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In the Intuit Billing Manager “Get Paid” Survey, we found that:

• 42% of small businesses state that “getting paid quickly by customers” is one of the key issues that keeps them up at night
• 33% of small business owners state that they have more overdue payments today compared to last year
• about 40% of small business owners have aging invoices of over 30 days

Surprised by the stats?  We weren’t.  We understand that getting paid faster is very important to a business owner.  That is why Billing Manager features QuickBooks Merchant Service—a complete payment solution.  With QBMS, customers can pay your invoices right away.  All they have to do is enter their credit card, debit card or checking account information onto the invoice that you’ve emailed them.  It’s that simple!

Interested?  Then, check out QBMS for free!  Right now, we are offering a free 30-day trial of QBMS.  And to sweeten the deal, we are also offering a free 6-month Billing Manager Premium Account subscription to the first 100 Billing Manager users who are approved for a QBMS account.  Now, how cool is that?  You’ll be able to easily create estimates and invoices, manage invoices, automate recurring invoices and get paid faster.

With Billing Manager and QBMS, you can say good-bye to those sleepless nights! 

If you are going solo, you may be starting out part-time, and the economy may provide opportunities for people to use your products or services if it helps them during these times.  We’ve always hoped that a product like Billing Manager, with its free features, would be useful for those brand new businesses.

I guess it comes down to whether you are a glass half-full or half-empty person.  I’ve always been an optimist myself, and have faith that things will turn around again and start a new cycle.  Do you think this time presents a good opportunity?  Have you always considered starting a new business?  Are you sitting on the fence?

By becoming a Merchant, your Billing Manager “accepted payment types” will become a much more powerful tool – you’ll be able to accept credit cards and checks electronically as forms of payment. QuickBooks Merchant Service for Billing Manager will allow your customers to pay your invoices right away by entering their credit card, debit card, or checking account information onto the invoice you’ve e-mailed them. The moment they submit payment, it is transferred to your bank account. How easy is that?  Some other payment processing services require you send your customer to their site to pay, we don’t.  Some other payment processing services require your customer signs up for their service to pay, we don’t.  We keep your customer’s payment experience consistent with what they’re used to… we keep it all within Billing Manager. Let’s take a look at what the invoice sending experience is like (for you and your customers) when you become a QBMS Merchant.

1. What you’ll first notice after becoming a QBMS Merchant is the difference between accepted payment types when you create an invoice (and also in the settings).
As a merchant, you’ll have access to payment processing for all major credit cards as well as the ability to accept electronic checks!

2.  After creating and sending an invoice, your customers will see a new “Pay Online” option when they open the link in your e-mail.

3.  Here’s what your customer will see, if they want to pay you right away and clicks “Pay Online.”

Your customer has the option to pay by either credit card or electronic check. Above we show you what they would see if they select credit card.

And here is the information they will be asked to provide should they select electronic check.

4. Once your customer supplies this information, the payment will be transferred directly from their account to yours, and will mark your invoice as paid!

This service is what keeps our free Billing Manager account free, but because of that, becoming a Merchant does cost a small fee.  Take a look at the cost breakdowns below as we compare to the average cost for similar services that are available.

If this sounds good to you, just click the QuickBooks Merchant Service button on the left side of Billing Manager next time you sign in! We promise that it’s easier than you might think!

For this example, we’re going to walk through the end-customer experience. We’ve recently done business with our friend Jason Brenner, who has just emailed us an invoice for the computer repair work that he performed (the fire sprinkler went off in our office and destroyed our PC – uhg!). Here’s the invoice in our inbox:

Now we want to check out the invoice to see what we were charged for. We click the link to go to the invoice page:

A Note on Tracking: One of the ways Billing Manager helps users manage their invoices is by tracking “History” information, including when a customer views and prints and invoice online. All of this tracking can be seen within the “unpaid” folder, by clicking the “History” button.

We click “View and Print Invoice” to open the invoice.

Those prices look correct. At the bottom of the page we find the remittance slip, which we can tear off and submit with our payment…

Now, suppose Jason Brenner had signed up for Billing Manager’s integrated Credit Card Processing Service so he can accept credit cards. When we click the invoice link in our email, we will come to this page:

Now, we have the option to pay by credit card. Jason has done a good job fixing our computer, so let’s go ahead and pay him now.

Once completed, we’ve paid our invoice online.

Fast and easy invoicing…for your customers too!

Take care,
Colin