PayPal, QuickBooks Partnership Goes Mobile

A partnership between a payment processor and an accounting service seems like a home run for business owners. PayPal and QuickBooks have done just that, and gone a step further by creating a mobile application for businesses to even more easily balance the books.

The companies announced Tuesday (May 19) that their collaboration, which automates the entry of data from PayPal transactions into QuickBooks Online, has culminated in the launch of their mobile app Sync with PayPal. All PayPal transactions, taxes, fees and discounts can automatically be imported into Intuit-owned QuickBooks Online without manual entry.

According to PayPal’s vice president and general manager of North American distribution Stephen Fusco, a mobile collaboration with QuickBooks was a no-brainer. “PayPal is listed by 25 percent of QuickBooks users in their chart of accounts, so we knew an integrated solution would be a valuable tool,” he said.

It’s a solution that can be particularly beneficial to busy owners of SMEs, the firms said. “Our open platform allows small businesses to use the tools of their choice and therefore operate efficiently in a frictionless environment,” Intuit senior vice president for payments and commerce solutions Eric Dunn said in a statement.

Sync with PayPal, which is available through the QuickBooks App Store for free to U.S. businesses, automatically synchronizes data uploading from PayPal into QuickBooks and categorizes the information accordingly. The service additionally offers secure downloads to protect some of the most sensitive information, including bank transfers and expenses. The app can download up to 18 months of past transactions.

The U.S. release of the service follows a beta release which saw 275,000 transactions being created in QuickBooks Online over just six weeks, the companies said. PayPal and QuickBooks are now looking to globalize the app, first launching it in the U.K., Australia and Canada later this year. QuickBooks Online first teamed up with PayPal last October.