Now We Get Paid on The Spot Thanks to Intuit GoPayment

One of our biggest problems being a micro business that caters to other micro business has been getting paid on the spot for our services. Business to business customers don't carry cash like they used to and not many carry around check books. We were basically a financing company for lower denominated sales and because of this we ended up biting the bullet and signing up for a merchant account to accept credit and debit cards. That was a big help, but the monthly and service fees started adding up because we don't have a daily influx of customers. The majority of our invoices are bigger in dollar value and lower on volume. So we may go a few weeks before taking a credit card payment. However, not having the ability to accept credit cards may mean a missed payment or a longer wait for money owed.Then intuit introduced the GoPayment service for iPhone and we decided to jump right on it. Our company already used the Intuit QuickBooks Merchant Service anyway, so the change was easy. All we had to do was change to GoPayment, download the application and we could instantly accept payments via our iPhones. We later ordered the free slider, but the manual version worked great and was much easier than we thought. Plus, we don't have the monthly fee because our monthly income via credit card is below the $1000 limit. Otherwise, there would be a $12.95 fee per month (here's the pricing info), still lower than the fees we were paying to use the regular merchant service with the QuickBooks software. The ease of use and low cost has helped us immensely. Before we would have to wait for checks or wonder if customers would have the cash. Now, with everyone having a credit or debit cad we can accept payments on the spot and in the fabrication shop. We don't need to go back in the office, make the transaction while the customer waits and meanders around the shop. We can get our money, they get their fabrication orders and everyone is happy.

Today Intuit announced a new deal to provide GoPayment devices in Verizon stores. Here is the Intuit blog post.

Below is a picture of our card reader for the iPhone and a screenshot of the input page for accepting credit cards. Could not be simpler.

The Reality Is We Are a MICRO Sheet Metal Shop/Business

I stumbled on this video today and it reinforced the fact that we are a MICRO shop. The amount of duct that some companies can produce in such a short time is mind boggling. A straight section of trunk duct form beginning to end takes me roughly 8 to 10 minutes. I have heard that companies, like the one in the video, can produce that same section in under 10 seconds. It has become tougher and tougher to keep a shop like ours going because of this gap in production time and more importantly cost of production. Another problem is, most of the work available is commercial in nature and far too involved for a company like mine. Therefore, we are left to pick up the scraps of much smaller commercial work and of course, residential (our bread and butter). But residential and home owner projects seem to be fading more and more even though the housing market has "bottomed". 

Walking this line of keeping the shop smaller in size or taking out loans and making it bigger is a scary proposition. The lack of motivated workers and young people in the field is also something that can be worrisome. Shops like ours will always be needed, but if work can't at least sustain the owner and his family, then smaller shops will continue to fall and go out of business.

You Can Now Follow Us on LinkedIn.com

One thing that I have been meaning  to do lately is update my LinkedIn.com page with some new company information. To my surprise,
one of their new options is that you can add a company profile and follow other companies as well. To be honest, this may have been there all along and I just never noticed. Either way, I found it this time and created our own K & E Sheet Metal company profile that you can now follow.

Slow Beginning to The Year Brings Hope for Stronger Summer Business

The beginning of the year for us is often slow and like many, we begin to long for summer. This year is no different as the last couple months have dragged on with limited work and not much in the pipeline. When business was booming, before the economy took one on the chin, we would have quotes and contracts set for the first sign of spring.This has not happened for the last three years or longer and from what I have been hearing and what has happened here, it hasn't changed this year either. The lack of clarity for future work for a micro-business such as ours is scary because budgets are extremely tight, credit is non-existent and prices are starting to rise. As everyone knows, gas is up and for the first time in roughly three years our metal prices have started to tick upwards.

The bottom line is, if we get a cool summer and air conditioning season is non-existent, we could see another rough year. The end of last year was very strong and actually made up the difference to the slow beginning of the year. It would be nice to see a steady summer customer flow and the same strong end to 2011 like we had in 2010. Time will tell because for every good thing I hear about how business is in town, I seem to hear something that contrasts those sentiments. It seems that no one knows what is going on and their business is just as day to day as ours. We can't predict the future and I don't want to try, but back in 2006 when we had the signed or verbal contract in February for start in April or May, it sure seemed like we knew what the future held.

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Local Markets Will Continue To Suffer

Being in the business of heating & air conditioning for residential applications is challenging when the housing market continues to decline. Today's news won't help the situation. New York was not one of the hardest hit housing markets by far and there was news recently that the Glens Falls job situation was improving, if not stable. But that doesn't change the fact that, if the country continues to decline, then the news will focus on problems and that will hurt the confidence of buyers in any market.

When people turn on the evening news in Glens Falls they see that housing is bad, the markets are bad, BP oil spill, you name it. Even if they are in a good place financially, this weighs on there conscience when it comes to buying a new dish washer or putting in a new furnace. This is bad for local business as a whole. Whether your a local restaurant, corner shop or sheet metal fabricator. Micro-businesses like mine and others suffer from the problems of the masses, even if the town is stable financially and employment is good.

The bottom line is that the countries problems aren't getting any better. I follow the markets on a daily basis and things aren't looking great. Is there progress? Some, but not enough to create more jobs and make people optimistic about the future. Even if people in Glens Falls, Queensbury and Saratoga Springs have solid jobs and aren't as bad off as the rest of the country. That doesn't mean they won't hoard every last penny and find ways to save just as much as someone with less. Which means that local businesses will continue to suffer and so will the housing market, job market etc.. If people can't buy a new dishwasher, they're surely not going to be buying or building a new house.

Is The Stock Market Telling Us Home Building Will Soon Pickup?

The stock market is a leading indicator for the future economy. The rally in the markets is a confidence in the future profits of companies and the economy as a whole.

The SPDR S&P Homebuilders Index ETF (XHB) is an index of home building, consumer durables, capital goods and retailing stocks. Some examples of stocks in the index are Toll Brothers Builders, Owens Corning, Sherwin Williams, Home Depot etc. Here is the link to the index website.

The XHB index has rallied for the majority of the year, while the physical housing market has yet to really pickup. Is this telling us that the housing market and home building markets are about to turn around? Will things in the home building industry get better soon? Being that we are in the residential heating and cooling industry, I hope so. There is a saying that the stock markets predict what will happen six months from now. If this saying holds any weight. We should see a pickup in the 4th quarter of this year.

Being a micro-business, sometimes it's hard to gauge what's going on in the local markets. You can learn a lot at the supply houses and on job sites, but you need to take that information with a grain of salt. The builders that we do business with are too small to really gauge the markets as a whole. Using as much market data as possible can help to give a time line of when things may be looking up. It may not be specific to your local market, but you can be sure that it will affect it at some point.

Receivables, Receivables, Receivables

The frustration for any micro or small business is being paid. This is our current dilemma. The slowdown in business has made us tighten on everything from driving less to not eating out with family. I feel like this would be the case for any company we deal with, if in the same dilemma. Not true.

Being a micro-business can be very tough when customers don't pay their bills. We can't afford to get a court involved and our receivables aren't large enough to pay fees for a receivables loan or something similar. You can send letters and make phone calls until your blue in the face, but you will always get the same answer...the check is in the mail. 

Our business is very small and we count on every dollar....literally! We will track down a single dollar if necessary. We as a company continue to pay our bills. We cut costs and use credit cards if possible, but we always pay or we call our vendors and are honest. They will usually be very forgiving and take whatever we can give at the time. We rarely get this courtesy. 

It can be frustrating on many levels. You provide a needed service that isn't compensated. Chasing money is not our business. Our business is metal fabrication. We fabricate, you pay...that's the deal.