Intuit GoPayment, a new way for business owners to process credit cards on their mobile phones, is the first small business application available for the new Palm Pre phone.
The Pre went on sale Saturday (June 6), and GoPayment, developed by Intuit Inc . (Nasdaq: INTU), the maker of QuickBooks, can be downloaded from Pre's on-device beta App Catalog. GoPayment helps improve cash flow by giving small businesses an affordable and hassle-free way to process credit card payments outside the office as soon as the job is done.
Pre, exclusively offered from Sprint, helps consumers and business owners become more productive by bringing together the key information they want from different sources, such as the Web or a personal computer, and making it available in just one place - when they need it.
"Palm Pre lets entrepreneurs easily juggle the many demands of their business with those of their personal life," said Pam Deziel, vice president, Developer Marketing, Palm, Inc. "Palm products have always been about simplifying lives, and GoPayment does that too by letting business owners process payments on the spot so they get paid faster."
GoPayment is part of Intuit's small business growth strategy to deliver innovative mobile offerings that help entrepreneurs manage their business on the go. As one of its first mobile partners, Intuit recently announced its work with Sprint to offer GoPayment on select Sprint phones, now including Pre. At the same time, to develop GoPayment for Pre, Intuit worked closely with beeweeb, a mobile software design company, to take advantage of the enhanced productivity offered by the webOS development environment. Leveraging beeweeb's mobile expertise, Intuit quickly delivered an intuitive user experience leveraging Pre's touch screen and multitasking capabilities.
GoPayment Features and Benefits
GoPayment is ideal for small businesses that sell products or services outside of the office or store, such as carpet cleaners, plumbers, photographers, and wedding planners. It provides an affordable and hassle-free way to get paid on the spot. Features and benefits include:
- No extra hardware: GoPayment works on the mobile phone entrepreneurs are already carrying; it requires no special hardware, such as an expensive wireless terminal, which costs around a thousand dollars.
- Easy to use: All that's needed is the Palm Pre with the GoPayment application and an Intuit GoPayment merchant account. Within seconds, users can enter credit card data, process payment and send an e-mail or text receipt.(1)
- Scalable for multiple employees: Business owners can add employees to a single merchant account at no additional cost.
- Transaction management: GoPayment users can monitor transactions and users via Intuit's online Merchant Service Center. They can also save time by downloading transactions into QuickBooks Pro or Premier 2009.
- Security: GoPayment protects information during transmission using the same technology as the financial services industry standard. Credit card data is never stored on the handset and each user has a unique login and password to access GoPayment information.
Pricing and Availability
The Intuit GoPayment application is free and is available now on Pre's on-device beta App Catalog. To process credit card payments, business owners also need an Intuit GoPayment merchant account, which costs $19.95 a month and requires a one-time setup fee of $59.95. Transaction pricing is competitive with no long-term contracts. Business owners may cancel at any time.