These are truly extraordinary times. And not in a good way! Businesses all over the country (and the world) have had to completely shut down their physical office locations and have their workforce working entirely remotely. With a Covid-19 vaccine likely not ready until at LEAST sometime in 2021….remote work is likely the new normal. But your business is still operating, and you and/or your clients still need to get PAID.
So first let’s start with what "goes." That is – what will we leave behind until we get back to our old normal, which may be a long long time from now. First, the credit-card machine at the office. We can’t go there, so we can’t access it. And while we COULD bring it home, then it takes up space in ONE employee’s home, connected by Ethernet to a router. But what happens if a different employee needs to access it? Or a company chooses to furlough or otherwise let go of that employee from the company. The credit-card machine relocation – not a great option. So that goes.
Now how about the QuickBooks Desktop file that’s stored locally at the office computer? Well – that could stay if you’re using Right Networks or GoToMyPC.com to login to the office computer…but what happens if you don’t want other people from your staff accessing certain parts of your local computer at the office? Or you don’t want to pay for RightNetworks’ hosting, even though it’s not that expensive. But it is one more thing for you to have to set up that you’d rather not focus on, when your babysitter decided they aren’t going to come over anymore and you have to spend time taking care of those kids and homeschooling. Of course – you could easily make a copy of the desktop file and save it on your home computer, which would work fine if it’s just one person mostly accessing it.
What about for recurring billing customers and those printed credit card and e-check authorization forms that you have at the office because the Intuit Virtual-terminal (or whichever one you’re using) doesn’t allow you to store credit card #’s/checking info to do recurring billing? You could scan them and save them in your office dropbox or whatever local network you have, but then you have pretty easily viewed card-info stored in a place where they really shouldn’t be, because they aren’t properly PCI-encrypted.
We could keep mapping out scenarios about issues that are now coming up for many of your clients and maybe yourselves given that we’re all working remotely now for the foreseeable future. But we won’t. Instead, let’s dive into some solutions. We are writing this to share ideas that a business in the world of April-2020 should be front-of-mind considering right now, ideas that our own company has thought of day in and day out for years.
Make sure to join our webinar with author Ben Prusky of Freedom Merchants on April 23, where he will discuss Freedom Merchants payment integrations with other systems. You can register here.
First, every remote business that needs to get paid MUST have the ability to invoice out from home. Electronic invoice. Not a Word document. But something easy and accessible. Whether it’s a QBO Invoice, an Excel-based invoice with a link, Xero, something. Something cloud-based. But remember, if you’re going to use your accounting-package’s invoicing tool, we strongly – and I mean strongly – recommend that in this time period particularly, that you get an external merchant account setup with an accounting package compatible software whose customer service you know that you can count on. That you can connect with, in real-time. That you can pick up the phone and not have to wait – every time – for up to 30-40 minutes to get through to a low-level support rep who doesn’t understand your company’s unique technology needs. There are a handful of merchant-companies that interface with the leading accounting-software out there. (Author’s note: Yes, Freedom Merchants is one of them). Prior to coronavirus, it was really difficult to get the in-house Intuit merchant on the phone quickly. Now, it’s impossible. And when your client wants to do a $20k transaction when they’ve normally been doing $500 transactions, forget about it. You need a merchant company you can count on and communicate with.
Second, every Remote business should IMMEDIATELY be web-enabling their website to accept payments. I’m not talking about fiddling around with Paypal’s code yourself to put a “Make Payment” button on your website. That code is not easy to understand, it’s impossible to customize for yours or your client’s branding on the Payment-page itself, and forget about ever trying to setup a “Lookup Invoice and Pay” capability with Paypal (or Square or Stripe). And don’t even think about figuring out how to get that to sync with QuickBooks (Online or Desktop). You don’t have the time, and the use-cases you need have not been built. But there are companies that have thought about the quickest, fastest way for you to setup literally whatever you need (Lookup by Invoice-#, Price-Plan programs, Multi-Invoice, Card-on-File) that you need. And with your branding on it too. (Author’s note: Yes, Freedom Merchants is one of them). And right now – you don’t have the time or money to be engaging with your web developer to make some intricate or basic payment-form that hooks up with this, that or the other. You need a branded payment form that is included – for free - with your merchant account that has zero coding.
Third, with many of your clients’ revenues or maybe your own firm’s top-line revenues down CONSIDERABLY since the state shutdowns, you MUST be thinking about cost-reduction across the board in every major expense line item. The credit-card processing line item is “target one” as far as we’re concerned. Why? Well, if you haven’t heard yet, we will say it again: End-customer surcharging is here, it’s legal (in 45 US states), and it’s EASILY implemented by a couple of merchant providers that are integrated with QuickBooks (Online and Desktop) without having to manipulate each and every invoice with an additional line-item for the surcharge. Your past business may not have allowed for surcharging clients who elect to pay by credit-card. But now, you have a fiscal responsibility to drive down costs – while still giving your clients’ customers or your own customers the choice to avoid the surcharge if they instead pay by bank-transfer/ACH. The ability to “toggle-option” between credit card and e-check/ACH on a checkout page while displaying the surcharge for credit cards and suppressing it for e-check/ACH is something that we only know for sure that Freedom Merchants (author’s company) is capable of. If you or your customers need help on corporate messaging to customers on how to make that transition, we know it can be done. Tiered surcharge percentages based on transaction-size is also available, so there’s a middle ground for someone dipping their toes in the end-customer surcharge waters.
Lastly, if your clients or you haven’t activated a fixed recurring-billing program yet – so they ensure at least a baseline level of top-line revenues – then the time to think about that is now. We know that you can do that mostly with Intuit merchant on the credit card side. Last we checked though (which was today), it doesn’t appear that you can setup recurring e-check/ACH transaction in the Intuit Merchant Center. We see card-# option, but no e-check/ACH option. So – if you want that payment method (which hopefully you do because it’s a whole lot less expensive than a recurring-payment by credit card), well then you’re going to have to set up an external merchant account that has that capability built-in – and with QuickBooks integration. (Author’s note: Freedom Merchant has this).
So, we’ve given you a lot of options to handle the immediate need for a wide variety of payment options for your clients’ new normal of totally working remotely (or maybe your own new normal). We encourage you to get started a week ago. Or today. Whichever you prefer. Because it’s our hunch that we’ll be in this situation for a while, and you and your clients need to get paid!
Make sure to join our webinar with author Ben Prusky of Freedom Merchants on April 23, where he will discuss Freedom Merchants payment integrations with other systems. You can register here.