Anyone using Quickbooks Pro for their webhosting business? The merchant accounts available to Quickbooks users look to be pretty reasonably priced. The online chat rep said that it would do recurring billing.

Thanks,
Richard

I am using QB pro 2001. While I haven't figured out how to use all of the features yet, I do like the invoicing feature.

I'm not sure about other versions but PayPal is integrated into QB pro 2001. You are able to send invoices directly from QB to a client who can pay using PayPal. This is, to me anyway, a viable solutions since the QB program is relatively expensive to purchase. Muti-user or single license.

If your just starting out and are looking to save a little money for the time being than using this feature should help keeps costs down since you won't have monthly merchant account fees. Am I saying that PayPal is the way to go? Of course not. There are plenty of other services available. It just so happens that this works with QB and is free. Just my opinion.

Quickbooks Pro in my opinion has greater invoicing functionality than most of the systems designed for host billing. On the other hand, its weakness is that it does not integrate with any of your other hosting software (such as a ticket system for instance). Therefore, if you want your support staff to have access to account and customer information, you will have to enter it in at least two different places.

You have to decide if it is worth the extra effort. As someone with an accounting background, I personally find most of the other systems lacking in quality and lacking in professional presentation of the invoice and statements to the customer.

I also use QB Pro. I chose this for invoicing reasons because it offers the most features than any other program. I don't use the online merchant portion tho, so I can't say how that is.

We have been using Quickbooks Pro for about 4 years now. I have to say that it is one of the BEST software packages designed for small business. There is more thought put into this one product than most that I have seen in any other. It even interacts with our ISP billing package.

My two cents,

Walter R. Carter
President
TeleSouth Network Inc

Quickbooks Pro has a fairly extensive feature set for extending it to whatever needs you have. I've been using it since DOS days and have to say it has certainly made my life easier, especially come tax season.

I imagine it wouldn't take much work to pull data directly from some of the ISP billing software out there and plug it into Quickbooks so you wouldn't necessarily have to do any double entry beyond validating your data. And where else can you get the reports that QB Pro provides? I haven't looked at the Premier stuff yet but it looks dandy. Hopefully they'll integrate Authorize.net eventually since they now support Chase and I think Humboldt as CC merchant gateways.

I'm using QB 2001 and having no problems with it.

No, it's not automatic billing, but the trade off for manual billing with QB, is that you get automatic accounting. I like that part.

I only bill quarterly so that lightens the load on the manual billing. I really like the nice looking invoices it sends.

I accept credit cards through the Chase merchant account, PayPal, and checks. QB makes tracking the receivables easy. When I have a check or PayPal paying customer go past the due date, all I have to do is go back to the invoice and resend it with a reminder note attached.

I'm happy with QB in my (small) hosting business.

SonServer

Hi Sonserver,

That's pretty much the impression I got about the billing.

From what I could gather from the website it looks like you can set up recurring billing, but it just reminds you that you have a bill to be charged and won't automatically do it for you. I would guess that if you just set them all up to bill on the 1st of the month that wouldn't be a big deal.

I also do consulting work, so I'm really leaning towards Quickbooks so I don't have to use several different packages.

Thanks for the input.

Any reason for choosing Chase over Wells Fargo for the merchant account?

Richard

here's another thumbs up for QB2002. We use it with their merchant services through Wells Fargo and it makes invoicing much easier.

Hi Noldar,

In the version I have now (2001 basic) recurring billing is not an option. I haven't really checked out the newest version. Their "QuickBooks For The Web" is supposed to support recurring billing. I played with the web version on a trial but on my dialup it was WAY too slow to be useful.

I bill by signup date rather than first of the month. I use an Approach database for tracking all the user accounts and billing dates. Personal preference, but I would rather bill a few accounts each day than all on the first of the month.

Chase over Wells Fargo? Only reason I chose Chase was their monthly fee is $5.00/month lower. Their transaction fees are just a bit higher but the majority of my customers prefer to pay by check/PayPal and I'm not charging enough on cards to make up the difference yet. I don't know if one merchant provider is any better than the other but I have not had any trouble with Chase.

:) SonServer

Their "QuickBooks For The Web" is supposed to support recurring billing. I played with the web version on a trial but on my dialup it was WAY too slow to be useful.


I also toyed around with the "QuickBooks For The Web" I didn't have the slow connection speed but something made me leery of having all my info out in cyberland plus you couldn't modify the templates for invoices, statements, etc..

The one feature that I really wish future QB's pc versions would implement is the ability to send receipts and statements via email. The web version had it but the local installs do not. Something to look forward too I suppose.

According to what I saw on the website and from chatting with one of their reps, Quickbooks for the web doesn't do merchant accounts, just Paypal. Also, it says that it will now allow you to email and fax invoices, estimates, and statements.

I just ordered it, so we'll see how it goes :D

Richard

Originally posted by RjackSaun
The one feature that I really wish future QB's pc versions would implement is the ability to send receipts and statements via email.

What I do is make and save the invoice. Then I go to "receive payments" and process the credit card which makes the invoice show a $0.00 balance. Then I go back to the invoice and paste in a note that says something about "this invoice was paid by credit card and this copy is for your records" and send the invoice to the customer. They get the invoice that shows a $0.00 balance due but have a copy for their records. That sort of works like a receipt but not for statements.

I was also a little concerned about having all my data on the web. The thing that interested me about the web version is that I run my hosting business from three different computers and it would be nice to have the data available at each.

:) SonServers

What I do is make and save the invoice. Then I go to "receive payments" and process the credit card which makes the invoice show a $0.00 balance. Then I go back to the invoice and paste in a note that says something about "this invoice was paid by credit card and this copy is for your records" and send the invoice to the customer. They get the invoice that shows a $0.00 balance due but have a copy for their records. That sort of works like a receipt but not for statements.


Interesting way of creating and sending a receipt. I'll have to try that. Thanks for the tip.

I suppose this would be a lot easier if QB would just put that feature in. I guess it's their way of making you upgrade every year. Kinda reminds me of a lot of software companies. :)

How about PeachTree? How do you guys like that over QB for hosting?

All I can say is that we started out using it, but soon found that it was way too much work for a web hosting business. It's not set up for a subscription type service.

So we ended up just using computerized ledgers which were a LOT easier to manage (less work). After a lot of programming, the ledgers turned into a full customer admin,billing,ledger program.

This was back in 1997, though. Maybe quickbooks now a days actually has a "web hosting business" template or whatever they called them?

Quickbooks Pro from the beginning to now!

It has multi level user management so that your tech staff can see what they owe, but not give credit (a problem we had a while back) which is a really good feature to have as you grow.

Recurring billing is a pain, but for the hour I spend each month doing the billing, not bad for the ease of invoicing, and billing the credit card all in one click (about 30 seconds a customer).

I tried Rodopi (I think that is what it was called) and a few others that were built (supposably) for ISP's, and they do not come close to the ease of use that Quickbooks still has. Plus every year it gets a little better with more functions that actually help out, but leaving us a little behind on how to use them :)

Frank Arena

We were using QB Pro. It's really handy for us, because we also have a computer shop. But we recently switched to QB for the web. The biggest advantage for us is we can give our accountant a login and she can do her thing without ever seeing us. :)

we used qbpro2001 until this month. the intergration with automatic recurring processing via authnet became necessary.

we miss the level of specifity it has however we Dont miss the archaic method of rebilling - reminder to invoice to save invocie to billing client to receiving payment to reopening invoice so you can email it out.

too many steps not enough time in our day however if we had the staff we would continue to use it as the specifity of reports etc is superior to any host billing pkg

dos centavos

I am not very good with accouting so I am just wondering how easy is quickbooks for beginners?

Also how do most people go about customer informatoin during sign ups?

For example:

When a customer clicks "Order Now" and goes through the sign up process where does their information go? How does that information get put into something like quickbooks or another program?

Also how do customers get their account active in 15minutes? And do most web hosting companies do 15 minute activations and is this safe?

I am missing the middle pieces of the sign up process.

Thanks

-Darren

I use QB for the Web and really like it. It's especially convinient that everything is stored on the web because I have several computers and we work from two very different locations (I'm in Connecticut, partner is in Colorado).

The recurring billing feature is very nice. I put new customers in, setup the recurring stuff, and QB automatically emails the invoice out without me doing anything. Once the invoice has been generated, I make a A/R report and run any oustanding accounts through our merchant account system.

It would be really cool if QB for the Web could automatically run Credit Cards, but it doesn't. Even if it did, I think I would be worried that if anyone hacked their system, all of our customers credit cards would be revealed. That, as they say, would not be a good thing.

A New Version of their Online Billing is scheduled to be released soon with additional features.

Originally posted by Jay Suds
I use QB for the Web and really like it. It's especially convinient that everything is stored on the web because I have several computers and we work from two very different locations (I'm in Connecticut, partner is in Colorado).

The recurring billing feature is very nice. I put new customers in, setup the recurring stuff, and QB automatically emails the invoice out without me doing anything. Once the invoice has been generated, I make a A/R report and run any oustanding accounts through our merchant account system.

It would be really cool if QB for the Web could automatically run Credit Cards, but it doesn't. Even if it did, I think I would be worried that if anyone hacked their system, all of our customers credit cards would be revealed. That, as they say, would not be a good thing.


I thought about using Quickbooks for the web but the lack of checking account integration led me to look elsewhere. Also it is not compatible with Quickbooks for the Desktop.

I Tried the demo online and was impressed at how easy it was to navigate.

I thought about using Quickbooks for the web but the lack of checking account integration led me to look elsewhere.
:confused: :confused: :confused:
It integrates with our checking account fine.

Originally posted by sbrad

:confused: :confused: :confused:
It integrates with our checking account fine.

Here is an excerpt from the Quickbooks site. It said it doesn't support "online banking" and that's what I went off of.

QuickBooks for the Web does not provide all the features of QuickBooks desktop software. The major features not currently included are: integrated payroll, job costing and estimating, inventory, purchase orders, and online banking.

Oh, no. It does not support online banking. Yet.
But it does handle our checkbook. We just have to put stuff in there.

Amazingly Quickbooks for the Web has a 30-Day Trial offer and quick signup process. I will give them a try but it looks like they have a winning product here.

I use a desktop and laptop and it could get cumbersome trying to exchange data from one to the other. I could see where Quickbooks being on the web already has it's benefits.

:)

Amazingly Quickbooks for the Web has a 30-Day Trial offer and quick signup process. I will give them a try but it looks like they have a winning product here.
If you upload an existing Quick Books file for them to convert, you get a 90 day free trial.

Originally posted by sbrad

If you upload an existing Quick Books file for them to convert, you get a 90 day free trial.


Hey thanks for the info. That will come in handy ......