Intuit’s QuickBooks Online has become the first cloud accounting system to allow small businesses to accept bitcoin payments, we’re learning via a blog post sent to us by a company spokesperson earlier today.
The California-based company’s new PayByCoin service has been made possible through an integration between QuickBooks Online and Coinbase — a bitcoin merchant services provider and broker.
For the small businesses using QuickBooks Online to generate their electronic invoices, PayByCoin comes as a free add-on, which is certainly convenient.
Here’s how the whole thing works, as explained by Intuit:
- The small business owner/operator must first register with Coinbase and link their wallets to their existing QuickBooks Online account.
- Customers who receive and invoice have the option to pay by traditional means (credit card, etc.), but also have the option to pay in bitcoin.
- Intuit isn’t charging any fee for the service (although Coinbase does charge a 1 percent fee after the first $1 million in sales).
The company explains:
Intuit is providing the connectivity and software services to direct customers to the small business operators CoinBase wallet, and to record the transactions in QuickBooks Online. Intuit will not receive or hold any funds related to the PayByCoin transactions, either in USD or Bitcoins.
It’s an interesting development in the world of bitcoin e-commerce, especially seeing such a large company getting involved with the digital currency in this manner.
As a business owner, how inclined would you be to use this service?