App Unwrapped: Freedom Merchants

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Just in time for the holiday season we are introducing a new feature series that I am calling 'App Unwrapped!''  It's a brief review of software, services or products you might not have heard about, or considered, that are somewhat surprising alternatives to what's been around for a good long time. It's like finding something you weren't expecting under your holiday tree.

How often have you wondered if there wasn’t a merchant service alternative that would not only integrate with your QuickBooks (Online or Desktop) accounting system, but also offer you E-commerce and Recurring Payment capabilities?  Well, surprise-surprise, Freedom Merchants may just be the alternative you have been looking for!

With Freedom Merchants, you can streamline your receipts.You won’t need Intuit merchant services for QuickBooks payments, or a bank’s processing machine for your storefront, or PayPal or Stripe for your on-line store, or some other processor if you take donations or promote events. Freedom Merchants can do it all.

Whether it’s a one-time payment through your branded Check-out Page or a recurring transaction, Freedom Merchants can provide credit-card and check/ACH processing that integrates with any version of QuickBooks to eliminate double-entry. Freedom Merchants provides the tools you need to accept payments both online and in-person.

QuickBooks Invoicing and Payments

Freedom Merchants makes it easy and fast to Invoice customers from directly within QuickBooks or via a separate invoicing-tool, email or text message. Adding your Freedom Merchants URL link to Invoice emails takes only seconds in either QuickBooks Online or QuickBooks Desktop. Then your customers simply click the link in the QuickBooks Invoice email to pay their invoice. Once the payments are recorded in QuickBooks, the invoices will be marked as paid.

There is a slight difference between the processes, depending on which QuickBooks version you are using. Payments by your customers get sync’d to QuickBooks Online in real time, while you will need to perform a 2-step export/import of payments from your Freedom Merchants virtual-terminal into QuickBooks Desktop.

Integrating with E-commerce and QuickBooks

If you are into E-commerce, Freedom Merchants attaches to your website without any extra cost or programming required. Your new check-out page will look exactly like your current website because the layout and branding will be identical. You will likely find that the Freedom Merchants check-out options may exceed even your current check-out capabilities when it comes to the use of ‘promo codes,’ ‘discounting,’ ‘CC-surcharging,’ and many more. 

Freedom Merchants gives you the options you have been looking for when it comes to integration of your E-commerce websites with QuickBooks. It can handle Product/Services assignments along with Class and Locations. It’s the only solution that can intelligently map your payments in as many appropriate revenue buckets in QuickBooks as you need. And you even have an option of ‘Daily Totals Only’ if you’re not wanting all the transaction details within your QuickBooks data.

Recurring Billings and Payments

Looking for a better way to handle recurring payments? Freedom Merchants offers recurring billing transactions via their virtual-terminal. You will have the flexibility you need to schedule and run recurring transactions on a variety of frequencies and allow customers to choose the payment method that meets their needs. When appropriate, your branded check-out page can even permit customers to configure their own one-time or recurring payment options (as shown in the 'blue box' within the example below).

Recurring transactions and their payments are then easily exported to either QuickBooks Online or QuickBooks Desktop.

Comparative Shopping

If you have been wanting to explore merchant service options, make certain to compare these other Freedom Merchant benefits against your current payments provider.

  • One Merchant-account for all your payment needs: Invoicing, web-payments, E-commerce/shopping-carts, recurring billing, in-person payments and more.
  • No extra ‘webmaster’ or ‘programming’ charges to make changes to your website’s ‘Pay Now’ or ‘Sign-up Now’ buttons.
  • Completely customized and branded ‘Check-out page’ that will match your current website without additional software or programming charges.
  • Avoids having to deal with multiple payment processors including Paypal, Stripe, Square, and others.
  • Your merchant service functionality becomes the connector between point-of-sale systems and shopping-carts to link transactions and payments with QuickBooks Online or QuickBooks Desktop.
  • Offers concurrent integrations with HubSpot, MailChimp, Salesforce, InfusionSoft and other software.
  • Offers Quick Re-Bill and Refund capabilities of any amount within merchant-control.
  • Ability to process multiple-invoices at the same time.
  • Eliminates the need to obtain your own SSL Certificate representing a $400/year savings.
  • Consistently ‘top rated’ Payment Processing App in the Intuit QuickBooks App Center.
  • Month-end ‘fee deduction,’ rather than ‘fees deducted from each transaction’ greatly simplifies and streamlines your bank reconciliations.
  • Highly competitive merchant-service fees. You should contact Freedom Merchants for a formal quote based upon your unique requirements and merchant service activity.

For more information make certain to check out the Freedom Merchants website.