Unfortunately Intuit’s servers are experiencing outages or delays in processing this week.  Affected services include Merchant Services (processing credit cards), QuickBooks Billing Solutions, emailing invoices or estimates and possibly other online services.  Intuit has posted the following on their Facebook page:

We continue to investigate root cause of issues related to credit card processing and emailing invoices/estimates. We’ll provide our next update at 1pm PT.

Here are some alternatives in the meantime:

1. Emailing
   • Use Outlook — in QuickBooks, go to Edit>Preferences>Send Forms>My Preferences to change it to use Outlook.
   • In the Invoice (or Estimate or form), go to File>Save as PDF or you can download CutePDF Free (www.cutepdf.com) and print to PDF.  Then, use another email service (like Gmail) to send an email and attach the PDF to it.
2. Payroll — It isn’t clear if there are problems with payroll or not.  However, if there are problems,  you can use a free Paycheck calculator  or the Circular E (www.irs.gov) to calculate paychecks manually.  You may need to issue manual checks instead of direct deposit.  Then, you can enter it in QuickBooks later.  If you use Assisted Payroll, call them to see how they want you to handle it.
3. Credit Cards— Obtain voice authorization — you will need the authorization code from the voice authorization and the customer’s card number and expiration date to complete the transaction. Call to get an approval code:
• Visa Visa/ MasterCard /Disc ACQ/Amex one point: 800-228-1122
• American Express 800-528-2121
• Discover 800-347-1111

Keep in mind that any of us could be without power due to a severe thunderstorm, flood, tornado, fire, earthquake, hurricane, snow storm or a number of other problems.  It happens and as business owners we have to deal with things calmly and professionally.  Usually your customers, vendors and employees wiill understand the situation.  As small business owners, we need to have a backup plan of how to continue operating when an emergency strikes–whether it is a natural disaster or a failure in technology.  You may want to make sure you have ‘business interruption insurance’ that would cover losses in certain circumstances.