Intuit to Accept Square in QuickBooks

Merchants that use Square will be able to use it with Intuit's QuickBooks accounting software, as Intuit adds support for the mobile card reader in the newest version of its program, according to multiple reports.

The integration will automatically move transaction data—currently a manual process—into QuickBooks for merchants using the Square Register point of sale software or the Square Market e-commerce platform, reported AllThingsD.com on Sept. 24.

Few details were provided about the terms of the deal or the integration of the application programming interface. But the partnership goes live November 19, reports AllThingsD.com. Intuit and Square did not respond by deadline to inquiries from PaymentsSource.

Intuit and Square sell competing mobile card readers and other point of sale products and services. The standard QuickBooks software sells for $249.95 and a software as a service-style QuickBooks Online starts at $12.95 per month.

Last year, Intuit integrated its own portable card reader, GoPayment, with the more expensive QuickBooks Point of Sale, which starts at $1,199.95.

"GoPayment is a growing portion of our payments business and I expect it will continue it to be," says Dan Wernikoff, senior vice president and general manager of Intuit's small business financial solutions, in a Sept. 24 TechCrunch report. "But all of us have been at chapter one of mobile payments, a very basic phase focused on emulating a point-of-sale device. Chapter two is that each of us is starting to move in different directions."

In July, Intuit sold its digital banking division, exhibiting the company's position that banks aren't the only way to marry merchant services with consumer mobile payments.

Other emerging payments companies are working to integrate with QuickBooks.  Bitcoin merchant service business BitPay recently added support for QuickBooks to provide streamlined bookkeeping for its 50,000 bitcoin-accepting business clients.