The Problem
A workaround for every card payment
Dash-Swag sells promotional products and branded merchandise, and its client list runs the full range of who buys that: corporations, mom and pop shops, event planners, small business owners. Founded in 2023 and headquartered in Los Angeles, the company has grown to eighteen people with locations in Chicago, Boca Raton, and New York, and it runs storefronts under several brand names that all bill back through Dash-Swag.
Dash-Swag collected payments through QuickBooks for a while but the problem was the card fee and lack of support. Dash-Swag was willing to let clients pay by card and cover the processing cost themselves. However, QuickBooks had no way to do it cleanly. The only route was to add the fee by hand, as its own line item, sitting on the invoice where the client would see it listed alongside the actual order.
We couldn’t find a way to add those in without making them a line item on an invoice.
Logan Grenley, Owner
When Logan needed help with any of it, getting it from QuickBooks was its own problem.
QuickBooks is very challenging to work with. Their customer service isn’t great and they don’t have training to get you set up. Coupling that with a product that is not user friendly made it very difficult to continue using their platform.
Logan Grenley, Owner
Dash-Swag still keeps its books in QuickBooks. Everything else, Logan wanted gone.
I had to get as much as we could away from them because they’re just inefficient.
Logan Grenley, Owner
The Solution
Card fees that handle themselves
Logan found Nickel by asking ChatGPT for something that would pass card fees automatically to the payer and still talk to QuickBooks.
He connected the integration and collected his first payment the same day.
It just reads everything automatically. It’s nice to have all the customers load in and all the invoices. Once it was set up, I make an invoice and immediately it’s there.
Logan Grenley, Owner
That one connection covers the whole company. Dash-Swag sells under several brand names, but all of its invoicing runs through Dash-Swag, so a single Nickel account and a single QuickBooks connection handle payments for every brand.
Nickel adds the card fee at checkout rather than on the invoice, so the client sees two prices on the payment page and picks one. Bank transfer is free and card costs are 2.9%.
A large share of Dash-Swag’s clients pay by card and now cover the fee themselves. Logan has had no pushback on it at all.
Most of Dash-Swag’s invoices are due two months out, long enough for an unpaid one to slip out of mind. Logan recently turned on automated reminders that go out from five days before the due date through twenty days after.
It just takes my mind off of having to go back and do it manually.
Logan Grenley, Owner
In fifteen months on Nickel, Dash-Swag has had no failed payments, no refunds, and no chargebacks, and Logan has never needed to open a support ticket.
It’s been easy to use. The fact that I don’t think about it means it’s a good thing.
Logan Grenley, Owner
Three years in, Dash-Swag keeps adding clients, cities, and storefronts. Getting paid is the one part of the business that hasn’t needed more of Logan as it grew.
