On Tuesday Intuit announced a new integration with Square and QuickBooks. The integration is designed to permit small businesses to efficiently import their transactions from Square credit card processing into QuickBooks. In a press release issued by Intuit*, Dan Wernikoff, Sr. VP and General Manager of Intuit’s Small Business Financial Solutions said, “…by rebuilding QuickBooks as an open platform, small businesses can choose to use services we provide as well as the solutions they already use and love, like Square…”
As one example of the strategic partnership between Intuit and Square, Intuit will include Square as one of the payment options within QuickBooks Point-of-Sale retail software. This represents the first time that Intuit has ever enabled direct payment options for merchant services not associated with their own Intuit Merchant Service.
By opening up the QuickBooks platforms to trusted third parties, Intuit is enabling the contributions of other software and service vendors to meet the needs of customers. This represents a key expansion on the part of Intuit in attempting to become a ‘financial operating system’ for worldwide small business.
Starting in 2009, Square began by offering a free credit card reader for the iPhone, iPad, and Android devices, allowing businesses to accept credit cards anywhere, anytime, for one low, transparent rate. Today Square continues to make commerce easy for everyone. Whether a business needs to accept credit cards, manage a full point of sale system, or sell online, Square offers simple and affordable tools. Square now offers a full suite of products and services in the United States, Canada, and Japan. Square will now be able to help businesses run even more efficiently using integrated QuickBooks products.
Offering Square to Intuit Customers does NOT signal a move away from Intuit’s own payment network or financial services, rather it simply creates additional options for not only existing Intuit customers, but other potential customers who might not have considered QuickBooks or QuickBooks Point-of-Sale if they only had the choice of Intuit Merchant accounts.
Intuit is moving to make QuickBooks more than simply accounting software, but rather a platform that can host a variety of business applications and products. The addition of Square is a clear signal that Intuit is breaking away from the once philosophy of 'tight little box' programming, and reaching out as an open platform to become 'the world's operating system behind small business success.'
*-Source: Intuit Investor Relations, 9/24/2013 Press Release: Intuit and Square Announce Point of Sale and Accounting Integration: Intuit, Inc.