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> You’d want to future-proof your platform to accommodate for unknowns in pricing, packaging, and feature gating. You don't have to do this. You don't need ton

by gizmo 2y ago

> You’d want to future-proof your platform to accommodate for unknowns in pricing, packaging, and feature gating. You don't have to do this. You don't need tons of complexity. You can make any system infinitely complex, but this is a choice. A billing system with -- and I quote -- "160000 combinations" is too complicated for customer support to understand, too complicated to explain to consumers, and will inevitably result in people getting billed incorrectly. Do you need to operate a B2C business this way? You really don't. It's OK if your billing system is slightly suboptimal. The overwhelming majority of businesses are held back by the quality of their product and by their distribution. Billing just needs to be simple and functional.

lol768 2y ago
Completely agree with this, it's a case of "perfection is the enemy of good" and if you do go to these lengths and abstract so much of it away, it'll be a nightmare to maintain and support as well.
baq 2y ago
simple, functional and compliant. guess which one is the hardest.
- gizmo 2y ago
  The complexity this article talks about (discounts, tiers, billing periods, dunning, chargeback disputes) has nothing to do with compliance. It's all about maximizing revenue.
  - baq 2y ago
    everything in billing must be compliant, you can do all of these e.g. without keeping an audit trail and the system will be 'simple'. good luck.
    - arnon 2y ago
      Saw a company that worked that way. They didn't have a good time when auditors came by.
RaftPeople 2y ago
> You don't need tons of complexity. You can make any system infinitely complex, but this is a choice. A billing system with -- and I quote -- "160000 combinations" is too complicated for customer support to understand, too complicated to explain to consumers, and will inevitably result in people getting billed incorrectly. I think the author is just referring to a configurable promo's and deals type of engine, which is pretty common. It just gives the business the ability to configure as opposed to hard code. For example, maybe the business wants to run a buy one get one free type promotion, this can just be configured into a generalized engine that allows for qty hurdles (or amount hurdles) that trigger some discount on some set of items.

by gizmo 2y ago

lol768 2y ago

Completely agree with this, it's a case of "perfection is the enemy of good" and if you do go to these lengths and abstract so much of it away, it'll be a nightmare to maintain and support as well.

baq 2y ago

simple, functional and compliant. guess which one is the hardest.

gizmo 2y ago
The complexity this article talks about (discounts, tiers, billing periods, dunning, chargeback disputes) has nothing to do with compliance. It's all about maximizing revenue.
- baq 2y ago
  everything in billing must be compliant, you can do all of these e.g. without keeping an audit trail and the system will be 'simple'. good luck.
  - arnon 2y ago
    Saw a company that worked that way. They didn't have a good time when auditors came by.

RaftPeople 2y ago

> You don't need tons of complexity. You can make any system infinitely complex, but this is a choice. A billing system with -- and I quote -- "160000 combinations" is too complicated for customer support to understand, too complicated to explain to consumers, and will inevitably result in people getting billed incorrectly. I think the author is just referring to a configurable promo's and deals type of engine, which is pretty common. It just gives the business the ability to configure as opposed to hard code. For example, maybe the business wants to run a buy one get one free type promotion, this can just be configured into a generalized engine that allows for qty hurdles (or amount hurdles) that trigger some discount on some set of items.