Intuit continues to build its connections in an effort to get small-businesses owners who are increasingly drawn to cloud solutions to turn to – or stick with – QuickBooks.
Building its ecosystem, acquiring competitors and forging partnership over the past year, Intuit continues to position itself as a leader in an ever-changing business environment.
One key move in continuing to position itself as a leader in the small business accounting industry is Intuit’s choice of Revel Systems as its premier partner for QuickBooks’ Point of Sale offering. The iPad POS solution is expected to be able to seamlessly integrate into the QuickBooks ecosystem.
Planned for market in 2015, Revel’s POS ability will allow QuickBooks users to deliver sales, payments and inventory with QuickBooks’ accounting abilities.
Does the Revel deal trump Intuit recent partnerships with Vend and POSE, both of which are also POS vendors? Only time will tell, but it would seem that three is a crowd in POS partnerships.
Eric Dunn, Intuit senior vice president for payments and commerce solutions, was non-committal when he spoke with Forbes magazine about the issue, but definitely gave the appearance the company is leaning toward Revel.
“Partnering with Revel allows us to provide a best-in-class point-of-sale solution that works seamlessly with QuickBooks Online,” he said. “We are particularly excited by the fact that we’ll be able to build on our existing strength in retail point-of-sale and now meet the needs of customers in additional categories, such as restaurant and grocery.
“Importantly, this partnership also demonstrates how our open platform approach allows us to leverage tailored solutions that meet the unique needs of the broad range of small businesses.”
The QuickBooks Point of Sale powered by Revel Systems claims to be able to provide several features including:
– Seamless integration with QuickBooks: Sales and payment data will automatically be entered into QuickBooks Online. This eliminates having to manually reconcile books after hours.
– Total access: Revel’s point of sale solution will let small-business owners track sales, staffing, payroll and inventory from any Internet-accessible device.
– iPad interface: Management tools will no longer be hidden and require hours of training so employees understand the system.
– Always On: Revel’s system will accept and sync payments to sales and inventory reports even when the Internet is slow or completely down.
– Inventory insights: The system will provide insight into inventory, including sales numbers and a history of all orders.
With the way the QuickBooks and Revel systems are expected to mesh, it is not inconceivable to see Revel and Intuit becoming more than friends down the road. Revel being acquired by Intuit definitely seems to be a possibility, especially with cloud start-up Xero making an impact in the accounting software market. Intuit’s ability to throw cash at an issue, however, has to have officials at Xero wondering.
When the Revel release happens and whether Vend and POSE remain in the picture will be determined in coming months, possibly when Xero’s impact on the U.S. market becomes more evident.
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