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Steve B
09-06-2010, 06:57 AM
My other business is dog food delivery. We've been doing it for a year and have a pretty nice amount of customers given the amount of time I've been able to spend developing the business. The only problem is collecting money from certain customers. We always have about $3,000 in receivables. When we started, we decided to only accept payment by check so we could keep expenses down and provide free delivery.

Now, I've decided to offer payment by credit card. Since it's a repeat business, I'd like to set the customers credit card information up in Quickbooks (which is what we already use). Has anyone used Quickbooks for their credit card processing? I'm sure the rate won't be as cheap as others I can find, but I'm guessing the conveniance will be worth it.

Harold Mansfield
09-06-2010, 10:11 AM
I'm still trying to get the Pay Pal integration working with Quickbooks without having to send 2 invoices. Can't you just bypass QB all together and set up recurring billing with your Pay Pal account for your repeat customers, or are they repeat, but still call in their order?

Evan
09-06-2010, 11:43 AM
I do not use Intuit for the credit card processing, but I don't believe the rates are that bad. I've seen some offers that had wanted me to sign up for their credit card processing, because it'd be easy. I'd say the rates are very comparable. May not be the lowest, but it's not outrageous either.

As for the PayPal plugin, if I recall what it should do is create a PDF invoice to e-mail to the client, and include a PayPal "Pay Now" button in that e-mail, and it'd integrate it with the payment...

But if you used PayPal's merchant account, those fees were actually higher than Intuit if I recall (unless you just stick to the basic payment account, where everyone knows its PayPal).

Steve B
09-06-2010, 05:30 PM
The dog food customers are set up on a delivery schedule and unless they want to make a change - they never have to contact me. The food just shows up on their doorstep every 4 weeks (for example). Once it's delivered, I'd like to go home and charge their credit card that is already on file and e-mail them a receipt. It will be soooo cool doing this compared to sending them an invoice via e-mail and hoping they don't miss the e-mail, then hoping/waiting for them to pay. They will love it to because it will be one less thing for them to worry about and will save them the hassle of writing a check and remembering to mail it.

Harold Mansfield
09-06-2010, 05:33 PM
The dog food customers are set up on a delivery schedule and unless they want to make a change - they never have to contact me. The food just shows up on their doorstep every 4 weeks (for example). Once it's delivered, I'd like to go home and charge their credit card that is already on file and e-mail them a receipt. It will be soooo cool doing this compared to sending them an invoice via e-mail and hoping they don't miss the e-mail, then hoping/waiting for them to pay. They will love it to because it will be one less thing for them to worry about and will save them the hassle of writing a check and remembering to mail it.

Couldn't you use Pay Pal's recurring billing for that?

Evan
09-06-2010, 08:29 PM
PayPal does have recurring billing, so you can bill monthly, or however frequent. You can also schedule to deliver after you know the card processes. So if I charged it on the 5th, and you normally send out on the 6th, you have a day to make sure it verifies. When it charges on the 5th next month and is declined for whatever reason, then you can contact the client before shipment.

Steve B
09-07-2010, 04:29 AM
I don't know much about Paypal - I guess that's an option. But, I use Quickbooks for all my accounting and customer information - so I thought it would be more efficient to not have to create/upkeep another database.

pennylane
09-07-2010, 11:15 AM
Steve:

I also had trouble with receivables in my business. I like using the merchant service that is integrated into QuickBooks - it really makes the bookkeeping and processing easier. One thing a lot of people aren't aware of is that, with this service you can set up Automatic Credit Card Billing in QuickBooks really easily. I couple this with memorized invoices in QuickBooks and it's great. (Once your merchant account is set up - From the gray menu bar- go to customers, Credit Card Processing Activities, automatic credit card billing) It can be kind of a pain if you have lots of changes every month. Another thing you can do with the integrated credit card processing is Electronic Funds Transfer from a customers bank account, which is ALOT cheaper than paying the credit card fees, I think it's $10/mo and .30 a transaction. I wouldn't be afraid to make it your policy, basically, that this is how people pay you. The gym does it, and it also sends a message to your customers that you are serious about getting paid. Even the customers that do not want to do it, will get the message loud and clear If the amount of their bill varies, I send them an invoice 10 days in advance and let them know it will be deducted on such and such date. Very important - Both of the above situations, require a signed agreement form from your customer. Our receivables are much improved - Good Luck! Penny Lane

pennylane
09-07-2010, 11:17 AM
Another thing, be sure to send out regular - at least monthly statements to your customers. When there is a recurring situation, especially the same price every month, I notice that customers will get behind and not even realize it. If you let it go too long without sending out statements, years can go by and once they are made aware, it's hard to track down where they missed a month.

Evan
09-07-2010, 11:34 AM
SteveB -- another option then is to set up the recurring PayPal bill to charge a customer. In QuickBooks, you can "Memorize" an invoice, and can group your monthly billings together. You should be able to do this with receipts. If you set it up right, you can have all the bills entered into QuickBooks in one shot, and then just set it up to e-mail the receipt. All in all, it'd take you a few minutes each month.

Harold Mansfield
09-07-2010, 11:43 AM
SteveB -- another option then is to set up the recurring PayPal bill to charge a customer. In QuickBooks, you can "Memorize" an invoice, and can group your monthly billings together. You should be able to do this with receipts. If you set it up right, you can have all the bills entered into QuickBooks in one shot, and then just set it up to e-mail the receipt. All in all, it'd take you a few minutes each month.

I could definitely use this, I'll be looking out for that function. Thanks for the tip Evan.

Evan
09-07-2010, 01:08 PM
Try it out (the memorized function) and see how it works. If PayPal works on the back end, and this works on the front end -- you'd have great compatibility. You'd just need to make sure that everything did process correctly.