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Invoicing Internet service providers

Subscriber billing for internet service providers

Bill every subscriber their plan on the same day, raise installation and equipment fees on the same account, collect by M-Pesa or card, and chase the lapses automatically - so renewals stop depending on someone's memory.

A small ISP or fibre reseller sells the same package to the same subscribers every month. The network is the hard part; the billing should not be. In practice it is a spreadsheet of renewal dates, a WhatsApp broadcast on the 1st, and a scramble at month-end to work out who actually paid.

Where the money leaks

  • Renewal dates live in a spreadsheet, so a subscriber who lapses is found late
  • Installation and equipment fees are billed separately from the monthly plan, or not at all
  • Payments land in a paybill with no reference, and matching them is an evening’s work
  • Nobody can see which subscribers are behind without opening three files

Plans, priced once

Each package is a service item with its price. Each subscriber goes on a recurring schedule - monthly, quarterly, or annual - and Zana raises the invoice on the date, every time, with the right VAT. Auto-send delivers it by SMS, WhatsApp, or email with a pay link. Generation is transaction-safe, so a retried run cannot double-bill a subscriber.

A one-off installation or a router sold on credit is just an invoice against the same subscriber, so it shows on the same statement and the same balance rather than in a side ledger.

Worked example. A reseller with 240 subscribers on a KES 3,500 home package raises and sends 240 invoices on the 1st. STK push settles most within days. The 22 who lapse get reminded at 3, 7, 14, and 30 days overdue, and the ageing report shows who is far enough behind to warrant a call.

Collect and reconcile without the scrolling

Subscribers pay by M-Pesa STK push or card from the bill. Anything paid into your paybill or bank is reconciled from an uploaded statement, matched on the reference quoted, with duplicate-import guards so re-uploading the same file changes nothing. Overpayments sit as credit against next month rather than getting lost.

What this is not

Zana bills your subscribers. It does not run your network - and the boundary matters, because the two are usually sold together elsewhere. Suspension for non-payment stays a decision you make in your own network tooling; Zana tells you exactly who is behind and by how much.

What you’ll need

Your subscriber list with phone numbers, your package prices, and a billing day. Put one subscriber on a schedule and let the next cycle run itself.

What this doesn't do

ISP Billing is billing and collection. It does not cover:

  • RADIUS, MikroTik, OLT, or router integration
  • network provisioning
  • automatic suspension or reconnection
  • bandwidth or usage rating
  • network monitoring
  • support ticketing
  • device and IP-address inventory

If you need any of these, tell us before you sign up - we'd rather say so now than in month two.

What you'll need

Recurring billing runs on every paid plan from Starter - KES 2,000/month for up to 100 billable accounts. Larger operations move up the tiers to Scale (2,500 accounts), and beyond that to Enterprise.

See every tier

The parts of Zana doing the work here

Invoicing Create branded invoices, collect by mobile money or card, pay out to suppliers, and reconcile every shilling - including the ones that land in your bank.
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