Category Archives: Technology
PaySimple at Finovate
I normally don’t like to blog about our accomplishments — at least not on the company blog — but I was especially excited about our presentation at Finovate in San Francisco this morning, where our CEO – Eric Remer – and VP of Product Development – Jenae Wiegert, showcased our latest technology platform.
Finovate, deemed to be the showcase of the future of financial and banking technology, handpicks companies to present, in 7 minutes or less (no slides allowed), what makes their technology a needle-mover. Our team gave an awesome presentation and showed to the financial world the technology we’re so excited about: Camp.
With Camp, large enterprises with small business customer bases can offer a custom-branded, turnkey receivables automation technology for their small business members with very little startup time and capital. Continue reading…
Why mobile payments made our Final Four
The average business owner spends at least 12 hours per week managing his or her business while on-the-go.1 Before the surge of mobile payments and the digital wallet, for a small business using invoicing, collecting payments and managing receivables was a task that had to be done back in the office or at home.
There is no denying that mobile payments are an extremely powerful tool, and arguably, will completely evolve the way consumers pay for goods and services in the future. (See why mobile payments made the Final Four in our March Madness inspired infographic: “The Madness of Getting Paid.” We pinned the many different payment tools available for business owners in head-to-head matchups, competing on speed to get paid and cost-effectiveness.)
Aside from the hyped apps we hear about that you can use to pay for your coffee or have an attendant swipe your card to get into a comedy show, how are small businesses using the technology? Continue reading…
The SMB forecast is cloudy (in a good way)
Isn’t the Internet handy? It gives us the ability to access free information from virtually anywhere, even from our pocket-sized super computers, formally known as cell phones. But what’s even greater than the free information is the universal access to our personal accounts for email, banking, and social networking from just about anywhere.
The impact of cloud computing is not limited to your personal life, though. Businesses use the cloud to manage critical operations such as customer relations, long-distance meetings and payment processing. Continue reading…
How to create a secure password
Today’s technology allows you to hold your life literally in the palm of your hand. Before I got out of bed this morning, I had already skimmed the morning news, checked my bank account, browsed my email and confirmed an upcoming airline flight.
All your most private information is stored on imaginary clouds that seem to be protected by passwords. But even as technology evolves, the methods hackers use to break into your personal information continue to advance as well. Continue reading…
The Evolution of Online Donations
Let’s travel back in time to 2001: Google was three years old and the 12th most visited site online. Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg was a junior in high school and wouldn’t invent a website to meet girls for another three years. The internet was a different place – adolescent and almost unrecognizable compared to the internet we know today. Likewise, online donations were possible, but not readily accessible to most non-profits or donors.
Of course, the most memorable outpouring of support for a cause in 2001 came after the September 11th attacks. Over $1.4 billion are estimated to have been donated to the relief effort, with the American Red Cross raising $564 million through the Liberty fund within one month of the 9/11 attacks.
Fast forward ten years: March 11, 2011. Japan’s earthquake and ensuing tsunami again brings together the international community to donate to relief efforts, with Americans alone donating over $30 million dollars in just three days. Continue reading…
Nonprofits can have InvoiceSimply Free for Life
As part of PaySimple’s Philanthropy February, we are giving our InvoiceSimply® software to nonprofits free for life. But how does InvoiceSimply work, and how can nonprofits use it to be more efficient or increase donations? Here are a few ways our nonprofit customers find it helpful. Continue reading…
Will working from home become the new norm?
Everything these days seems to have gone online: marketing, meetings, online billing, customer service, networking and even invoicing. But a new trend is emerging that may someday evolve into the new norm: working online from home.
According to the Employment Review from Elance reports, the number of businesses seeking to hire independent contractors who work remotely doubled in 2011. And 83 percent of businesses surveyed said they plan to let half their employees work from home over the next 12 months. Continue reading…
What’s more secure: The iPhone or the Droid?
As the mobile payment industry continues to grow and evolve, mobile security has become a key issue when deciding which smart phone brand to buy.
The Android and the iPhone both dominate the smart phone market, but which is more secure for accepting credit card payments through your mobile phone?
First, let’s look at the similarities: Both the Android and the iPhone have idle-time screen locking mechanisms, which require a password to protect against anyone who picks up your abandoned phone. Also, apps can never access the underlying hardware of either smartphone because layers of software control all hardware interactions – acting as the carrier pigeon between the device and its operating system. Both devices also protect against web-based attacks.
Continue reading…
What to Consider when Choosing a CRM
So, your small business has been doing pretty well, customers continue to find your service and it’s becoming harder and harder to manage their information. Paper files over here and electronic files over there—organization and efficiency are becoming a real concern.
You’ve started to consider purchasing CRM software in order to make your life easier, but you don’t quite know where to begin. Here are 5 critical aspects to consider (and that we considered!) when making a selection.
1) Training
CRM’s can be cumbersome, there’s no question about that. So, depending on the size of your business, choosing a CRM will vary. For example, if you operate a business of 10 employees and getting new hires up to speed quickly is a prime goal, your CRM selection should be influenced by that. If your employee base is larger and you have the luxury of taking some time to fully train each new hire prior to kicking them out of the nest, then maybe you can select a more robust CRM that takes a little more time to pick up. Continue reading…
Mobile payment technology positions itself as game changer for 2012
Mobile payment technology exploded in popularity in 2011, and most experts now predict exponential growth into the foreseeable future for the mobile payment industry.
After breaching the milestone of 100 million active accounts, PayPal President Scott Thompson predicted in July that within the next three years, people will conduct literally all their business transactions using their smart phones.
“Consumers are increasingly giving up traditional payment methods such as cash and checks and turning to a more modern – and anytime, anywhere – form of payment,” Thompson wrote in a company blog post. “We believe that by 2015 digital currency will be accepted everywhere in the U.S. – from your local corner store to Walmart. We will no longer need to carry a wallet.”
Most major credit card companies have embraced this view, as almost every brand made a move toward mobile in 2011. American Express released Serve, a mobile payment platform that enables customers to make offline, online and peer-to-peer payments. Visa launched its own peer-to-peer platform and mobile payment strategy that connected mobile payment programs in developing markets. MasterCard partnered with Google to help launch Google Wallet in the United States, and Quick Tap in the U.K. And Discover became the original partner of Isis, the mobile payment collaboration among Verizon Wireless, AT&T and T-mobile.
Continue reading…
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