Intuit, which did not disclose terms for either purchase, says the Invicto deal is the seventh completed during the fiscal year ending July 31. Intuit is not commenting on published reports it paid $30 million for Lettuce.

Invitco president Roger Gregg promised the basic product design and the applications openness to other accounting packages will remain. In a prepared statement, he said "All the buttons that you see in Invitbox will remain. Along with Intuit, we are committed to an open API approach, allowing you to continue to choose which accountancy software you feel is right for you."

Invitco describes its product as "the world's first online automatic data-extraction mailbox for receipt, approval and storage of supplier bills. Users choose an email address and a supplier emails bills in PDF format to that address. Invitbox strips out bills and data and an audit trail is established, recording the originator and date of receipt. All data is extracted, including line item information.

A number of products already integrate with Invitbox. These include Xero, MYOB, NetSuite, QuickBooks and Australia's Reckon. The company's website says coming soon are connections to the online Reckon One, Sage and Dynamics (exact products not specified), and five POS/inventory systems, along with other accounting products.

Monthly and one-time bulk buy pricing is offered with the amount in tiers that offer credits that cover the number of bills to be processed. For 25 or fewer bills, the price is $15 per month. The top tier is $3,200 monthly for 11,500 credits. The lowest bulk-buy level is a one-time payment of $99 for 150 credits and highest price is a one-time fee of $14,999 for 50,000 credits.

The Lettuce deal is important for Intuit as its QuickBooks Online does not support inventory-based companies. Cloud-based Lettuce offers order, inventory, shipping, customer and vendor management. For $39 monthly, its Tier-1 pricing offers online order and customer management, online invoicing and credit-card processing. The wholesale e-commerce portal costs another $50 per month.

Tier 2 price of $89 monthly adds online inventory management, accounting integration and links to UPS, Fedex, and stamps.com, along with e-commerce integration. The portal is also extra at this level. The portal is free with the $189-per month Tier-3 pricing and employee permissions are also included.

Besides Lettuce and Invitco, Good April, Full Slate, Level Up Analytics and Prestwick Services have been acquired by Intuit during the current fiscal year.

Bob Scott

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Bob Scott has provided information to the tax and accounting community since 1991, first as technology editor of Accounting Today, and from 1997 through 2009 as editor of its sister publication, Accounting Technology. He is known throughout the industry for his depth of knowledge and for his high journalistic standards.  Scott has made frequent appearances as a speaker, moderator and panelist and events serving tax and accounting professionals. He  has a strong background in computer journalism as an editor with two former trade publications, Computer+Software News and MIS Week and spent several years with weekly and daily newspapers in Morris County New Jersey prior to that.  A graduate of Indiana University with a degree in journalism, Bob is a native of Madison, Ind