................... 81
Setting Up Invoicing ..................................................................................................................... 82
Configuring Taxes ........................................................................................................................ 84
Creating Tax Zones ........................................................................................................... 85
Creating Tax Zone Groups ................................................................................................ 86
Handling VAT Taxation ..................................................................................................... 86
Creating Coupons ........................................................................................................................ 89
Adding Cycle Discounts ............................................................................................................... 90
Setting Up E-mails 92
Understanding E-mail Template Variables .................................................................................. 93
Package Info E-mail .......................................................................................................... 93
Invoice E-mail .................................................................................................................... 94
Credit Card Payment ......................................................................................................... 96
eCheck Payment ............................................................................................................... 97
Bank Draft Payment .......................................................................................................... 98
Secondary Gateway Payment ........................................................................................... 99
Declined Payment ........................................................................................................... 100
Payment Error ................................................................................................................. 101
Domain Renewal Notice .................................................................................................. 102
Domain Transfer - Success E-mail.................................................................................. 103
Domain Transfer - Failure E-mail .................................................................................... 104
Credit Card Expiration Notification E-mail ....................................................................... 105
Package Suspension E-mails .......................................................................................... 106
Package Enable E-mail ................................................................................................... 107
Adding E-mail Template Groups ............................................................................................... 108
Setting Up Your Locales ............................................................................................................ 109
Editing Template Content .......................................................................................................... 110
Reloading E-mail Templates ..................................................................................................... 111
Resending Previously Sent E-mails .......................................................................................... 111
Getting Your System Ready to Send E-mail Messages ............................................................ 112
Converting Version 4 E-mail Templates to Version 5 ................................................................ 113
Customizing E-mail Templates .................................................................................................. 114
Updating the E-mail Header ............................................................................................ 114
Updating the E-mail Layout ............................................................................................. 115
Creating Attributes and Add-ons 116
Setting Up Product Attributes .................................................................................................... 117
Setting Up Order Form Attributes .............................................................................................. 119
Setting Up Generic Attributes .................................................................................................... 121
Creating Control Panel Attributes Add-ons................................................................................ 123
Selling Products 125
Configuring Product Management Settings ............................................................................... 127
Adding Billing Cycles ................................................................................................................. 128
Making a Product Upgradable/Downgradable ........................................................................... 128
Creating General Ledger Entries for a Product ......................................................................... 129
Creating Product Groups ........................................................................................................... 130
Creating Pricing Options ............................................................................................................ 131
Creating Domain Registration Products .................................................................................... 132
Preface 6
Product Details ................................................................................................................ 133
Order Forms .................................................................................................................... 133
Cycles .............................................................................................................................. 134
TLDs ................................................................................................................................ 134
Options ............................................................................................................................ 135
Prices ............................................................................................................................... 135
Miscellaneous Options .................................................................................................... 136
Attributes ......................................................................................................................... 137
Add-ons ........................................................................................................................... 138
Ledger Entries ................................................................................................................. 138
Clone Product .................................................................................................................. 138
Creating Hosting Products ......................................................................................................... 138
Hosting Provisioning in Parallels Plesk Billing ................................................................ 139
Preparing Your System for Creating a Hosting Product ................................................. 140
Setting Up a Hosting Product .......................................................................................... 142
Setting Up SSLFactory .............................................................................................................. 150
Types of SSL Certificates .......................................................................................................... 150
Step 1. Sign Up for an SSLFactory Account ................................................................... 151
Step 2. Submit Your SSLFactory Account Data .............................................................. 151
Step 3. Create Products for Each SSL Certificate Type ................................................. 152
Configuring the products.php Page ........................................................................................... 153
Using Multiple products.php Pages ........................................................................................... 154
Configuring Order Settings 155
Configuring Order Forms ........................................................................................................... 155
Adding a Second or Third Order Form ...................................................................................... 156
Branding Multiple Order Forms ................................................................................................. 157
Customizing Order Forms ......................................................................................................... 158
Setting Up E-mail Banning ........................................................................................................ 159
Using Website Widgets.............................................................................................................. 160
Configuring Website Widgets .......................................................................................... 161
Customizing Website Widgets ......................................................................................... 162
Setting Up FraudGuardian ......................................................................................................... 163
Step 1. Sign Up for a FraudGuardian Account ................................................................ 163
Step 2. Submit Your FraudGuardian Account Data ........................................................ 163
Step 3. Create a Fraud Set ............................................................................................. 164
Step 4. Create a Country Threshold ............................................................................... 165
Step 5. Tie Fraud Sets with Order Forms and Thresholds ............................................. 167
Serving Your Customers 168
Managing Packages .................................................................................................................. 169
Packages Details ............................................................................................................. 170
Changing Package Status ............................................................................................... 170
Suspending/Unsuspending Packages ............................................................................ 172
Adding an Add-on to a Package...................................................................................... 172
Running Package Events ................................................................................................ 173
Canceling Packages ........................................................................................................ 174
Method 1 - Canceling a Package Tied to a Server Group .............................................. 174
Method 2 - Canceling a Package Not Tied to a Server Group ........................................ 174
Activating a Customer Package ...................................................................................... 175
Administering Clients ................................................................................................................. 176
Adding New Clients ......................................................................................................... 177
Managing Existing Clients ............................................................................................... 181
Using Client Groups................................................................................................................... 202
Adding Client Groups ...................................................................................................... 202
Managing Client Group Attributes ................................................................................... 202
Performing Manual Payments ................................................................................................... 203
Preface 7
Generating and Running Payment Queue ...................................................................... 204
Capturing Uncaptured Payments .................................................................................... 205
Issuing Refunds ............................................................................................................... 205
Capturing Authentication-only Payments ........................................................................ 206
Using a Credit Card to Pay an Invoice ............................................................................ 206
Managing Invoices ..................................................................................................................... 206
Generating Invoices Manually ......................................................................................... 208
Viewing Invoices .............................................................................................................. 208
Editing Invoices ............................................................................................................... 210
Removing Invoices .......................................................................................................... 211
Taking Credit Card Payments ......................................................................................... 211
Applying Payments Manually .......................................................................................... 211
Applying Credits .............................................................................................................. 212
Voiding Invoices .............................................................................................................. 212
Printing Invoices .............................................................................................................. 213
Manually Paying an Invoice Using Saved Credit Card Information ................................ 213
Providing Client Support ............................................................................................................ 214
FAQs ............................................................................................................................... 214
News ................................................................................................................................ 215
Internal Helpdesk ............................................................................................................ 217
Setting Up ModModernBill Module ............................................................................................ 218
Migrating Subscriptions from version 4 to version 5 .................................................................. 219
Charging for E-mail Account Usage (SPLA) Ensim Unify ......................................................... 220
Managing Accounting 221
Generating Accounting Reports ................................................................................................ 222
Generating Daily Journals ......................................................................................................... 223
Viewing General Journal ........................................................................................................... 224
Generating General Ledgers ..................................................................................................... 224
Integrating Parallels Plesk Billing with Parallels Plesk Panel 225
Setting Up Global Accounts ....................................................................................................... 226
Setting Up a Single Sign-On Server from Parallels Plesk Billing .................................... 226
Creating a Global Account .............................................................................................. 227
Changing Global Account Password ............................................................................... 227
Disconnecting From Global Account ............................................................................... 227
Repairing SSO Accounts ................................................................................................. 228
Migrating Parallels Plesk Billing from Standalone to Bundled Version ..................................... 228
Appendix A. Parallels Plesk Panel Attributes 230
General Options .............................................................................................................. 230
Limits ............................................................................................................................... 230
Web Limits ....................................................................................................................... 231
E-mail Limits .................................................................................................................... 232
Management and Feature Options.................................................................................. 232
In this chapter:
About This Product ............................................................................................ 9
Typographical Conventions ................................................................ ............... 10
Feedback .......................................................................................................... 11
C H A P T E R 1
Preface
About This Product
Parallels Plesk Billing is an ordering, billing, and provisioning automation solution aimed at
small-to-mid-level hosting providers. Parallels Plesk Billing comes in two different
distributions: Standalone and Bundle (with Parallels Plesk Panel).
The software package comes bundled with an intuitive order process, complete with
“shopping cart,” allowing your customers to build an order of any size or complexity with a
single checkout (as opposed to the customer having to run through your order form multiple
times if they want multiple items).
Upon checkout, Parallels Plesk Billing supports your customers paying in a variety of ways
including:
credit card (through strong integrations between Parallels Plesk Billing and many
merchant gateways)
third-party gateway (such as PayPal, WorldPay, etc.)
other manual options such as check, bank draft, and simply issuing an invoice.
Each of these payment options can be enabled/disabled and configured according to your
company’s specific business practices.
Parallels Plesk Billing can provision the following:
Any domain name package can be automatically registered through any of the resellers
with which Parallels Plesk Billing integrates (such as eNom, OpenSRS, etc.).
Any hosting package can be automatically provisioned through any of the panels with
which Parallels Plesk Billing integrates (such as Plesk, cPanel etc.).
Any SSL Certificate can be automatically provisioned through the SSLFactory.com API
(provided you have a Parallels SSLFactory reseller account).
Any virtual private server package can be automatically provisioned through Parallels
Virtuozzo Containers.
Customers will receive notification upon completed provisioning, as well as any
passwords, etc. that are related to the customer accessing/using their purchased service.
Each of these provisioning options can be configured in Parallels Plesk Billing administrator
panel according to your company’s specific business practices.
The total time it takes for the customer to be fraud checked, charged, and their services
turned on can be as little as a few minutes. The entire idea here is to save as much time as
possible so that your company’s team can focus on more important things than manually
setting up client accounts.
The automation does not stop once a customer has paid and had their order setup. Parallels
Plesk Billing is fully customizable and can be configured to automatically generate invoices
and collect payment from customers when needed, send out late notices when customers do
not pay on time, and even suspend a customer’s hosting package after they have neglected
to pay long enough.
Parallels Plesk Billing can even renew domains at your registrar as soon as your clients pay
Formatting convention
Type of Information
Example
Special Bold
Items you must select,
such as menu options,
command buttons, or
items in a list.
Go to the System tab.
Titles of chapters,
sections, and
subsections.
Read the Basic
Administration chapter.
Italics
Used to emphasize the
importance of a point, to
introduce a term or to
designate a command
line placeholder, which is
to be replaced with a real
name or value.
The system supports the
so called wildcard
character search.
Monospace
The names of
commands, files,
directories, and domain
names.
The license file is located
in the
http://docs/common/
licenses directory.
Preformatted
On-screen computer
output in your commandline sessions; source
code in XML, C++, or
other programming
languages.
# ls –al /files
total 14470
Preformatted
Bold
What you type,
contrasted with on-screen
computer output.
# cd /root/rpms/php
CAPITALS
Names of keys on the
keyboard.
SHIFT, CTRL, ALT
the invoice. Clients can “upgrade” or “downgrade” their services from the client interface and
not only have the changes automatically provisioned out to the panel, but also receive a prorated credit/debit for the difference in monthly price and begin receiving invoices for the
package they upgraded or downgraded to.
Typographical Conventions
Before you start using this guide, it is important to understand the documentation conventions
used in it.
The following kinds of formatting in the text identify special information.
KEY+KEY
Key combinations for
which the user must
press and hold down one
key and then press
another.
CTRL+P, ALT+F4
Feedback
If you have found a mistake in this guide, or if you have suggestions or ideas on how to
improve this guide, please send your feedback using the online form at
http://www.parallels.com/en/support/usersdoc/. Please include in your report the guide’s title,
chapter and section titles, and the fragment of text in which you have found an error.
Standalone Parallels Plesk Billing 6.0 introduces licensing through a unified Parallels
In this chapter:
Upgrading Free Version of Parallels Plesk Billing .............................................. 13
Upgrading Current License Key ......................................................................... 14
Rolling Back to Your Previously Used License Key ........................................... 15
C H A P T E R 2
Parallels Plesk Billing Licensing
key administration system.
You will need a new license key if you are going to:
Purchase or lease Parallels Plesk Billing 6.0
Upgrade the number of accounts. Mind that the number of accounts is restricted to
active and suspended clients, archived and pending accounts are not counted.
To update earlier Parallels Plesk Billing versions to the latest 6.0, contact Parallels
Sales.
Purchasing and Leasing Parallels Plesk Billing
Before installing Parallels Plesk Billing, go to http://www.parallels.com/store/ppb/ to
purchase or lease Parallels Plesk Billing. Parallels Plesk Billing licenses are limited by
number of accounts.
Every new purchase license includes 12 months of Software Update Service (SUS) that
entitles you to version upgrade licenses throughout the life of your SUS. All leased
license keys (monthly) include SUS.
Parallels Plesk Billing keys can be updated to support newer versions of the software
when they are SUS enabled. When the SUS feature of your key is up-to-date, you can
perform the upgrade of the key without extra costs. In case you run out of this service,
please contact our sales representatives in order to renew/reinstate it.
Important: Parallels SUS is a subscription base service that must be renewed in
advance of its expiration date. In case you pay in advance, the cost of the renewal for
purchase keys will be 25% of the retail cost of the key. Otherwise, if you have not
renewed and decide later to upgrade, you will need to pay 65% of the retail cost of the
key to get it reinstated.
Parallels Plesk Billing Licensing 13
Upgrading Free Version of Parallels Plesk
Billing
If you installed the Free Version of Parallels Plesk Billing which is limited to 10 client
accounts, you need to purchase a valid license from Parallels to switch to full-featured
Parallels Plesk Billing.
To buy a new license key:
1 Go to Server Settings -> System Info -> License Management and click Order
New Key.
2 The Parallels online store will open in a separate browser window. In
this window, select the items and features you want to include into
your Parallels Plesk Billing license and click Submit. In the next steps,
indicate the currency, number of license keys, provide contact details,
billing address, and payment method, and submit the form. The new
key will be sent to the specified e-mail address.
3 Save the new key to the hard drive on your local machine.
4 Open again the License Management screen in Parallels Plesk Billing and
click Upload Key.
5 Paste the license key as a text. Alternatively, you can enter the path
to the key file that you saved on your local machine or click Browse to
locate it.
6 Click OK to install the new key.
To install your license if you received an activation code from your sales
representative:
1 Go to Server Settings -> System Info -> License Management and click License
Key Activation
2 Input the activation code.
3 Click Submit.
To manually load a license through the file system:
1 Get your license file (xxx.xml or xxx.xml.zip).
2 Put your license file in the root directory of your Parallels Plesk Billing
installation named key.xml or key.xml.zip depending on whether
it is zipped or not.
3 Log in to the administrator area of your Parallels Plesk Billing.
14 Parallels Plesk Billing Licensing
4 After you log in, Parallels Plesk Billing will automatically load the
license and prompt you to delete the license file. After you delete the
file, the license should be loaded properly.
Parallels Plesk Billing license keys have a built-in expiration date, so, to keep your
license active, Parallels Plesk Billing will periodically connect to the licensing server and
retrieve the latest license key. This process is run automatically, and the date the next
upgrade is scheduled for is displayed on the Server Settings -> System Info -> License
Management screen. You can manually prolong your current license by clicking Retrieve
Keys link.
Upgrading Current License Key
If you plan to expand the maximum number of customers allowed by your current
license, you need to upgrade your license key.
To upgrade a license key:
1 Go to the Server Settings -> System Info -> License Management page and
click the Order Key Upgrade button.
2 The Parallels online store will open in a separate browser window.
Select the desired upgrade option and click Submit.
3 In the next step, indicate purchase details and submit the form. You
will be notified by e-mail when your order is processed.
4 After you receive the e-mail notification, return to the License
Management page and click Retrieve Keys to retrieve the ordered license
key. License Manager will retrieve the purchased license key from the
licensing server, automatically upload it to your control panel, and
update your current key.
Parallels Plesk Billing Licensing 15
Rolling Back to Your Previously Used
License Key
When you upload a new license key to Parallels Plesk Billing, the currently installed
license key is saved as a backup. To restore it, use the Roll Back License Key option.
To roll back to your previously used license key:
1 Go to the License Management page and click Roll Back Key.
2 When the page with previously installed license keys appears, choose
the necessary key and click Change Key.
3 The previously installed license key will be restored.
In this chapter:
Overview ........................................................................................................... 17
Configuration Wizard ......................................................................................... 23
Setting Up Global Account ................................................................................ 26
Setting Up Payment Groups .............................................................................. 27
Configuring Order Forms ................................................................................... 29
Setting Up Control Panels ................................................................................. 30
Setting Up Domain Registrar Modules ............................................................... 31
Changing Company Settings ............................................................................. 32
Aliasing Directories ............................................................................................ 32
C H A P T E R 3
Getting Started
Overview
In this section:
Domain Registration .......................................................................................... 18
Hosting Provisioning .......................................................................................... 18
Payment Gateways............................................................................................ 20
Administrator Interface ....................................................................................... 21
Client Interface .................................................................................................. 21
Order Interface .................................................................................................. 22
Parallels Plesk Billing is a billing automation system, used primarily in online business, such
as:
Domain registration
Hosting provisioning
Selling SSL certificates
Other non-hosting online stores
Parallels Plesk Billing provides a control panel with different levels of administration (you
have the Administrator interface, Client interface, and the integrated Order form interface) on
top of a solid recurring billing/invoicing engine written in PHP. This engine will take care of
generating and sending out invoices to your customers on whatever cycle that the
good/service your customer has with you renews (monthly, yearly, or even hourly – the
package renewal cycles are configurable down to minutes). Parallels Plesk Billing will
facilitate credit card, PayPal or other payment gateways, appropriately mark invoices as paid
and enforce auto-suspension rules for non-payment.
Parallels Plesk Billing has a modular structure in terms of using third-party resources.
Payment gateways, domain registration services (registrars), hosting control panels are
integrated into Parallels Plesk Billing as modules. To use these resources, you need to
configure them in Parallels Plesk Billing administrator interface.
Later in this guide we will explain the basic Parallels Plesk Billing concepts and give some
insights into the four above-mentioned business models served by Parallels Plesk Billing.
Domain Registration
Parallels Plesk Billing supports integration with several domain registrars including:
eNom
Register.com
OpenSRS
DistributeIT
Nominet/
Namecheap
EuroDNS
Dotster
ISPProxy
ResellOne
Parallels Plesk Billing supports instant domain availability checking through your order form
regardless of whether you’re using one of the above registrars.
However, if you’re using one of these registrars, your customers can purchase/transfer a
domain name, pay for it, and Parallels Plesk Billing will issue a call automatically to that
registrar’s API to purchase/transfer the domain name and place it under that client’s account
in your Parallels Plesk Billing for management (setting name servers, hosting records, etc.).
You can configure Parallels Plesk Billing to sell one, some, or all of the TLDs available
through a particular registrar and charge your customers whatever price you want for their
domain registration. Your account with your registrar will be charged whatever your standard
reseller rate is for that given domain TLD. One of the clear benefits of this is that you can (for
example) process “.com” sales through a certain registrar and “.ca” sales through another
registrar, allowing you to use multiple registrars to make sure you’re being charged the lowest
possible price per TLD for the domains that you resell.
Hosting Provisioning
Parallels Plesk Billing supports integration with several hosting control panels including:
cPanel
cPanel (Reseller)
DirectAdmin
eNom Exchange
eNom Hosting
EnsimUnify
FreeRadius
Virtuozzo
Hostopia
Interworx
Parallels Helm
Parallels Pro Control Panel (former Ensim Pro)
Parallels H-Sphere
Parallels Plesk Panel for Windows
Parallels Plesk Panel for Linux
Parallels Plesk Expand
and Parallels Plesk Billing itself (for License Reselling)
Note: Parallels Plesk Billing 6 is fully integrated with Parallels Plesk Panel 9.
When you create a product in Parallels Plesk Billing, it can be configured to provision one (or
more, simultaneously) of the above hosting control panels. Customers purchasing a product
of yours that is connected with one of the above panels can have their service online and
login details e-mailed to them within minutes of paying.
In Parallels Plesk Billing, you create pools of servers of the same type, called server groups.
For example, you could have a server group of seven Plesk for Linux machines your
company hosts customers on. Your Plesk hosting product(s) would be associated with this
server group, and anyone purchasing one would be provisioned onto the Plesk machine in
that group which has the fewest accounts on it (for the purposes of pseudo-load-balancing).
After the purchase, most of the above panels support further automation as well. Your
customer could upgrade or downgrade their base package, associate necessary addons, or
cancel their package. Parallels Plesk Billing will collect payment and issue the appropriate
API calls to the machine(s) on which their product is provisioned to take care of all of their
needs without your intervention needed.
Payment Gateways
Parallels Plesk Billing supports integration with several payment gateways including:
Primary Gateways
Authorize.net
BluePay
Echo, Inc.
eWay
InternetSecure
LinkPoint
Moneris
PayFlowPro
ProTX
PSiGate
Quantum
Velocity Pay
Third-Party Gateways
PayPal
WorldPay
Also, some payment gateways are supported but unstable. They are marked as Testing:
Primary Gateways
CyoGate
EchoInc
eProgressingNetwork
MerchantCommerce
MerchantPartners
PagoPorInternet
Planet Payment
QuickCommerce
RTware
SagePayments
SecurePay AU
SecurePay US
Third-Party Gateways
Credit Card - 2CO
Credit Card - 2CO Recurring
Most of the supported payment modules allow for charge, pre-auth, finalize, void, and refund
abilities through Parallels Plesk Billing.
Parallels Plesk Billing’s payment gateway system, like the other two systems described
above, is modular. This allows you to choose one or more payment gateways through which
to process customer payments. Thus, you can (for example) allow your customers to choose
between paying by credit card (and run those charges through your BluePay account) or
paying by PayPal.
Taking this a step further, you can even utilize multiple gateway modules to allow for
collecting payment in multiple currencies. This can be very useful for customers that (for
example) prefer to offer services in both United States and Canadian Dollars to attract a
larger customer base. For this purpose, you can create custom payment groups and choose
one primary one primary payment gateway and several third-party gateways for each
payment group. See Payment Groups (on page 54) for details.
For the default payment group, you can choose and configure payment gateways in
Configuration Wizard (on page 23).
Administrator Interface
Parallels Plesk Billing administrator interface to Parallels Plesk Billing is where you
administrate it. The current guide is dedicated to the functionality of the administrator
interface.
Administrator interface is by default available at http://host.name/path/to/plesk-billing/admin/
for standalone version of Parallels Plesk Billing. For Parallels Plesk Billing bundled with
Parallels Plesk Panel it can be accessed at https://host.name:8443/plesk-
billing/admin/.
Client Interface
The client interface to Parallels Plesk Billing is a complete portal for your clients to perform
such actions as:
Pay invoices
View past invoices
Create a support ticket
Upgrade their package
Downgrade their package
Cancel their package
Manage DNS on their purchased domain name
Login to the hosting panel associated with their package
The client interface is completely customizable and can be templated to integrate seamlessly
into your existing web site look and feel.
Client interface is by default available at http://host.name/path/to/plesk-billing/client/ for
standalone version of Parallels Plesk Billing. For Parallels Plesk Billing bundled with
Parallels Plesk Panel it can be accessed at https://host.name:8443/plesk-
billing/client/.
Order Interface
Parallels Plesk Billing, unlike most host-based billing platforms currently available, includes
support for a “shopping cart” built into your website, making it easier for your clients to
purchase more in a single checkout.
As a result, the concept of an order form is a little bit different in Parallels Plesk Billing. As it is
currently known, an order form in Parallels Plesk Billing is primarily a way to group products
by currency. Generally, you should only have one order form per currency offered. It is not a
page where your products are listed with order now buttons.
There are two awesome methods of adding products to clients shopping cart. Below is a brief
overview of each.
With the first, we’ve changed the paradigm in billing solutions a bit with the introduction of
“web site widgets”. These are little snippets of code you simply drop into your company web
site that feature any subset of products you want in any format you want (listing, drop-down,
etc). As it’s merely a snippet of code, these can be dropped anywhere on your web site
where you want to sell products and they require no special templating as it’s merely included
in your existing web site.
The latter is for the customer that prefers a finer grained control of the way they’d like to sell
products on their web site. By linking anywhere on your web site (from text, image, whatever)
to specially formed URLs, you can allow your customers to add any product or products to
their shopping cart with a single click.
Finally, the shopping cart and checkout processes are completely customizable so you can
template them to match the rest of your web site seamlessly.
Order interface is by default available at http://host.name/path/to/plesk-billing/order/ for
standalone version of Parallels Plesk Billing. For Parallels Plesk Billing bundled with
Parallels Plesk Panel it can be accessed at https://host.name:8443/plesk-
billing/order/.
Configuration Wizard
In this section:
Domain Registration Settings ............................................................................ 24
Parallels Plesk Panel IP Settings ....................................................................... 24
Payment Gateway Settings ................................................................................ 24
Encryption Settings ............................................................................................ 25
Tax Settings ...................................................................................................... 25
Fraud Settings ................................................................................................... 25
After the Parallels Plesk Billing is installed as a standalone application, or activated as a
module in Parallels Plesk, you need first to run the Configuration Wizard. When you login to
the Parallels Plesk Billing admin panel for the first time, on the page that appears click Start
Configuration to proceed to the Configuration Wizard. It will guide you through:
Registrar Settings. Choose and configure one or more registration services, such as Enom
or OpenSRS.
Payment Gateway Settings. Choose and configure one primary gateway and, optionally, third
party gateways.
Tax Settings. Configure taxable products from the list.
Encryption Settings. Enable encryption to reach the maximum security in transactions.
Fraud Settings. Here you can enable and configure a FraudGuardian account.
Later, you can revisit the Configuration Wizard by choosing Configuration Wizard in the System
menu.
Domain Registration Settings
To configure domain registration services in Configuration Wizard:
1 Go to System > Configuration Wizard, click Begin Configuration and proceed to the
Domain Registration Settings form.
2 The list of registrars will appear. Choose the primary registrar by clicking
the box in front of its name.
3 As soon as you checked the box, you will see the configuration form for
this registrar consisting of 4 parts.
Admin Account. Enter the user name and password to the registrar and configure
registrar-specific connection settings.
Admin Contact. Set the contact information (name, address, phone, etc.) for the
registrar.
Aux Billing Contact. Set auxiliary billing contact information.
Domain Name Servers. Specify the registrar’s primary and secondary name servers.
4 Click Continue >> to proceed to the next step of Configuration Wizard.
Later on, you will be able to configure any available domain registration service from
the System > Domain Settings > Registrar Modules menu.
Parallels Plesk Panel IP Settings
(for Parallels Plesk Billing bundled with Parallels Plesk Panel only)
To configure Parallels Plesk Panel IP Settings:
1 Enter the Shared IP Address that will be used for hosting purposes.
2 Click Continue >> to proceed to the next step of Configuration Wizard.
Payment Gateway Settings
On the Payment Gateway Settings page you can choose and configure one primary gateway and
one or several third-party gateways you wish to use.
To select and configure payment gateways:
1 Click a radio button in front of a primary payment gateway you wish to
choose.
2 A form with the options specific to this gateway will appear. Fill out the
options.
3 Click check boxes to select as many third-party gateways as you wish and
fill out gateway-specific options.
4 Click Continue >> to proceed to the next step.
Encryption Settings
Here you can enable encryption for Parallels Plesk Billing transactions and enter the LEK pin
code you generated as a customer on the Parallels Plesk Billing support page.
To enable encryption for Parallels Plesk Billing.
1 Check the box in front of the Encryption Enabled field.
2 In a separate window or tab, open http://www.pleskbilling.com/, log in using
your member’s area user name and password and generate an LEK (Local
Encryption Key) Hash pin code there.
Note: You need to remember your LEK Pin whenever you need to manually decrypt a
customer’s credit card number or manually run a billing process.
3 Under the Choose a Pin field, enter the same pin you generated into the LEK
Pin and Confirm text boxes.
4 Set a secret passphrase in the Passphrase field. It may remain empty if you
wish, and then the system will generate a random passphrase for you.
5 Click Continue>> to go on with Configuration Wizard.
You can later return to the encryption settings in the System > System Settings >
Encryption Settings menu. See Encryption Settings for details.
Tax Settings
Here you can assign a single tax to selected taxable products or add-ons.
1 Enter the Tax Settings page.
Enable Taxes. Check this button to enable the tax to the taxable products selected
below.
Tax Amount. Enter tax value in percents.
Tax Description. Enter the tax name that all the customers will see. For example, VAT.
Taxable Products. Here all available tax products or add-ons are listed. Select the
required variants by checking boxes in front of them.
2 Click Continue >> to apply the tax.
You can provide advanced tax settings in the System > System Configuration > Invoice and
Billing Settings > Tax Settings page. See Taxes for details.
Fraud Settings
To configure fraud settings:
1 On the Fraud Settings page, fill out the following form:
Enable FraudGuardian. Check this box to enable fraud settings
User name, Password. Enter your user name and password once you have registered at
FraudGuardian: http://www.pleskbilling.com/products/fraudguardian/.
2 Click Continue >> to apply FraudGuardian settings and complete
Configuration Wizard.
After that, go to System > System Configuration > Order Settings > Manage Fraud Settings for
advanced fraud configuration. See Setting Up FraudGuardian (on page 163) for details.
Setting Up Global Account
(for Parallels Plesk Billing bundled with Parallels Plesk Panel only)
It is highly recommended to connect your local Parallels Plesk Billing accounts to a global
account for convenient operation in case of bundled installation. This will allow you to switch
between your Parallels Plesk Panel and Parallels Plesk Billing accounts without entering your
credentials every time.
Please see the Setting Up Global Account (on page 226) chapter for details.
Setting Up Payment Groups
Configuring a payment group is a fairly straightforward process. First, you’re going to need to
ask yourself a few questions in regards to how your business wants to accept money.
Do you plan to accept credit cards?
If so, will you be storing credit card details (all encrypted, of course) in your Parallels
Plesk Billing database?
What types of credit cards do you want to accept (Visa/MasterCard/etc.)?
Will you accept forms of payment through a third-party gateway such as PayPal or
WorldPay?
If you plan to accept credit cards, you are going to need a merchant account with an online
payment processing service. Parallels Plesk Billing supports a variety of payment gateways
(on page 20) which you can choose as a primary gateway, and some others as third-party
gateways.
If you plan to accept payment from third-party gateways (either solely, or along with accepting
credit cards) you will need to have an account at one or more of the below supported thirdparty gateways:
PayPal
WorldPay
The general idea behind payment groups is for the purpose of multiple currency support. You
should have one payment group for each type of currency that you accept. If you only accept
one currency, you should, thus, only have one payment group.
IMPORANT: You can add and remove payment processor modules within a payment group
as much as you want. But you should never remove a payment group once you have
customers actively using it. Removing a payment group that is in use will cause customers’
billing accounts to no longer be tied to a means of charging them.
To add a payment group:
1 Go to the System > Payment Settings > Payment Groups.
2 At this point, you should see a default payment group already exists. Click
the Edit icon to the right side of the payment group. On the screen that
comes up, you can configure the Payment Group Name to be whatever you
want, this is purely for your reference and no customer will ever see the
Payment Group Name. By default, the initial payment group is setup with USD
(United States Dollars) currency. You may leave this as is, or, if you need
to accept a different currency, change this to the appropriate 3-character
ISO-4217 currency code.
3 Now, most importantly, you will need to select the primary and third-party
gateways you use from the drop down lists. At this time, you can only
select one of each category. Though, if you accept more than one thirdparty gateway (for example, PayPal and WorldPay) you can come back to
this Edit screen later and add it. Please note that you can only configure
one primary gateway per payment group.
4 After you have selected the gateways you use, click the edit button at the
bottom of the screen and it will return you to the Payment Groups overview
screen. You should now see your newly-modified payment group with the
payment processor modules you selected. At this point, you can now click
the Edit icon next to each of those payment processors listed and configure
them appropriately (details for the configuration options available for each
payment processor are later in this document).
5 If you plan to accept multiple currencies, click the Add Payment Group button
and repeat the above detailed procedure.
If you are planning on accepting credit cards and storing them in your Parallels Plesk Billing
database for the purposes of recurring billing, you will need to configure encryption on your
system. Parallels Plesk Billing uses a strong encryption algorithm to keep your data as safe
as possible. Please refer to Setting Up Encryption (on page 55) for details.
Configuring Order Forms
As previously described in this guide, the concept of an order form is a little bit different in
Parallels Plesk Billing. As it is currently known, an order form in Parallels Plesk Billing is
primarily a way to group products by currency. Generally speaking, you should only have one
order form per currency offered. It is not a page where your products are listed with order
now buttons.
To configure your order form(s):
1 Go to System > System Settings > Order Form Settings. You will see that one
default order form already exists in your Parallels Plesk Billing.
2 Click the edit button next to it. On this page, you should select the payment
group, default language, and default country to be used on this order form.
There are also a variety of other options on this page you can choose, but
those three are the most important to getting you up and running right now.
3 For each payment group you have, create a new order form, and assign it
to that payment group.
Your Parallels Plesk Billing is now configured to accept payment from customers.
Warning: Never delete an order form that already has had packages purchased through it.
Please refer to the Setting Up Order Forms (on page 141) chapter.
Setting Up Control Panels
Parallels Plesk Billing supports integration with Parallels Plesk Panel and some other control
panels (on page 18).
This section outlines the steps you need to take to get your Parallels Plesk Billing installation
to successfully store the connection information needed to provision customers’ packages to
your servers.
For each type of control panel that you offer, you should have one Server Group. For example,
if you provide cPanel and Plesk for Linux hosting, you would need two server groups – one
for each control panel. Within each of these server groups, you will add a Server Module for
each physical server of that type. Going on our above example, if you had 7 machines
running cPanel and 5 machines running Plesk for Linux, you would need 7 cPanel server
modules in your cPanel server group and 5 Parallels Plesk Panel for Linux modules in your
Parallels Plesk Panel for Linux server group. Please refer to Managing Server Groups (on
page 61) document for details on how you can add a Server Group.
IMPORTANT: if there are control panel modules within server groups to which you do not
intend on provisioning anymore packages (for example, a server that you are slowly trying to
move clients off of, or a test server for testing settings), then you have to set their status to
Enabled: No. This will cause accounts that have already been provisioned to this module to still
be fully automated (suspend, unsuspend, cancellation, etc), but no new accounts will be
provisioned to that server.
Finally, the most impacting parameter across most all the types of server modules we offer is
Server Weight. You can give each of your products a specific weight (typically, this would refer
to the number of resources this product is going to use once provisioned, in terms of disk
space, bandwidth, etc.). Each control panel module you add can have a Maximum Server
Weight. Configure this setting appropriate to how you plan to specify weights on your products
so you can be confident you will not be overselling your equipment – as each time a package
is provisioned to one of your servers, the weight of that package will be added to the total
weight already provisioned on the server.
You can use this so as to implement a pseudo-load-balancing setup. If you go back to your
Server Groups settings page and click the Edit icon next to your server group, you can specify
whether provisioned packages will be provisioned onto each server you have, filling them
one-by-one, or (more preferably, for most) provisioned onto the server with the least server
weight.
Once you have configured a server group for each type of server you offer, and the
appropriate control panel modules for each physical server you have within each group, your
Parallels Plesk Billing will have been successfully connected to automate package
provisioning.
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