This month, we sat down with one of our favorite clients, a professional services firm serving customers nationwide, to talk about how partnering with Pineapple has sweetened up their payment processing. Not only has the firm improved their invoicing workflow and upgraded their technology, but they’ve also streamlined their entire payment process and saved thousands of dollars in processing fees. Read on for the full scoop about how our friends at the firm revolutionized their back-office in the first six months of our partnership!
Who They Are
We have the privilege of serving one of the top CPA firms in the country, offering a full range of accounting, tax and consulting services to clients throughout the U.S. The firm serves dynamic, privately held companies and their owners and the investment industry, including registered and non-registered funds. Rooted in technical excellence, this professional services firm is driven every day to listen, engage and deliver sustainable value. The firm has thrived for 40 years and has more than 550 associates across the country.
Our Partnership
We launched our partnership with the esteemed firm about one year ago. We spoke with their most tenured staff to learn all about their process before Pineapple and how it has changed over the past six months utilizing our toolset.
Before Pineapple
Before trying out our sweet processing, the firm was using services from a major bank, due to their previous banking relationship. The problem? For the past 20 years, the technology never changed. “Meetings would occur to reevaluate rates,” shared the firm’s financial leader, “but the fundamental technology was never updated or changed to reflect the firm’s, and the industry’s as a whole, evolving needs.”
Another key issue for the professional services firm was the vendor’s inability to provide an interface to allow clients to pay online. Clients wishing to pay with a credit card had two options: visit an office and pay in-person or provide their credit card information over the phone to a member of the firm so that the card data could be entered and processed manually. Both options provided their own issues for not only efficiency of the firm, but for the satisfaction of the customer. In-person was inconvenient, especially for clients located all across the country. The over-the-phone approach created PCI Compliance risks. These problems, combined with a desire to lower their rates, led the firm to us.
They came to Pineapple with three key goals. They needed to be able to safely process cards online from their website, rather than taking card information over the phone. They needed better rates for processing. And these concerns tied into another larger goal: to empower their clients in new ways by enabling them to pay with greater convenience and added security.
Why Pineapple
When the firm came to Pineapple with their key goals, we knew it would be the partnership the firm needed to empower their internal team and external clients. Our partnership is based on a shared culture centered on putting our clients first. The firm focuses on a commitment to their clients and their mission to improve clients’ process through openness and honesty. At Pineapple, we feel that the freshest take on payments we can offer is one with clients at the center and open, honest policies in all areas.
We also share a commitment to technical excellence with the firm. Our dedication to offering the best technology possible meant that we could provide flexible payment tools at cost-effective price points. During the initial analysis, we estimated that the professional services firm could save approximately 15% on their processing by switching to our platform.
This lower rate was a key factor for our client. Other key features included the ability to create a safe and secure hosted payment page for clients to remit payment within their website. We also offered other high-end security features like a point-to-point encrypted hardware device to be used in their back-office setting to securely accept payments over the phone. This hardware allows the professional services team members to enter client credit card information into the device, which is immediately sent off to a secure vault in the cloud, keeping the firm out of scope for PCI compliance. Finally, our reporting tools were ideal for the firm, due to the unique ability to both submit and track reporting for all transaction data in one easy-to-use place.
The Pineapple Effect
Making the switch to Pineapple was a dream for the firm. The onboarding process was quick, easy, and seamless, and learning the new system was a breeze for key stakeholders. The firm’s main in-house user of the system has had nothing but positive interactions with clients when utilizing Pineapple’s tools.
Beyond positive feedback from employees and clients alike, the firm has seen drastic changes in their processing costs. Under their old plan processing fees continued to rise without any of the required hardware needed to process securely and no central online reporting hub. With Pineapple, the firm not only had all of the technology needed, but our processing savings were able to be passed on to our new member of the Pineapple family almost immediately.
Over the last year, the firm has averaged a 14% cost savings in their processing each month. Furthermore, they have received the technology they needed at a significantly lower price from Pineapple.
Beyond these substantial savings, the firm’s clients have been thoroughly impressed with the ability to pay quickly, easily, and securely from the convenience of any web-enabled device. The ability to set up recurring payments has also been a client favorite. In-house, employees love our secure tokenization and seamless reporting. Customer information is stored in a PCI compliant vault out of scope from the professional services firm’s technology environment, which allows the firm to shorten accounts receivable windows and easily track transaction histories. As an added bonus, our real-time reporting has given our client the required insight into their cash flow anytime and anywhere.
Even more importantly, our customer service relationship has been top-notch. The firm had only rave reviews for how quickly and effectively any problems they’ve encountered have been thwarted. Our customer-service guru Dan McGovern always provides friendly service with lightning-fast resolutions to ensure any processing snags don’t last long.
The Bottom Line
Pineapple freshened up our client’s processing in every way possible. Our working relationship is proof of our commitment to excellence and our 10,000 merchant partners and $2 billion in annual processing speaks for itself. So, would the folks at the firm recommend Pineapple to a friend or colleague?
“Absolutely,” said the firm’s financial leader. Pineapple was able to solve the firm’s processing problems and meet their technology goals, which is why the firm believes our “good products, great customer service, and easy implementation” make recommending Pineapple a “no-brainer.”
Want to see how we can enhance your payment processing? Click here to learn more about Pineapple’s completely customizable solutions, guaranteed to fit companies of all sizes.