What Does Plooto Do?
Plooto is an online web application used to make vendor payments, collect customer payments and even use for invoicing.
Plooto describes itself as “mission control for your accounts payable and receivable”. It is a great option for a small business payment system that integrates with your existing accounting software to manage payments.
Plooto is a great choice for paying suppliers as well as collecting payments from customers.
Paying Suppliers
Plooto integrates with your accounting system to import bills that need to be paid. You can then approve and pay them in one click. Alternatively, a bookkeeper can create and send a list of vendor payments to the business owner to be approved and paid in one click.
Payments can take 3-5 business days to be completed, or you can store funds within Plooto itself and use “Plooto Instant” to pay vendors in 1-2 business days.
The process works really well, follows an intuitive path on the system, and really simplifies reconciliation of payments with your accounting software. If you have Plooto connected to your accounting system (and you should), it reconciles the bill as paid as soon as it’s approved.
Collecting Payments with Plooto
Plooto can be integrated with Xero or QuickBooks to automatically notify customers of payment requests once an invoice is created.
The process looks like this:
- Plooto is integrated with your accounting system (Xero or QuickBooks)
- All open invoices and customers are pulled in to Plooto and can be viewed on one page
- Simply click the “Request Payment from Customer” button
- Customers will receive an email with the payment amount and terms
- The customer enters details to a secure portal. No Plooto log-in or account is needed for customers
- Plooto then transfers the funds and keeps a full audit trail
- The payment is then automatically reconciled (marked as paid) within Xero or QuickBooks
Plooto has recently added the option to collect payment via credit cards as well. It works in the same way as noted above, with the customer offered credit card as a payment option in the secure portal.
Why We Love Plooto
Plooto is one of the few modern payment platforms for Canadian businesses that integrates well with popular accounting software, Xero and QBO.
We’ve used Plooto for years at Avalon to pay suppliers and contractors. Our bookkeeper just publishes a bill to Xero and it’s automatically sent for approval and payment in Plooto.
Approvers get notified by an email when a payment needs approving. It takes all of 15 seconds to approve a payment and it's off to the supplier.
Plooto can help streamline your back office to make collecting payments and paying suppliers quick and easy.
Use Cases for Plooto
Plooto is a great option for small to medium sized businesses that use Xero or QuickBooks online as their bookkeeping software.
We’ve seen Plooto successfully used by:
- Small service-based businesses
- Freelancers, contractors and sole proprietors
- Small companies with recurring payments and subscription services
- Businesses with virtual accounting departments (aka Avalon’s customers)
Plooto Pricing
Plooto’s pricing depends on what you’re using it for.
Plooto Pricing for Vendor Payments
Plooto charges a subscription for using the service and then a charge per transaction. The costs for payments are below.
- $25 per month - Monthly subscription cost (includes 10 free transactions)
- $0.50 - per transaction (after an initial 10 free transactions per month)
- 2.8% + $0.30 - per transaction for credit card payments
- $9.99 - per international transaction (including to and from the US)
- $1.99 - per cheque payment
- $3.00 - per CRA payment in Canada
Plooto Pricing for Collecting Payments
Plooto charges customers a subscription fee and a charge per transaction shown in the list below.
- $25 per month - Monthly subscription cost
2.9% + $0.30 - per transaction for credit card payments