How to Migrate Your ISP Billing from Manual Excel to Centipid: A Guide for DRC and Central African Operators

For internet service providers operating in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Cameroon, Central African Republic, and other Central African markets, manual billing is still the norm. Subscriber records in Excel spreadsheets. Payment confirmations via WhatsApp. Manual Winbox sessions to restore suspended subscribers. An accounts assistant cross-referencing Airtel Money or Vodacom M-Pesa statements against a subscriber list every morning.

This model works at 30 subscribers. It begins to crack at 80. By 150 subscribers, it is a full-time job that still produces errors, delayed reactivations, missed invoices, and subscriber churn. The solution is migrating to a purpose-built African ISP billing platform — and Centipid ISP billing is built exactly for this transition, including for operators running MikroTik RouterOS infrastructure in Kinshasa, Lubumbashi, Goma, Bukavu, and secondary DRC cities.

In this guide, we walk through the complete migration path: auditing your current subscriber data, preparing your MikroTik network for Centipid integration, importing subscriber records, configuring mobile money payment gateways for DRC, and running a parallel test period before going fully live on Centipid.

Why Manual Billing Fails DRC ISPs at Scale

The specific failure modes of manual ISP billing in the DRC context are well-documented among operators in Kinshasa and Lubumbashi:

• Delayed reactivation: A subscriber pays via Airtel Money or Vodacom M-Pesa Congo at 9 PM on a Saturday. Your billing assistant isn't in the office until Monday morning. The subscriber spends the weekend without internet and calls your WhatsApp line repeatedly. By Monday, they're already researching competitor options.
• Payment matching errors: Subscribers pay from different phone numbers or use family members' accounts. Manual matching against M-Pesa statements produces errors — some subscribers get reactivated who haven't paid; others who have paid remain suspended.
• No proactive invoicing: Without automated invoice generation and reminder sequences, subscribers only find out their bill is due when their internet stops working — a guaranteed negative experience that accelerates churn.
• Revenue leakage: Missed payments, untracked credits, and manual errors result in revenue leakage of 5–15% that no Excel spreadsheet can reliably identify.
• Growth ceiling: Manual processes create a hard growth ceiling at around 150–200 subscribers. Beyond that, the administrative burden outpaces your team's capacity and service quality deteriorates.

Step 1: Audit and Clean Your Subscriber Data

Before migrating to Centipid, audit your existing subscriber data in Excel or whatever system you're currently using. For each subscriber, you need:

• Full name
• Primary phone number (the number they use for mobile money payments)
• Email address (if available)
• Physical address or zone/sector
• Current plan (speed tier and monthly price in CDF or USD)
• PPPoE username and password (if using PPPoE) or Hotspot credentials
• Next billing date
• Current outstanding balance (if any)

Clean duplicates, update phone numbers, and standardise your plan names before importing. A clean import into Centipid means a clean billing system from day one. This audit typically takes 1–3 days for a DRC ISP with 50–200 subscribers.

Step 2: Prepare Your MikroTik Network for Centipid

Centipid integrates with your MikroTik router via the RouterOS API. Before connecting Centipid, ensure your network is ready:

Enable the RouterOS API

In Winbox, go to IP > Services and enable the api service on port 8728. If your router is behind a NAT or firewall, ensure port 8728 is accessible from Centipid's server IPs. For production deployments, also enable api-ssl on port 8729 for encrypted API communication.

Create a Dedicated Centipid API User

Go to System > Users > Add and create a dedicated API user (e.g. "centipid-api") with a strong password and full read/write permissions for PPP, IP, queue, and interface resources. Do not use your main admin account for the Centipid API connection.

Standardise Your PPPoE Profiles

Review your PPPoE profiles in PPP > Profiles. Ensure one profile exists per plan tier with correct rate limits set. If your current PPPoE setup is inconsistent — some subscribers on custom queues, others on profiles — standardise all subscribers onto named profiles before importing into Centipid.

Hardware Upgrade Assessment

If your current distribution router is not a MikroTik RouterOS device — or is an older MikroTik model with limited API support — this is the right time to upgrade. The MikroTik hEX S RB760iGS is the recommended primary router for DRC ISPs integrating with Centipid: SFP fibre uplink for backhaul, PoE out to power sector antennas and CPE, and full RouterOS API compatibility. The MikroTik hEX RB750Gr3 works well as a secondary zone aggregation router. Connect all base station infrastructure with Cat6 cabling for reliable, low-latency connectivity and stable API communication between Centipid and your routers.

Step 3: Register on Centipid and Connect Your Router

Register your Centipid account here. Once registered:

1. Go to Routers / Network Devices in the Centipid dashboard and click Add Router.
2. Enter your router's name (e.g. "Kinshasa-Tower-1"), IP address, API port (8728), and the dedicated API user credentials.
3. Select PPPoE or Hotspot integration mode.
4. Centipid tests the connection and confirms API access. If the test fails, recheck that the API service is enabled and the port is reachable from Centipid's servers.

Step 4: Create Plans in Centipid

In Centipid, go to Plans and create one plan for each of your current subscriber tiers. For DRC ISPs, set pricing in either Congolese Franc (CDF) or USD — many DRC ISPs bill in USD due to CDF inflation volatility. Map each Centipid plan to the corresponding MikroTik PPPoE profile or Hotspot user profile.

Step 5: Set Up DRC Mobile Money Payment Gateways

The dominant mobile money platforms in the DRC are Airtel Money DRC and Vodacom M-Pesa Congo. In Centipid's payment settings, connect your:

• Airtel Money DRC merchant account — for Airtel network subscribers.
• Vodacom M-Pesa Congo merchant account — for Vodacom network subscribers.
• Orange Money DRC (if applicable) — for Orange network subscribers in Kinshasa and western DRC.

Verify current DRC mobile money gateway availability directly with the Centipid team during onboarding, as Central African gateway integrations may vary. For DRC ISPs billing in USD, also explore whether Centipid's payment settings support USD-denominated bank transfer options for business subscribers.

Step 6: Import Your Subscribers into Centipid

With your subscriber data cleaned and your plans created, import your subscriber base into Centipid. Options:

• CSV bulk import: Export your cleaned subscriber data from Excel as a CSV and import via Centipid's subscriber import tool. Map columns to Centipid fields (name, phone, plan, billing date, PPPoE username/password).
• Manual entry: For smaller subscriber bases (under 50 subscribers), manual entry in Centipid's Add Subscriber form is fast and ensures data accuracy.

During import, Centipid creates or updates the PPPoE secrets or Hotspot user accounts on your MikroTik router for each subscriber. After import, verify in Winbox that the PPP secrets match your subscriber list before going live.

Step 7: Run a Parallel Test Period

Before fully cutting over from manual billing, run a 2–4 week parallel period where:

• Centipid generates and sends all invoices automatically.
• Mobile money payments reconcile automatically in Centipid.
• Your team monitors Centipid's payment dashboard daily and cross-checks against your old manual records.
• Any discrepancies (e.g. a subscriber paid but Centipid didn't receive confirmation) are investigated and resolved.
• Centipid's automatic suspension is not yet enabled during this period — your team continues managing suspensions manually while you gain confidence in the payment reconciliation.

After 2–4 weeks of clean parallel operation, enable automatic suspension and reactivation in Centipid and fully retire your manual billing process.

Recommended Subscriber CPE for DRC ISP Deployments

As part of your billing migration, standardise your subscriber CPE on MikroTik devices that are fully compatible with Centipid's RouterOS-managed network:

• MikroTik hAP RouterBOARD with PoE — Standard and premium subscriber CPE. Reliable Wi-Fi and wired ports for homes and small offices in Kinshasa and Lubumbashi.
• MikroTik hAP lite RB941-2nD — Budget CPE for entry-level plan subscribers. Keeps acquisition cost low in price-sensitive DRC residential markets.
• MikroTik wireless routers — Outdoor wireless distribution for DRC WISP point-to-multipoint deployments.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)