Intuit combines small-business POS, mobile payment technology

You could see this one coming a mile away: Intuit has shipped QuickBooks Point of Sale 2013, an application for small businesses that integrates traditional point of sale management and transaction features with the GoPayment mobile payment processing service.

GoPayment is Intuit's solution for allowing small businesses to accept payments on-the-go, using a mobile credit card reader that connects with either an Apple iPhone or iPad, as well as Android mobile devices.

What does the integration mean?

For starters, any sales and inventory information that is generated via a GoPayment mobile transaction is automatically stored in the QuickBooks Point of Sale application. That means there aren't two different sources of transaction data for small-business owners to manage and analyze. It's all in one place.

The integration will also make it simpler for small businesses to set up the GoPayment mobile application: QuickBooks inventory items are automatically added, which means they don't have to be entered manually.

Other features of QuickBooks Point of Sale include:

• Inventory tracking and a feature that lets the small business set automatic reorder points
• The ability to manage results for up to 20 stores from one centralized location
• A feature for tracking employee hours and commissions
• A customer contact management and basic loyalty system

As you might expect, the QuickBooks Point of Sale application can be integrated with the QuickBooks accounting system.

The price for the software starts at $1,099.95; and can be purchased with an optional set of integrated retail hardware, including a receipt printer, bar code scanner, credit card reader and cash drawer. Intuit is selling QuickBooks Point of Sale 2013 at retailers including OfficeMax, Office Depot, Best Buy, Staples, Sam's Clubs, Amazon.com, Fry's Electronics and Costco.com.