Accounts Software with Online Payment Integration??

[lumencreative]

Hi All,

Sorry for the long winded post, which turned into a bit of a rant...

A while back I spent a lot of time reviewing many of the online accounts software options and ended up settling with Quickbooks Online for one reason and one reason only....Integration with Intuit Pay (and the newly released Quickbooks Payments).

Basically we have two requirements...

1) A customer comes to us for a new website, we ask for 50% upfront and the remainder on completion. The idea was that we could enter the payment details directly into Quickbooks Online via the IntuitPay Integration.

2) We offer website maintenance and seo services which are billed monthly in advance. The idea here was to create automatically recurring invoices in Quickbooks Online, send them to the customer, then the customer can pay through Quickbooks Payments button in the email they receive.

Doesn't sound too much to ask right?

However, today I have discovered that IntuitPay and Quickbooks Payments cannot be used for taking advance payments and can only be used for payments where a service has already been delivered. To me, this seems fundamentally flawed because standard business practice would be to take payment prior to delivering goods or service, anyway, essentially, we cannot use IntuitPay or Quickbooks Payments as per our requirements.

So what I would like to know is, other than Xero, are there any other online accounts options that have integration with a card payment provider (other than PayPal)?

I don't think this sort of thing should be difficult in this day and age and it's something our business desperately needs. We are in the process of getting a quote for a virtual terminal and/or countertop chip & pin machine from PaymentSense which can be used for taking customer present transactions but we really need to sort something for the recurring payments.

One option is Clearbooks with GoCardless for taking direct debits but it's not ideal, and card payments would be much preferred.

Thanks in advance

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

Your issue is not with the software it is with the payment gateway.

I use Kashflow and that will tie in with several merchant accounts, but, as you are taking a deposit, many merchant account suppliers will be cautious, even more so if you are a new business.

 

[lumencreative]

Your issue is not with the software it is with the payment gateway.

I use Kashflow and that will tie in with several merchant accounts, but, as you are taking a deposit, many merchant account suppliers will be cautious, even more so if you are a new business.

Yes, my issue is with IntuitPay/Quickbooks Payments, rather than with Quickbooks Accounts software, however, as I said, we need integration between a payment processor and accounts software.

Deposits aren't the huge issue as we can ask for these by bank transfer, but all of our monthly services are paid for in advance (ie you pay by 1st June to cover services provided between 1st June - 30th June), so it would make life much easier to allow card payments.

I have looked at Kashflow and it integrates with Stripe (that we use) and Payment Sense (who we are planning on using), so that sounds very positive, just don't like the interface, but will be looking at that a bit more.

 

[123Simples]

Why don't you simply do a Standing Order mandate for clients paying you monthly?

 

[lumencreative]

Why don't you simply do a Standing Order mandate for clients paying you monthly?

That is one option we are considering, but we also appreciate that many customers want to be able to pay by card, so we need to find a solution that helps everyone. Unfortunately, our office isn't open all day every day, so we can't even guarantee customers can phone and make payment over the phone.

We are actually also looking at GoCardless for direct debit options, but that's still undecided as well.

 

[LMDServicesUK]

Hi Gareth

We can also support recurring payments though our gateway, thus giving you a further option alongside Go Cardless if so required for regular payment processing. You would however need to set up a dedicated merchant account to process the payments.

Hope this helps

Mark