Over the last week or so, we’ve been cleaning up the Quickbooks Merchant Service (AKA Intuit Payment Solutions) Gateway code that we developed for QuantiPay. We developed this gateway specifically for the Active Merchant Rails Plugin created by the Shopify folks. For the moment, the code is currently available as a fork of the Active Merchant codebase in our Github Repository Once everything looks good to go, we’ll submit a patch to have it included in Active Merchant. If you have questions or comments don’t hesitate to send them our way.
When is plastic the eco-friendly choice? When it is used by your organization in the capacity of taking credit card or electronic payments. When you consider the amount of resources that traditional check-based payment requires, it all adds up.
Paper, the Unsustainable Choice
First, you have the paper medium that the check is written on. While your typical piece of check paper may seem small and insignificant, consider that around 36.6 billion checks were written in 2003
Next you have the shipping and handling required to get the check to the bank. Scanning the check and submitting it electronically is an option, however many small businesses still continue to make regular trips to the bank to deposit their checks. These trips to the bank often are done using a automobile, and therefore consume unrenewable resources and produce greenhouse gases that adversely affect the environment.
If the check clears successfully, then all is well, but in 1999 there were 612 million bounced checks which incur additional shipping and handling requirements. These include having the original check returned to the merchant, and NSF notices sent to the consumer, not to mention follow-up payment which starts the cycle over again.
Plastic, the Eco-Friendly Choice
Taking payment by credit / debit card (”plastic”) or other pure electronic means eliminates the paper, shipping and handling, and follow-up processing that checks require. In addition, settlement times are faster, disputes are more easily resolved, and credit card processing is more readily available to merchants and more cost-effective than check-scanning equipment and service.
QuantiPay + You = Environmentally Conscious
Sign up for a QuantiPay account and start taking credit card payments today. If you don’t have a payment gateway, we can help set you up with one of our supported gateways. As always, feel free to contact us with any questions you may have.
Your QuantiPay payment pages have several important features that can provide your business with a professional online location to take credit card payments.
Your default QuantiPay payment URL takes the format of https://quantipay.com/username where username is what you provided when you registered for your QuantiPay account. When your customers enter this URL in your browser, they will be presented with the standard QuantiPay payment form. This form has been optimized for quick entry of only the necessary information required to process the credit card payment and send an email receipt.
Basic Branding
QuantiPay allows you to specify your company name and upload a company logo that will be displayed at the top of your payment pages. It is highly recommended to configure these items to eliminate any confusion your clients may have when they reach your payment page.
Custom Payment Pages
Subscribers to the standard plan and above now have the option to customize their payment pages for a one-time setup fee. Instead of using the standard QuantiPay payment page templates and stylesheet, we help you create a custom payment page styled to your company’s branding. Payment pages that match your business branding promote a professional business image and provide better customer assurance.
Customizing your payment pages is necessary when you require additional form fields or when your payment needs involve taking donations of a specific amount or recurring billing.
Custom Domains
For the ultimate in branded anywhere, anytime online credit card payments, our premium subscription plan lets you add a custom domain (such as payment.example.com) to your QuantiPay payment pages. A custom payment page with a custom domain gives your company a fully integrated, professional looking, website and payment processing solution.
Custom domains provide an additional level of professionalism and give your clients an easy-to-remember URL to use when providing payment for your services.
What is QuantiPay?
QuantiPay is the electronic payment platform that makes it simple for consultants and organizations to receive credit card payments anytime, anyplace through the web using the merchant payment gateway of your choice.
QuantiPay provides a payment page accessible by a unique URL assigned to your company. This payment page is available around-the-clock for your clients to use when paying for goods and services.
Your QuantiPay payment page is available for anyone to make payments, and does not require logging in or creating an account with QuantiPay. We find this reduces the barriers to payment that are often encountered with other popular payment systems.
QuantiPay eliminates the uncertainty and confusion that is experienced and the technical expertise required when starting to take credit cards for the first time.
Accepting Credit Cards is Critical
Giving your clients the option to pay by credit card often results in more timely payments as your clients are not limited by their short-term cash flow situation. Since payment is performed electronically, trips to the bank and bookkeeping overhead is reduced.
Having the ability to accept credit cards anywhere can also increase sales. How many times have you lost business because your customers didn’t have the cash on hand to pay for your goods or services?
Getting Started with QuantiPay
Signing up for your QuantiPay payment page is simple and takes less than five minutes. Once you signup and activate your QuantiPay account, you will need to connect your Payment Gateway to your QuantiPay account. Once your Payment Gateway is connected and verified, you are all set up to take credit card payments.
Inform your customers of your QuantiPay payment URL on your business card or invoices, and they can go there at their convenience to make their payment.
QuantiPay automatically sends you email notification of any payments received, and provides an account dashboard that shows all payments that have been made through your QuantiPay payment page.
