1. How much does it cost?

You can try it out for free for 35 days. The purchase price is £50 (GBP) for an outright purchase (due to the strength of the pound, this is currently equivalent to about $100 US).  An annual option is available for £20 (c. $40). We cannot tell you the exact price in US Dollars (or any other currency apart from British Pounds) because it depends on the exchange rate used by your card issuer at the time you make the purchase.

2. Does it run on Joomla 1.5?

Yes, if the legacy mode plugin (mambot) is published.

3. Does it run on PHP4?

Yes.

4. Does it run on PHP5?

Yes. 

5. Does it run with MySQL 4?

Yes.

6. Does it run with MySQL 5?

Yes.

7. Does it run with any other type of database? 

No. 

8. Can I use nBill in a language other than English?

nBill has been written with multi-language use in mind.  All English text is held in separate language files.  To use the component in a different language (both in the Joomla back end and in the website front end), you will need to install the applicable language pack extension.  Some translations are currently underway, but only French and Italian are available so far - when other languages become available, we will publish them on this site. 

We already have volunteers to translate into the following languages:

• Afrikaans
• Arabic
• Catalan
• Danish
  
• Dutch
  
• Finnish
• French
  
• German
• Indonesian
  
• Italian
  
• Norwegian
• Portuguese
• Romanian
• Russian
  
• Spanish

If you are able to provide a translation into a language not already covered, or if you would like to help with a translation that is already being carried out, please let us know. Translators who translate all of the text will be provided with a free outright license (or a refund if already purchased). If you translate all of the files used by the front-end (frontend.english.php, netinvoice_english.php, invoicetemplate.english.php), you get a free 1 year license (or equivalent refund if already purchased). Please note however, that translating is a big job - there is a lot of text to translate!

Joomfish support is included for text that you supply yourself (eg. field labels on your order forms etc). 

9. If I buy a license key for my test server, can I change it to my live domain when I'm ready without having to buy another license key?

No. You cannot change the key after purchase without incurring a fee (even then, the old value will be permanently blocked from using future versions of nBill). If you need time to test and set up your products, order forms, etc. on a test site before going live, you can use the 35 day free trial. If that is not long enough, just ask us for an extension. If that still is not long enough, you have 3 choices: 1) Buy a license key for the live domain, but run your test site on a local web server (such as JSAS or another WAMP package) - if the live site setting starts with 'localhost', nBill will run ok even if the license key belongs to your live domain. 2) Buy a one year license key for the test site, and then buy an additional license for your live site when you are ready. 3) Buy a license key for your test site, then when ready, request that your test site be blocked and a new key issued for your live site (a fee will be charged, and you will never be able to use the test site address again with future versions of nBill).

If you have already bought a license for your test server before reading these FAQs (tsk tsk!), you can request that your old key be blocked and a new one issued for a nominal fee, or you can buy an additional license key (if you login before purchase, you will get a multi-domain discount). To block and re-issue, make sure you are logged in (using the username and password you supplied when purchasing), and click here.

10. If I move my site to a different domain or folder, can I have a new license key for the new location without paying again?

No. You cannot change the key after purchase without incurring a fee - even if you are just moving to another folder on the same domain and even if the old location will no longer be used. The fee for blocking and re-issuing a license key is significantly less than the cost of purchasing a new license key. We have had to introduce this charge due to a large number of people who have not read the instructions properly or for various reasons wish to move their site, and because of the administration overheads involved in re-issuing license keys. If you would like to block your old key and have a new key issued, make sure you are logged in (using the username and password you supplied when purchasing), and click here. Please note that after a block and re-issue, your old site address will be permanently blocked from using future versions of nBill.

11. I cannot see a payment gateway for Paypal on the gateway download page - does nBill work with Paypal?

Yes. The Paypal gateway comes pre-installed as the default gateway with nBill. It is not necessary to install the Paypal gateway separately, which is why there is no download available for it. The Paypal gateway supports one-off and recurring payments, and requires a normal Paypal business account. It does not work with Paypal Pro. 

12. There does not seem to be a payment gateway available for my Payment Service Provider - will you write a payment gateway for my PSP?

Whenever we write a payment gateway, we make it available to the public at no charge. We will develop the most often-requested payment gateways as and when our development schedule permits. If you don't want to wait for us to get round to developing your gateway, you can sponsor the development of a gateway. This will be charged at 50% of our normal fees for development in exchange for which we require the rights to distribute the gateway under a liberal license so that everyone can benefit from it.

If you do not require recurring payments, development of a gateway would typically cost around £140. If recurring payments are required, the cost would typically be £280, although it could be as high as £420, depending on how the payment service provider's system works. We do not guarantee to be able to support all payment gateways, and the cost may vary depending on the complexity of the system. Please contact us for a quote and time estimate (warning: we are very busy and there is typically a lead time of 2 to 4 weeks before we can begin any new gateway development work). All prices are shown exclusive of VAT.

13. I am a developer - if I write a payment gateway for nBill, what do I get in return? 

If you are a developer, another alternative is for you to develop the gateway yourself (and perhaps submit it to us for review to make sure it is ok). Full instructions are provided here: http://www.nbill.co.uk/documentation/payment-gateway-development.html . If you develop a gateway and are willing to donate it for public use (and meet the criteria listed at the end of the payment gateway developer instructions), we will give you one free license for nBill (or refund your license fee if you've already bought one). If your gateway supports recurring payments, the free license key will not expire. If your gateway only supports one-off payments, your free license key will expire after 2 years.

If you want to sell your payment gateway yourself under your own licensing arrangements, rather than donate it for public use, you may do so (although you won't get a free license key that way), subject to taking your own legal advice (some may claim that this would violate the GPL license that Joomla and Mambo are released under - we would disagree of course, as nBill is not released under a GPL-compatible license anyway). Naturally, it is possible that a free gateway for the same PSP may be released at a later date though.

14. What security precautions should be taken when using nBill?

It would be good to use an SSL certificate to provide an extra layer of protection against theft of your customers' data. You might find the following article helpful in getting an SSL certificate to work with your Joomla site: www.netshinesoftware.com/security/using-an-ssl-certificate-with-your-joomla-website.html

If you have an SSL certificate installed, and you want your order forms to be processed over SSL (especially important if you are using a payment gateway which remains on your site rather than redirecting to the payment service provider's site), you must amend the URL in the menu item to start with https instead of http. 

Other security concerns largely relate to any 3rd party addons - Billing extensions (of which there are none available yet), and payment gateways. If you install any extras by 3rd parties, you have to be sure you can trust the source.  The component does warn you of this in big red letters on the extension installer. Of course, the usual security issues involved in using Joomla and any other add-ons apply, and are even more important if you are storing customer data on your Joomla database.  For more information, see the article about Joomla Security on our main website.

One of the best security measures is to ensure that register_globals is switched off on your server, and that the Joomla register_globals emulation is also switched off (although the component does validate all user input, weaknesses may exist in other components that you have installed - which could compromise the security of your whole system if register_globals is switched on).  See http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,1030.0.html.

Ensure you are always running the most recent stable version of Joomla and any other components. Also, please be aware of any data protection legislation that may apply to you (eg. if you use nBill in the UK, you will very likely need to register with the Information Commissioner to comply with the data protection act). 

15. For how long will I get free upgrades if I purchase an outright license? 

You get security fixes for as long as the major version you are using is supported. If we were to decide to stop supporting an old version, we would give you plenty of notice so that you would have time to upgrade to the current version (but you could still continue using the old version forever if you wish). Minor version increments and revisions are free of charge indefinitely, but if a new major version is released (eg. version 2.0, 3.0), that would require the purchase of an upgrade (at a lower cost than a new outright license). If a new major version is released, the previous version would continue to be supported, and security fixes made available for some time.  If you purchase an annual license, you will continue to receive free upgrades for the duration of your license key.

16. Can I use nBill in conjunction with Virtuemart?

No. Integration with Virtuemart is a possibility for the future, but it is not currently available. We would prefer to develop a shopping cart system specifically for nBill rather than trying to integrate with VM and keep up-to-date with changes and development of the Virtuemart project, however if there is sufficient demand, we may create a Virtuemart extension to allow sharing of data between VM and nBill.

17. Can I use it with Community Builder?

There is some rudimentary integration - when a user record is created by nBill, an entry is added to the community builder user table, if present. Further integration may be added later.

18. Does it integrate with <xyz> component? 

nBill integrates with Joom!Fish, J!Whois, JACLPlus, Access Granted, and at a very basic level with Community Builder (see previous question, above). A module providing some integration with nBill is also provided by the makers of Jomres. It is possible for you to add your own integration with other components (if you are a PHP programmer), by extracting the data you need from the nBill tables (which are all prefixed with 'jos_inv_' - depending on Joomla table prefix of course), and by using the events provided by nBill (just drop your PHP file into the appropriate event folder [/administrator/components/com_netinvoice/events/] - see notes in readme.txt in each event folder for more information).

19. How do recurring payments work?

nBill allows you to collect payments from your clients on a regular basis for subscription style products. However, this is subject to recurring payments being supported by your payment service provider. nBill does not store credit card details, and nBill does not initiate charging the customer's card on a regular basis. All nBill does is tell the payment gateway at the time the order is placed what the recurring payments should be. The payment service provider (eg. Paypal) will then store the card details securely and take the payments on a regular basis.

If the payment service provider allows for callbacks to be made when each payment is taken, nBill will be able to mark the corresponding invoice as paid for you. However, not all PSPs do this (eg. authorize.net does not), in which case you will need to mark invoices as paid yourself.

If a client cancels an order, you will also have to login to your merchant control panel with your payment service provider (eg. your Paypal account), and cancel the recurring payments there, as nBill will not do this for you. Similarly, if the payments are cancelled (eg. by the client logging into their Paypal account and cancelling there), you will need to mark the order as cancelled in nBill, as it will not know that the payments have stopped.

For a more complete explanation, please see this help topic (opens in a new window).