Calculating and reporting payroll taxes, tracking sales, managing expenses, and safely storing all of these records can take a huge toll on a small-business owner’s time. To show entrepreneurs the benefits of technology, Black Enterprise asked business software maker Intuit to give one small eatery a software makeover. Intuit responded with a package that includes five years of free QuickBooks Online Plus & Payroll package and Intuit’s GoPayment with one year of credit card processing fees waived, which all together is worth nearly $5,000.
No one knows better than Larry and Robyn Swayne, owners of Wingzza, a popular mobile food truck in Charlotte, North Carolina, how essential technology can be to the survival of your business. Despite a fire that totaled their first truck in June 2011, Wingzza’s pizza went on to be named the “Best Slice in North Carolina†by Food Network Magazine and the truck was featured on the Cooking Channel.
But business could have taken a tragic turn if their laptop, payroll notes, bank statements, and accounting paperwork had been damaged in that fire. Although they had been using Intuit’s Quickbooks for desktops, they would have lost a year’s worth of financial records because the files weren’t backed up anywhere else.
The Swaynes kept a journal for three months to chronicle their experience with Quickbooks Online and GoPayment and found that the software gave them more time, money, and security. See for yourself.
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Aug. 5: Today we applied for our merchant account. Once we received the approval we downloaded the GoPayment App for our iPhone. The interface was quite simple. We plugged in the GoPayment swiper, the app detected the device, and it was ready to accept payments. And now we’re off!
Aug. 13: Setting up QuickBooks Online. We had to invest a lot of time to input employee year-to-date (YTD) distributions, but it was well worth it. Now QBO can assess whether our quarterly payments are accurate.
Sept. 3:
First day accepting payments. We were a little nervous on the first day of using the service for our CC processing. We weren’t sure what to expect. The first customer came, ordered, and handed Larry their credit card. The swiper detected it. He entered the amount and a signature box came up. They signed their name with their finger. The first day was great!Sept. 4: 2012: Used our Intuit GoPayment app and swiper for the Democratic National Convention. It went off without a hitch and generated lots of “oohs and aahs.†President Obama didn’t come to visit our truck but we’re sure if he had, he would’ve been impressed.
Sept. 18: Unveiled our new wing flavors in Uptown Charlotte and it has generated a large crowd. Surprisingly, the payments are processing much faster than with our old system. This helps move the line along quicker. Also, GoPayment saves money on paper rolls, which is helpful to the environment. We love the paperless system!
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Sept. 21: Issued our first payroll using QuickBooks Online. The payroll service is remarkable! It saved us so much time. Before we did payroll bi-weekly and it took 30 to 35 minutes. Now it takes less than five minutes, and most of that time is logging in. Wingzza employees are raving about our new online accessible pay-stubs. Before, we printed pay-stubs. Now we send our employees an e-mail log in through QBO and they can log in to the site and see all of their pay-stubs. They are able to keep track of hours worked, taxes paid, and year-to-date earnings. It also offers direct deposit.
Oct. 25: There was a discrepancy between two of the IRS documents we used to calculate Medicare and withholding taxes. We would not have figured out that we were paying too much to Social Security for employees without Quickbooks Online. It increases your accuracy and eliminates mistakes.
Oct. 27: Serving Wingzza at Johnson
C. Smith University Homecoming and voided an accidental payment with no sweat! We couldn’t even tell you how to void a payment on the other machine, and we’d used it for a couple of years.Oct. 29: It’s awesome that the app is backed up. We can see every payment we’ve ever taken with GoPayment along with a detailed record of deposits into our business bank account. This makes our bookkeeping process simple. Also, when Larry is not on the truck he is able to see how much progress the employees make while he is gone by using the app. We can check the sales total throughout the day from any phone or desktop and pull up sales reports for a certain time, day, or week; even the average ticket.
Nov. 1: Before, we were paranoid about losing our files. But with Quickbooks Online it’s now all stored in the cloud so we don’t have to worry anymore.