Parallels Customer & Business Manager simplifies your life by automating the full customer lifecycle—from ordering to account provisioning to recurring invoicing and billing. Whether your customers are creating (or upgrading) website accounts, registering domain names, or purchasing SSL certificates, Customer & Business Manager handles the task automatically, with zero manual effort on your part.

Plus, the easy-to-use self-service interface makes for happier customers by enabling them to purchase additional resources in real time and provision them right away. The end result is less overhead, higher revenues, and more satisfied customers.

Customer & Business Manager automates the complete customer life cycle, including:

• Order taking, using an intuitive checkout process
• Provisioning the customer’s account, applying appropriate resources through service plans
• Payment acceptance—one-time and recurring
• Processing of upgrades and add-ons in response to customer requests
• Complete CRM details on each customer, with comprehensive reporting tools
• Ability to import customers from existing Plesk servers

Plus an intuitive end-user interface lets customers self-manage their accounts, reducing your support burden. For example, they can:

• Update their credit card information
• Pay bills
• Upgrade their plan or add new features
• Manage their domain names and SSL certificates

The initial configuration process been completely streamlined, so now all you have to do is fill in your company information and you can be up and running. You can configure other features—e.g., for accepting payments or processing domain registrations—when you’re ready to use them.

Customer & Business Manager lets you set up three types of accounts, each with its own privileges.

• Administrator accounts for your staff, with access to all features and tools.
• New! Reseller accounts for those who resell your services to end customers. Reseller access is similar to that of administrators, but only for their part of the business.
• Customer accounts for both your own customers and those of your resellers. Customers have access only to their own subscriptions and information.

Customer & Business Manager completely automates billing and invoicing, with support for different types of billing cycles (e.g., starting each subscription’s billing cycle on the date of purchase, or prorating the first invoice so that all invoices can be aligned to a specific day of the month). It also supports:

• One-time and recurring billings
• Credit card payments (including encrypted storage and both automatic and manual payments)
• Off-site payment processors, such as PayPal and WorldPay
• E-checks and bank transfers
• Manual payment options, such as checks and wire transfers
• Promotions, including both one-time and recurring discounts (e.g., when customer commits to a two-year plan)

If you have customers who have fallen behind on their payments, Customer & Business Manager will start by sending a series of warning e-mails. If those don’t produce results, it will suspend the non-paying customers, based on rules you set up. It can even automatically reclaim the server space, so you can use it for paying customers. If suspended customers then pay their bill, their accounts will automatically be re-enabled.

Customer & Billing Manager comes with built-in fraud protection. An e-mail blacklist blocks orders from customers who attempt to use a blacklisted e-mail address; and an online FraudGuardian system checks customers’ credit history and generates a “fraud score.” Your administrator can specify thresholds for requiring manual processing and for declining the order altogether.