I wrote my own program for processing orders that interfaces with paypal. The client fills in the form, choose the plan they want then clicks on the submit button. The order is send to our office, then depending on which plan they chose it sends them to a web page that has a Subscribe button that they click on to make the payment.

Is this a good or bad process? Should the payment link occur first and then redirect them to the form to gather domain information? Or is it good like it is?

It can be, but it may not be.

It depends if it is good for you and on the other hand, the clients.
Some people may dis-trust it, unless you have a real billing system either custom built, or your own.

Is it going to be right for you when you have many more customers than today? Having the right billing solution before you get your 1st customer is one of the most important things you can do for your business. It's good enough really doesn't cut it.

"The order is send to our office, then depending on which plan they chose it sends them to a web page that has a Subscribe button that they click on to make the payment."

If the process is like this: then depending on which plan they chose it sends them to a web page that has a Subscribe button that they click on to make the payment. Also a copy of the order is send to our office ... then everything looks ok to me.

Will this script also send an invoice every month? I think you should consider using a real billing system like WHMCS.. It's only about $17.00/mo to use WHMCS unbranded, which ia a very small investment for the big rewards and benefits you will get using by it.

Yes, WHMCS or even HostBill would be a good idea to implement. We personally use WHMCS and love it.

WHMCS is the best by far.

Definitely! I've been hearing good things about HostBill as well, but it just doesn't compare to WHMCS.

another vote for WHMCS

WHMCS is a better system than your current "own program". It is not troubling you now because you have less number of clients but it will surely cause issues and slow the process in future, which will not be acceptable for your customers.

So, you should either go with WHMCS or develop an auto system in which clients pays for the plan's amount in the first step.

Everyone loves to talk about billing systems, and I just don't understand why... What is important is if the system is streamlined, logical, trustworthy, and clear. Potential clients are potential clients until they order, so there is absolutely no reason to make ordering difficult for them. A lot of clients like to be coaxed through the ordering system while talking on skype.

The point is that you need to make the billing system easy for them, not easy for you. WHMCS has been a real pain for us to get it implemented with our grid for billing, support, etc, but clients love WHMCS because it's an interface that they're familiar with, and it's really all about them.

WHMCS is very good in features, and has all of the earmarks of what a professional corporate call center would have (all of the account information directly in front of you regarding a ticket/issue), but it does have it's shortcomings. I'm not a fan of how MANY features it has, since I find it cluttered to look for things sometimes, and since it's puppeteering all of your services among different machines, if you make a change on the machine directly without updating WHMCS first, things can fall apart.

if it works for you then its perfect, but you may have a hard time selling it and competing with others such as hostbill, whmcs and autopilot.