The short answer
Automated ISP billing connects four things: a record of each customer’s plan and expiry date, reminders before expiry, payments that extend the plan instantly, and a router that disconnects and reconnects customers on its own. When all four run without staff, nobody browses free and nobody who paid waits to get back online.
What manual billing costs you
- Customers who stay online for days after their plan ended.
- Customers who paid but wait hours for someone to reconnect them.
- Evenings spent matching M-Pesa messages to account names.
- Reminders that go out late, or not at all.
- No clear picture of who owes what.
Each of these is small. Together they cost real money every month and make the business hard to hand over to staff.
The automated billing loop
- Remind. A few days before a plan ends, the customer gets an SMS or WhatsApp reminder with how to pay.
- Invoice. Monthly customers get an invoice before the plan ends.
- Collect. The customer approves an M-Pesa prompt from their account page, the WiFi page or a staff renewal.
- Extend. The confirmed payment extends the plan once, and only once.
- Reconnect. The customer is back online without anyone touching the router.
- Expire. If nobody pays, the account expires on time and the router disconnects it.
In Wave, expiry is checked every minute, pending M-Pesa payments every 15 seconds, and every step is logged.
Reminders customers actually act on
- Send the first reminder 1 to 3 days before expiry; earlier reminders get forgotten.
- Say the plan, the amount and how to pay in one short message.
- Use WhatsApp where customers prefer it, SMS where they don’t.
- Send a receipt for every payment, so customers trust the system.
Wave’s automatic SMS and WhatsApp messages cover receipts, reminders, “plan ended” notices, hotspot codes and invoice reminders, each with wording you can edit.
Disconnections that are fair and on time
Cut-offs should be predictable: at the end of the plan, for everyone, every time. That is fairer than staff deciding who gets extra days, and it stops “free” internet from becoming normal.
- PPPoE: disconnect the session on the router when the plan ends.
- Hotspot: let the session end at the plan’s time limit.
- DHCP/IPoE: keep leases short and don’t renew them after expiry.
Automation checklist
- Every customer has a package and an expiry date.
- Payments go to one till or paybill that the billing system can confirm.
- Reminders and receipts are switched on.
- Expiry and disconnection run without anyone pressing a button.
- Reconnection happens the moment a payment is confirmed.
- You can see collections, expenses and profit for any month.
Wave does all of this for PPPoE, hotspot and DHCP/IPoE customers on MikroTik.
Frequently asked questions
How do ISPs automatically disconnect customers who haven’t paid?
The billing system tracks each plan’s expiry date and tells the router to end the customer’s session when it passes. Wave checks expiry every minute and disconnects expired accounts on MikroTik routers automatically.
How quickly are customers reconnected after paying?
With Wave, as soon as M-Pesa confirms the payment: the plan is extended and the customer can connect again straight away.
When should ISP payment reminders be sent?
One to three days before the plan ends works best for most customers. Wave lets you choose 1, 2, 3, 5 or 7 days.