Intuit has launched a free service called PayByCoin which lets QuickBooks Online users invoice and accept payments with the virtual currency bitcoin. Intuit claims the service already has strong traction in the US due to its integration with its online accounting program, QBO.
“QuickBooks Online is the first cloud accounting solution to enable small businesses to accept bitcoin payments. It provides an efficient, safe, and seamless payment option that doesn’t sacrifice their revenues in credit card transaction fees,” said Nicolette Maury, managing director of Intuit Australia, in a press release.
PayByCoin uses global bitcoin payment processor BitPay to handle the virtual currency. There are no fees to use the service which makes it easier to transact between countries. There are no chargebacks as bitcoin transactions are irreversible, which reduces the incidence of fraud and improves the availability of funds. The service promises quick deposits with bitcoin transactions settling immediately and next-day payouts in local currency.
The advantage of paying international suppliers with bitcoin is that there are no credit card transaction fees, foreign transaction or wire transfer fees attached.
BitPay, the processor used by PayByCoin, supports settlement in nine currencies and direct bank deposit in 33 countries. The currencies are:
- AUD – Australian Dollars
- BTC – Bitcoin
- CAD – Canadian Dollars
- EUR – Euros
- GBP – Pounds Sterling
- MXN – Mexican Pesos
- NZD – New Zealand Dollar
- USD – US Dollars
- ZAR – South African Rand
Intuit stays out of the payment process, leaving all the money handling to BitPay.
QuickBooks Online need to click on the gear icon in QuickBooks Online, navigate to QuickBooks Labs and follow the prompts to activate PayByCoin. Once activated, PayByCoin can be managed on the QuickBooks Online Company Settings page.
QuickBooks Online Adds Links to Bigcommerce and Shopify Links
QuickBooks Online is also pushing into online retail with direct connections to Shopify and Bigcommerce, two popular e-commerce platforms.
Transactions generated from sales on a Shopify or BigCommerce website will automatically transfer to the retailer’s QuickBooks Online account. The sales data from the e-commerce platforms will automatically reconcile with transactions added by bank feeds from connected accounts.
The integration eliminates the need to manually reconcile sales deposits, bank fees, refunds and sales tax. It improves the accuracy of data by eliminating data entry.
The integrations will give online retailers up-to-date statistics of their websites’ commercial performance. A profit and loss will show live information from the latest online sales, rather than waiting for a bookkeeper to reconcile the account first.
Intuit wasn’t able to confirm launch dates for these integrations.