Sunday, February 17, 2013

Save Time and Improve Cash Flow

There's no reason to add 20 minutes to your day for you.

Check? What's a check? You've probably heard people say that. The popularity of online bill-pay and credit or debit cards has led to the demise of many paper checkbooks.

But a lot of your customers (especially commercial/corporate) may still be using them, and that can mean multiple trips to the bank every week to deposit them. If you wait until you have several, your deposits will be delayed and your cash flow slowed down.

Intuit's Check Solution for QuickBooks may be just the solution for your business. You can accept check payments over the phone or scan the checks when they arrive in your office. Payments are deposited into your account anywhere from 1 to 4 days, depending on time of day, day of week and holidays. Most times my checks are in my account by the next day. Here are some benefits:

Faster payments. Since you can accept check payments over the phone, you don' t need to wait for the check to come via snail mail.

Save time (yours or staff): You don't have to fill out a deposit slip and go to the bank. If you scan the checks, both sides of the check are copied and stored in your QuickBooks data file no more standing by the copier to make copies of checks! This could also save you money - labor is a significant expense for most businesses, and if you're the owner, your time is valuable and better spent strategizing and making sales.

Improved accuracy. With check scanning, the numbers are entered for you. It's so easy to type a lengthy number incorrectly, especially if you're processing a number of transactions.

Decreased risk of fraud. The more people that handle a paper check, the more likely financial fraud is, so this cuts down on the number of handlers.

Lower fees. While there are fees associated with accepting e-checks, the fee per check is a very low flat rate, instead of a percent of the amount as with credit cards.

How it works

There are two methods with Intuit's check solutions.

    Electronic Check - When you accept payment over the phone or are not using a scanner, go to receive payments in QuickBooks and enter the customer and amount as usual.
        Payment method is E-Check
        Check the box at the bottom of the screen next to Process E-Check payment when saving, and save the payment record.
        You will be prompted to enter the routing and account information from the check; QuickBooks will lead you through the necessary steps.

    Check Scanning
        Click on Customers>Check Processing Activities>Scan Checks
        Scan the check (you can scan multiple checks at one time)
        Verify the information scanned correctly.
        Record the payment now or later. If you choose to do it now, Intuit will look for an appropriate open invoice. If unable to find and match, a button will appear for Receive Payments and then you can match the payment with appropriate invoice. All the payment information will be entered for you already.
        If you scanned multiple checks, you'll be asked to review each one.
        Send checks for processing - this will send the entire batch of checks you scanned.
    You'll then be asked if you want to make a deposit now or record later. If you do it now, all the checks will be on one deposit for you.

You'll need a merchant account with Intuit if you don't already have one.

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