I just completed a Podcast on billing companies, aptly titled:  “When Billing Companies Attack!”  The Podcast attempts to demystify the billing process so health and fitness clubs (the only vertical we service that actually uses billing companies) can once and for all realize what a complete and utter waste of money these companies are and how they add no value to the business.

The standard pitch from these glorified courier services is as follows:  “we will provide you with software if you let us process your EFT and credit card drafts”.   For Christ sake, one of them even offers “free software” on their website if you sign up with them.  Of course they will.  They make so much money from processing that they can afford to sell their software as a loss leader.

What kills me about these companies is that they position themselves as “technology” companies when in fact they are the antitheses of technology.

If you are serious about embracing and leveraging technology to, for example, reduce costs, it makes no sense to use a third-party to process your billing when the technology exists to do it yourself. 

Now that I’ve got that off my chest, I encourage you to listen to the Podcast “When Billing Companies Attack!”

Submitted by Andy Widgerson

This month is always hectic as we prepare for our annual PCI audit.  For those of you who don’t know, PCI is a set of standards that CSI Software adheres to for the protection of our customer credit card information.  It requires a yearly audit of our standards and practices for handling customer data security.  I have just finished the Policy Compliance Questionnaire which just went from 75 to 230 questions.  So as you can see, VISA is tightening up their standards for data security.

By the way, we passed, so that is one obstacle out of the way.  We still have the audit and the network penetration scan to go.  I’ll be glad when all of this is over and done with.

submitted by Barry McKeone

• Just posted our first two Podcasts. Very exciting stuff. More to come… #

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Club Industry’s Fitness Business Pro Magazine just published their annual Top 100 list.  The rankings are based strictly on 2007 reported revenue and is the closest thing the health and fitness club industry has to a “Fortune 500 List”.

For the first time in our company history, more companies in the Top 100 have selected CSI Software as their club management software system that any other software vendor in the world.  In fact, of all of the companies that selected new software in the past year, 80% of them selected CSI Software.

When you consider where we were on the list before we launched Spectrum NG in 2006, our mercurial rise to the top has been significant.

• Putting the finishing touches on Summit 2008. #

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