QuoteWerks 4.7 Adds Sales Tax Calculation, Enhanced QuickBooks Integration

"Our software is built around trying to help small businesses with their daily struggles, giving them the tools to do their business activity in areas where that might bog them down," said John Lewe, president, founder, and lead developer at QuoteWerks, Orlando, Fla.

One new feature in QuoteWerks 4.7 is a feed that automatically calculates appropriate city, county or state sales tax based on inputting the customer's zip code, Lewe said.

"You click on a button and it's there. Without that functionality, most people go to a state's Web site, track down their list of sales tax rates. It's real time consuming," Lewe said. The sales tax tool is included in QuoteWerks' subscription rate at no additional fee to solution providers using the company's Real-time module, he added.

Also updated is the QuoteValet 1.3 product that now offers payment processing from more than 80 gateways, including QuickBooks Merchant Services, Google Check, PayPal and Authorize.net.

"Now with this 1.3 release, after you accept a quote, it gives you the ability to pay by credit card for the quote. A lot of small businesses use QuickBooks and QuoteValet means they can use their own existing gateway and normal accounts without having to set up something special," Lewe said.

QuoteValet is designed as a "more modern way of delivering quotes," Lewe added. Instead of e-mailing a quote, users are directed to find their quote on a QuoteWerks server, where they have the ability to pick and choose options and recalculate the quote.

"When they view the quote, you get an automatic e-mail so you know they viewed the quote. You can also see what IP addresses they viewed the quote from to gauge interest there," Lewe said.

Matthew Zaroff, president of NetOps, a Sherman Oaks, Calif.-based solution provider, said QuoteValet will cut down on his company's resources and time needed to handle orders.

"With the new QuoteValet upgrade, I’ll not only be able to have customers approve their quotes electronically, but they will now be able to pay with a credit card at the time of acceptance electronically," Zaroff said. "Previously, I’d had to include a PDF or a payment authorization form that the customer would fill out and fax back. Now I no longer need to deal with paperwork and it will allow for my customers to get payment to me faster."

Also, Zaroff liked that QuoteValet can accept deposits and partial payments, not just full payments "[That's] great for projects that require 50 percent down and 50 percent on completion," he said.

QuoteWerks also enhanced its Etilize 2.0 product content subscription to show complementary accessories for products that customers are considering purchasing, Lewe said.

"If you're buying a printer, it shows you the toner cartridges. It also has real-time pricing and availability from all the distributors you purchase from, Ingram Micro, Tech Data, Synnex and D&H [Distributing]," said Lewe.

"When you receive payment for something, the payment gets deducted from a credit card and placed into the checking account that you've chosen. But you just have some mystery amount that gets deposited. Late, you have to figure on what that was for. With our integration, we grab that payment and export that payment over to QuickBooks and a payment record is received that you can link to that particular order. That really closes a loop that was a tremendous [time burden]. A lot of people with small businesses do that manually, paying a bookkeeper to do that each month."

QuoteWerks has been coming to IT Nation, first known as the ConnectWise Partner Summit, for about five years and about 25 percent of this year's attendees use the company's solutions, Lewe said.

"They're all very motivated people, motivated to make changes in their business and spend money to make those changes. They're not just window shoppers. They come prepared to move forward," he said.