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Billing systems are a nightmare for engineers

getlago.com

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Re: Billing systems are a nightmare for engineers

#91

Post by marcosdumay »

spchampion2 wrote: post #5

Just wait until you meet billing's angry roommate: invoicing. In the US, an invoice is just a weird PDF that you might glance at before sending off to your accounts payable team. But in other countries, especially those that use VAT style taxing systems, an invoice can be a legal document that expresses costs and taxes in a legally prescribed way for accounting purposes. Many countries have prescriptive rules over ho…

Yep. Invoice software is country specific. One can sell invoicing software to several countries, it just can not be the same software. And no, you can't just abstract the differences, because the invoices focus changes widely.

At least we are in a situation where the seller is almost only subject to the laws of the seller's country. There are some exceptions, but one can mostly deal with those (the EU has plenty, the good news is that if the seller is not also on the EU, most do not apply).

Also, I haven't seen a country accounting system that made accounting papers inherently expensive. Some make refunds very expensive, but not the papers. It's more a matter of badly designed software and processes.

Re: Billing systems are a nightmare for engineers

#93

Post by [deleted] »

spchampion2 wrote: post #5

Just wait until you meet billing's angry roommate: invoicing. In the US, an invoice is just a weird PDF that you might glance at before sending off to your accounts payable team. But in other countries, especially those that use VAT style taxing systems, an invoice can be a legal document that expresses costs and taxes in a legally prescribed way for accounting purposes. Many countries have prescriptive rules over ho…

[deleted]

Re: Billing systems are a nightmare for engineers

#94

Post by [deleted] »

walnutclosefarm wrote: post #40

Always has been. Marketing and sales create complexity on the front end, devising all kinds of products, plans, discount schemes and related complexity; jurisdiction, taxes, and accounting rules add complexity on the backend. In the middle, measuring what you're billing for is the hook around which all that complexity chaotically orbits. Decades ago - the computer involved was an honest to goodness System 360 (which…

[deleted]

Re: Billing systems are a nightmare for engineers

#95

Post by christkv »

AnhTho_FR wrote: post #76
vidarh wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many years ago I led a billing team at Yahoo! responsible for billing for premium services in European markets. My team existed for the sole reason that the European business did not trust that the US payment services team understood European needs, and the "invoice is a legal document" thing was one of them. I spent so many meetings repeating to the US team that no, we could not switch to their invoicing as long as…

I'm Anh-Tho, one of a co-founders of Lago, thanks for your comment! I was the country manager of France for a US Sequoia-backed company before, and I never ever managed to convince HQ to work on EU invoicing, I think they just did not want to open the pandora box you just described!

I definitively am interested in a couple of months. I rather not build our own if we don't have too.

Do you have any early guides or api docs to take a look at. Our use case.

1. Base service fixed packages (based on users with volume discounts)

Extra costs 2. Extra storage space usage 3. Add on services (fixed or usage billing) 4. Invoicing third parties (reselling content)

Re: Billing systems are a nightmare for engineers

#96

Post by [deleted] »

cletus wrote: post #80

Pretty much everything is more complicated than people (including engineers) think. Take a simple example: selling clothing in a retail store. Sounds simple right? You have an inventory of items and someone pays for it. Should be a simple transaction, right? Well, now you're dealing with: - How do you determine the price? There might be a retail price but there are sales, discounts, overrides for various reasons (eg…

[deleted]

Re: Billing systems are a nightmare for engineers

#97

Post by gamblor956 »

duxup wrote: post #69
spchampion2 wrote: post #5

Just wait until you meet billing's angry roommate: invoicing. In the US, an invoice is just a weird PDF that you might glance at before sending off to your accounts payable team. But in other countries, especially those that use VAT style taxing systems, an invoice can be a legal document that expresses costs and taxes in a legally prescribed way for accounting purposes. Many countries have prescriptive rules over ho…

Not even legal issues. In my experience invoicing, and really all 'printable' documents is the land of "oh someone did something wrong put X on the document". And then again and again and again... And "this is two pages long that's too much" and on and on ... It's bike shedding insanity with no ideal or end in sight. Every change is arbitrary with no real measure of success. I swear the only time anyone LOOKs at thes…

Just because you don't understand invoicing doesn't mean that the concerns that appear trivial to you are actually trivial.

From the perspective of someone who works with the people who process the invoices, putting "X on the document" and "two pages long" can be a huge deal when you have to deal with hundreds of invoices or when "X" can mean that an invoice must proceed down a different processing path. These aren't bike shedding concerns; they affect the actual processing of the invoice. In many cases, these concerns affect the validity of the invoice, meaning that the recipient's obligation to pay (or the associated deadline) is not triggered.

And doing something wrong on an invoice is never bikeshedding. An invoice is a legal contract, and in the E.U., an invoice is an unmodifiable document.

Re: Billing systems are a nightmare for engineers

#99

Post by wewxjfq »

notch656a wrote: post #77
pimterry wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't matter. For B2B, if you don't show your EU customers a valid invoice, they simply cannot pay you. It's not EU governments or post-purchase issues you have to deal, most of the time - it's trying to persuade a large accounting department to pay you unaccountable money. If you can't follow their invoicing requirements, it's just not going to happen.

>they simply cannot pay you. Do people ever stop and wonder WHY in nations like Portugal the informal economy is roughly DOUBLE of say the US? When every invoice must be available to the government, what actually ends up happening is non-conforming invoices either get made up by the customer or the money magically flows out under some other auspice. Making it literally illegal to accept an invoice that is legal in th…

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Re: Billing systems are a nightmare for engineers

#100

Post by notch656a »

AnhTho_FR wrote: post #90
notch656a wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>they simply cannot pay you. Do people ever stop and wonder WHY in nations like Portugal the informal economy is roughly DOUBLE of say the US? When every invoice must be available to the government, what actually ends up happening is non-conforming invoices either get made up by the customer or the money magically flows out under some other auspice. Making it literally illegal to accept an invoice that is legal in th…

I'm Anh-Tho, one of a co-founders of Lago. I'm French, and I confirm, in B2B, no invoice (that is compliant, not a mere receipt) -> no payment.

Thank you Anh-Tho for your response.

What is the mechanism for French government to subpoena a non-EU business to find this invoice? If the customer (instead of vendor) produced an invoice that matched their bank statements and non-conforming receipt, hypothetically, would anyone really know the difference?

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