Use QuickBooks Bill Pay to Send & Receive International Payments

QuickBooks is one of the most popular fintech platforms on the planet. So, it should come as no surprise that the product provides financial capabilities for many companies. 

Your business can make QuickBooks international payments particularly well with AP automation software integration. AP automation software solves many accounts payable challenges in QuickBooks.

QuickBooks Across the Seas

With integrated add-on software, QuickBooks users can make and receive international payments with foreign bank accounts. The platform provides international invoice features, including foreign currency. Small businesses and medium-sized enterprises can easily send and accept international payments from anywhere on the planet.

Besides the U.S. version, QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop offer QuickBooks international versions in some countries. 

Does QuickBooks Work for International Payments? 

According to the QuickBooks Support Team, an integrated QuickBooks Online add-on app is required to receive some international payments. QuickBooks Online doesn’t accept online payments from foreign bank accounts.  

A global payables automation app is needed for the QuickBooks Online accounting software. It provides global ACH (and other international bill payment methods) in local currencies and handles foreign exchange rates. 

How to Pay International Vendors

Making supplier invoice payments from country to country through QuickBooks is enhanced through a QuickBooks Online add-on app. Global payment choices include hundreds of countries and foreign currencies and several payment methods. Payment options are global ACH bank transfers, wire transfers, eCheck, debit cards, credit cards, and PayPal. 

The QuickBooks support link for sending international wire transfers to vendors includes a step-by-step process for QuickBooks Online. Start by turning on multicurrency before making the QuickBooks wire transfer to avoid a sync error. 

ACH vs. Wire Transfer for International Payments

Comparing global ACH vs. wire transfer for international vendor payments:

• ACH transaction fees are much lower than wire bank fees.
• Global ACH requires country bank infrastructure adequacy.
• Wires work for certain international payment remittances when:

• The amount is large.
• The receiving country lacks a bank-to-bank network similar to ACH.
• Country payment rules for remittances change often. 

Wire transfers use instructions provided by the payor to their bank for direct remittance. This action is from the sender’s bank account to the receiver’s bank account. Large wire transfer fees may be charged by the sending, intermediary, and receiving banks. With international wires, it takes about a week to receive available funds.

Global ACH has no formal network or standard rules like those provided by Nacha for US-only transfers. Global ACH requires several business days to clear funds in the payee’s bank account. 

QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop offer Intuit Merchant Services payments processing through QuickBooks Payments upon approval. 

QuickBooks Payments sends bill payments and accepts/receives customer payments through online invoice and payment processing. Using QuickBooks Payments streamlines the process for recording payment transaction deposits. 

Sending International Vendor Payments with QuickBooks

Before sending an international vendor payment with QuickBooks Bill Pay, make sure you’re fine with the QuickBooks caution of no turning back once you enable multi-currency, which is required for this task. 

QuickBooks Online steps (with QuickBooks Bill Pay) for sending an International Vendor Payment by wire transfer are:

1. Turn on multi-currency. 
2. Add a vendor with a foreign currency.
   1. Go to Get paid & pay or Expenses.
   2. Select Vendor, then New vendor.
   3. Select a currency from the dropdown Currency menu.
   4. Enter the vendor’s name and information.
   5. Save.
3. To pay an international vendor with a wire transfer.
   1. Select +New, then Pay Bills Online.
   2. Go to the Unpaid Bills tab.
   3. Select the bill to pay
   4. Set up vendor for first wire transfer using Set up international transfer in the Payment Methods column.
      1. Enter the vendor’s bank information.
      2. Complete any additional vendor setup required, using correct Country field in setup. 
   5. After reviewing the payment information, select Next.
   6. Select Edit details to make changes.
   7. Send payment.

Tipalti’s ERP Integration with QuickBooks

Tipalti’s ERP integrations include purchase order management, payments and AP automation integration with QuickBooks accounting software. 

What is Tipalti Integration with QuickBooks?

Tipalti AP automation and mass payments software integrates with QuickBooks Online as an add-on app using seamless API connection. 

Tipalti automated mass payments software is used to make supplier or vendor payments, independent contractor payments, freelancer payments, royalty payments, publisher, influencer and affiliate payments, and other partner payments with QuickBooks or other integrated ERP or accounting software. 

Benefits of Tipalti Integration with QuickBooks

Benefits of Tipalti integration with QuickBooks include:

• Using AP automation and payments software with highly advanced functionality to reduce fraud risk, errors, and hiring needs, saving time and money
• Automated vendor TIN validation, tax compliance, and global regulatory compliance
• Digital invoice data capture, invoice matching, and guided online approvals, payment status, eliminating paper documents and manual data entry
• Enhanced ability to make domestic, international, and cross-border payments with a choice of available payment methods in 196 countries and 120 currencies in large batches
• Automatic payments reconciliation in real-time

Tipalti offers other features and advantages. Tipalti has multi-instance functionality.  For global payments, Tipalti offers advanced foreign exchange (FX) features. 

With Tipalti, your business will be able to complete invoice management and bill processing in time to take and apply valuable early payment discounts in QuickBooks. Automated invoice approval and payment status is available through the self-service supplier portal, significantly reducing the need for time-wasting AP staff follow-up communications with suppliers. 

Payment methods offered by the Tipalti automation add-on app include:

• ACH in the U.S.
• Global ACH
• Wire transfer
• Prepaid debit card
• PayPal
• Tipalti virtual payment card 

The Tipalti Card is a virtual payment card that lets you manage spend by employee and vendor category. It offers cash-back rebates on your business purchases. 

Top-rated Tipalti finance automation software has a 99% customer retention rate and a 98% customer satisfaction rate. Tipalti lets your business reduce end-to-end payables workflow by 80% and speed your accounting close by 25%. The error reduction rate from Tipalti automation software is 66%. 

Integrating Tipalti with QuickBooks accounting software will help you maximize your investment in QuickBooks and reliably streamline accounts payable workflow. 

Tipalti Customer Testimonials

Tipalti customers using QuickBooks accounting software have achieved significant benefits from integrated Tipalti AP/finance automation software. Two customer case studies with testimonials include Skillshare and LockerDome. 

Skillshare 

The first case study highlighting Tipalti benefits is “Skillshare Saves Time & Scales Financial Operations with Tipalti.” Skillshare, an online education community business, switched to Tipalti from Bill.com (now named BILL) in 2018. 

Skillshare is a high-growth company with international operations. Lisa Pesante, the head of finance, needed an AP solution to provide robust invoice processing, increase trust and financial controls, and professionally make payments on time. Using Tipalti AP automation and mass payments software helped Lisa achieve her goals for Skillshare AP workflow and payments efficiency. 

LockerDome

The second case study with a testimonial for Tipalti AP automation and mass payments software is “LockerDome Saves 720 Hours a Year with Tipalti.”  LockerDome is a fast-growing AI/ML-driven ad platform company that switched to Tipalti in 2017 when using QuickBooks. LockerDome switched from Bill.com (currently named BILL) to Tipalti to overcome its limitations and use Tipalti’s more advanced financial automation software platform features. 

Receiving International Payments from Customers

For global customers, payments can be streamlined through the QuickBooks platform. 

To accept global ACH bank transfer payments from customers, you need an add-on app because QuickBooks Online lacks this feature.

QuickBooks accepts international payments via international wire transfers, debit cards, credit cards, and PayPal (using PayPal Passport).

QuickBooks Payments automatically moves processed transactions into your accounts to record the bank deposit. With QuickBooks Payments, you don’t have to put transactions into the “Undeposited funds account” first to record bank deposit details. 

Receiving QuickBooks international payments uses many of the same recording steps for any customer invoice payments. (Set up multicurrency first.) These are the QuickBooks Online support steps recommended for recording a single invoice payment from a customer:

Record a Single Invoice Payment

1. Select + New.
2. Select Receive Payment.
3. Select the name from the drop-down menu.
4. From the Outstanding Transactions section, select the transactions that you’d like for QuickBooks Online to calculate. As you select these items, the payment total will change.
5. Select the payment method.
6. Enter the reference no. and memo if applicable.
7. You can either deposit the money to your checking account or to the undeposited funds account.
8. Select Save and close.

Besides single invoice payment, the QuickBooks Online support article also includes steps for partial invoice payment and grouping multiple payments (bulk).

How Does QuickBooks Accept International Payments? 

QuickBooks Online lets you enter bills, send online invoices, record, track, and accept multiple types of foreign currency payments. First, set up the multicurrency option in the system. This allows a business to accept international customer funds using QuickBooks Payments. 

Before accepting the customer payment, use QuickBooks online invoicing. You can easily email the invoice with a Pay Now button and payment options with the QuickBooks Payments feature. The payment options include U.S. ACH, credit cards, and other available methods but not international ACH. 

Send an Online Invoice

The steps for sending an online invoice after turning on payment options are:

1. Select + New.
2. Select Invoice or Send Invoice.
3. Select the customer from the Customer dropdown. Make sure their email address is in the Email field.
4. Go to the Online payments section. Review the payment options available.
5. If you want to change the payment options, select Edit. Or select the checkbox for the options you want to make available.
6. When you’re done, select Save and send.

QuickBooks Online automatically applies customer payments to the oldest invoice. You can change this setting, according to the QuickBooks Support Team, as follows: 

1. Select the Gear icon.
2. Click Account and Settings.
3. Select Advanced on the left of the screen.
4. Click the Pencil icon in Automation.
5. Remove the check-mark in the box next to Automatically apply credits. 
6. Click Save and select Done.

If your small business invoices are issued in one currency and the customer pays in a different currency, QuickBooks Online requires you to set up a Dummy Bank account in the home currency to record the transaction and manually calculate the exchange rate.

When you accept international payments, QuickBooks records the entry using double-entry bookkeeping (with your review). After you turn on multicurrency in QuickBooks Online, the system automatically tracks foreign currency transactions, including foreign exchange rate gains and losses. 

It should be noted! Setting up multicurrency determines home currency and can’t be turned off. 

Final Thoughts

QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop facilitates sending and receiving international payments. 

However, QuickBooks Online lacks the ability to send and receive customer payments from foreign bank accounts and global ACH. Using an add-on app within QuickBooks Online helps to overcome international limitations, adding robust features, automation, and fraud control. Download our eBook, “7 QuickBooks Payables Problems Solved with Automation.”