Payment Collection Services

On August 21st, 2015 by

With the rapid advancement of mobile technology, several hardware options have emerged for collecting credit/debit card payments in the field. The ability to process electronic payments on-site is a great way to instill your customers with a sense of your company’s professionalism and credibility. When asked, there are a few payment collection options our product specialists recommend.

1. Square – Possibly the most recognizable name in the card collection game, small businesses everywhere use Square to process payments every day. It’s easy to see why. Square has no up-front cost or subscription fee. Instead, the service keeps 2.75% of every transaction. When coupled with an iPad, users can enjoy an expanded feature set, making Square a great option to pair with our iFleet app. You can read more about Square on the company’s website.
2. GoPayment – If you’re looking for QuickBooks integration, you can’t do better than GoPayment. Why? Because GoPayment is an official Intuit (makers of QuickBooks) product! After creating a merchant account with Intuit, the GoPayment service is available in a pay-as-you-go or monthly subscription form. Depending on what you select, GoPayment will keep 1.75-3.40% of every transaction (on top of a $0.25 transaction fee). A more detailed explanation of GoPayment Is available at the GoPayment website.
3. PayPal Here – One of the oldest names in the online payment business, PayPal has begun to offer a card reading service called PayPal Here. Unsurprisingly, PayPal Here offers great integration with PayPal, making it a good option for companies using PayPal elsewhere in their operations. The base transaction fee for PayPal Here starts at 2.7%, with increased rates for specialized (ex. international) transactions. You can read more about PayPal Here at the product’s website.

There are dozens of other options for processing payments with mobile devices in the field. We’ve outlined some of the most notable options here, but a bit of additional research should turn out the perfect partner for your company.

Smart Service Product Demo

On August 7th, 2015 by

I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that Smart Service answers every need facing the modern service company. We harnessed twenty years of service industry software experience when developing this product. As a result, there’s almost nothing it can’t do. Once you get lost in all of Smart Service’s functionality, it’s easy to overlook the software’s most basic function: scheduling jobs!

This video will walk you through scheduling and dispatching a job in the Smart Service system. Get a firsthand look at the basics!

If you’d like to see more, consider requesting a demo to enjoy your own personal Smart Service tour.

Upgrading to Windows 10

On August 3rd, 2015 by

This week Microsoft officially launched their newest operating system, Windows 10. As part of the launch, Microsoft is offering a promotion that allows Windows 7 and 8 users to upgrade to Windows 10 for free. Service companies everywhere should absolutely take advantage of this offer, but should also be careful during the transition to avoid losing any data.

Things to consider:

• Upgrading Windows may remove some of your installed applications and cause incompatibility with others. We have tested Smart Service extensively with Windows 10 and have not found any issues with compatibility. However, if you make the upgrade, you might need to reinstall Smart Service on the upgraded computer (this might also apply to QuickBooks). Similarly, you should be cautious when upgrading a server PC or any computer containing a database. To avoid data loss, contact us about making a backup.
• If you upgrade to Windows 10 and your applications are removed, you’ll need to have our Help Desk set up Smart Service again. To schedule such a procedure, simply give us a call at 1-888-518-0818!
• Depending on its location, your image directory it might be in danger of deletion during an upgrade. If your directory is stored on a separate drive, or on the main directory (EX c:\ssx images) it should be fine.
• After the upgrade, your computer’s drivers may no longer be compatible or may lose access to networked drives and server data. If this happens, they will need to be reinstalled and Smart Service will need to be reconnected. We can easily assist with this, reconnecting your workstations after the network drivers or any other network related issues are resolved.

If you are unsure if your Smart Service data will survive an upgrade, call us! We will gladly make sure your data is backed up prior to the move to prevent any data loss. Our Help Desk is here for situations just like this one!