After my mammoth post at the beginning of the week my little fingers needed a break from typing! But you will be pleased to know that I have recovered.

The ‘Around the world in 80 billing systems!’ article I researched and posted earlier this week contains approximately 80 billing and invoicing systems – plus a few payment gateways and some accounting software with invoicing capabilities. 80 systems – it’s a very long list! Seriously, trust me, when you are uploading, resizing and inserting a screenshot for every system on the list you realize how many 80 is.

What I found shocking though – while researching the list – was the fact that I could only find 4 billing and invoicing systems that seem to have been developed and/or marketed for the South African consumer.

Shocking! (Considering that over 60 % of the billing or invoicing systems on the list were developed and/or marketed for the US consumer and around 25 % were developed by and for the European market.)

The fact that I could locate only 4 billing systems that were developed locally or geared towards the South African market is either a reflection on my researching abilities or on the alarmingly limited range of local online billing systems. Which? I’m not sure.  But for the purposes of the article I will imagine that the latter is the case.

Now most of the billing systems on the list – even though they were developed abroad – still cater (with varying degrees of success) for the South African consumer. The larger and better known international systems would meet the needs of most South African’s just as well, and in some cases, better than some of the locally developed systems. But in my heart of hearts I still feel the need to support locally developed services above any international system.

Let’s do a quick recap of the local systems I found:

• Billy: The Billing Engine
• Easyinvoice
• Ejrdesign’s Automatic Email invoicing
• SnapBill

In an upcoming post I will be reviewing each South African system individually to give you a better idea of what they are capable of, but before I do that I would like to send out a plea into the vast expanse that is the interwebs…

If you a South African web developer and have developed a billing/invoicing system that is not on my list, please let me know.

I know there are more great systems out there and I would love to include them in my South African billing/invoicing system review article.  So, in the immortal words of Ben Stiller in the movie Starsky and Hutch: ‘Do it!’ – email me now.