Terminal Illness – Intuit Payment Network

March 17, 2016

10:00 PM

Like knowing you have a ‘terminal illness’, so is the upcoming demise of the Intuit Payment Network (IPN). On May 31, 2016, the ability to send invoices containing an IPN payment link and send payments with the Pay Vendor tool will come to an end, and the beginning of the IPN ‘death spiral’ will swirl for roughly another month as customers will still be able to pay any open invoices through your Pay Link until June 30, 2016. You will also be able to download IPN payments posted to your account and review all past transactions until that same June 30^th date.

Intuit’s response to this change (on their part) is to suggest that you first consider switching to QuickBooks Online and begin using eInvoicing. If you only make use of the IPN Website, then you can start a new QBO (from scratch) file. For those using QuickBooks for Mac they can either transfer their Company data to QBO, or start a new file from scratch.

For those using QuickBooks (desktop), they will need to upgrade to a member of the QuickBooks (Windows desktop) 2016 product line so they too can make use of eInvoicing including the ‘Pay Now’ button technology for Invoices.

If you don't want to find yourself without electronic payment for invoicing capability they you may want to check out the Intuit Support Document for more details about this latest change, or contact Intuit Payments for more information about QuickBooks Payment Options that may fit your needs.

Comments (15)

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Checkbook.io Digital Checks, payment gateway

Since IPN has been taken off, I've been using Checkbook as a means for AP/AR; they have APIs that allow your customers to pay you directly from your website. Or you can invoice easily too. Worth checking out is https://www.rosen.com/payment/ as an example

JP Carroll more than 8 years ago

Agreed

I've heard of Checkbook.io and its a great option, especially since IPN is no longer something we can ues

James Patrick more than 8 years ago

Dwolla seems to work

After a long search where I have been looking for a substitute for IPN for collecting rents, Dwolla is what I will switch to. It offers recurring requests and has no fees. The drawback is that you can not set the start and end date for the recurring transactions. They have a real opportunity here if they add that feature for peole in the small scale home rental business.

Andrew B White more than 8 years ago

IPN too good to be true, I guess

I am also saddened by the decision to do away with IPN on Intuit's part. All I can think is they are making a sweet profit off of forcing many to switch to QB Online. Also, I've spent 8 hours the past 2 days on the phone with the 20 different contact numbers Intuit has and have been given various responses to the same questions, depending on the person I've asked. My scenario is this: I invoice tenants for rent and only accept ACH payments. Since there are many tenants, IPN was great because of the recurring payment request option. Now, I find that none of the QB models allow for sending recurring invoices to the tenants. This is ASENINE that they would expect someone to go and create new invoices every month for the same list of clients!

Not only that, it's an obvious money grab for Intuit because they do allow you send recurring invoices ONLY if you're accepting credit card payments!!! The must be getting a cut of the 3.5% credit card processing fee.

Trey more than 8 years ago

IPN too good to be true, I guess

Trey's scenario is exactly what I am up against! It was so easy to collect rents using IPN but the QuickBooks process is a pain! Yesterday I spent over 2 hours on one phone call setting up one of my QB company files. I need to collect into three different company files and QB has them all mixed up on their merchant service center. Plus I would have to pay for a mid-range version of QB online to set up recurring invoices! Looking diligently for another solution online. Rather fed up with QB!

Nola Cooper more than 8 years ago

EOL for IPN

I am in agreement with all the comments here. I've searched since last year. I first was upset that Intuit closed down the client portals, and now IPN. I have found a solution that seems to work well. GoToMyAccounts.com Their site allows clients/tenants to view their account online. They can see all their past payments and invoices. The data sync is Excellent in and out of quickbooks desktop. Instead of ACH, they have eCheck. I have to print out checks, but it is something. There are other payment methods, Authorize, PayJunction, Strip or PayPal.
The notice of IPN Closure forced me to jump on a payment method3/20 as I needed to make sure the new method would work prior to the closing on IPN.

Steve more than 8 years ago

Sick at the loss of IPN

I use QB Desktop and don't want to mess with creating and sending invoices when I can simply use a memorized transaction to record my monthly IPN payment receipts. IPN was perfect for my rental management, I simply had to set up a new tenant and everything is automated for the duration of the lease.

WHY the hell did Intuit kill this? So frustrating.

I hope many feel like I do and flood them with complaints and suggestions. I was told the best way to do this is use the "product Suggestion" under the "send Feedback online" in the Help tab.

At the very lease they need to automate recurring payment requests so we don't have to manually create and send invoices for every payment request. Not a big deal if you have a few per year but when you have dozens per month, the unnecessary tedium starts to add up.

I'm looking for other companies that offer ACH transfers and so far the few I've found require a monthly cost plus a per transaction cost. Hoping to find something close in cost to what IPN charged.

I always felt IPN was on borrowed time because the cost was just amazingly cheap for the convenience and quality being offered. Unfortunately that's proven to be true.

Yimyammer more than 8 years ago

Bill.com as an alternative to IPN

Is anyone using Bill.com with an older (older than 2016) version of QB desktop as a solution to he IPN which will be killed off soon. Maybe the "k" word is a bit harsh. But I think you get my drift.
thanks

bill rogers more than 8 years ago

alternative to IPN

I also lament the demise of IPN. am experimenting with Dwolla. So far I have had one payment go through and it worked exactly as advertised. Dwolla has no fees.

Randall W Bos more than 8 years ago

IPN vs QuickBooks payments?

Possibly a stupid question, but is the IPN payment system different from QuickBooks payments? In June 2015 I was guided to convert to QuickBooks payments (for ACH payments) because IPN was going away. Am I safe with this (haven't seen it in the options) or, as QBDT user will I need to upgrade to QB2016 to retain ability for clients to pay me via a link on their invoice?

Elizabeth Benton more than 8 years ago

IPN vs Quickbooks payments question

Elizabeth Benton, did you get this question answered?

Karen Martin more than 8 years ago

We only have the information in the official notification.

We call your attention to the link to the official notification, according to that information you will need QuickBooks Desktop 2016 to work with Intuit's family of payment solutions.

insightfulaccountant.com more than 8 years ago

Demise of IPN

My worst fear of losing IPN was first ignited when Payments employed some of the great features of IPN into the full merchant services system. (pay-as-you-go and ACH transfers for example). But the solutions that IPN also provided that Payments cannot do for us is that beautiful, simple link that could be provided to clients where they fill in the amount they want to pay.... WITHOUT the need of an invoice. This is extremely helpful when starting a new client relationship that requires an up-front retainer. It's not certain that you will receive payment, but using the IPN link made it easy for them to say 'yes". I spoke with Intuit about this type of situation and the basic answer was.... yes, you're right. We don't have that with Payments. IPN also had the ability to add a payment button to your website. Payment - nope. Only tied to an invoice. So, for me, May 31, and subsequently June 30 are sad, sad days that I knew would arrive eventually. Only with Intuit recognized how beautiful IPN was and didn't have to kill it as a way to make more people move to QBO. Some of us already use QBO, but also appreciate the simple, unique standalone advantages that IPN provided that Payments simply cannot.

Gabrielle Fontaine more than 8 years ago

Recurring payments using Bank Transfer

I have been unable to find any information about setting up recurring payments in QBO using bank transfer like I was able to set up in my QBDT file. Any ideas?

Marcia Lorraine more than 8 years ago

I've been told....

I said the same thing and someone from the Feedback team called and said they are actively working on this feature and hope to have something available "soon". Not sure whether that is a standard answer or whether the feature is imminent. Hopefully the latter.

Kirk W. Johnson more than 8 years ago