Microsoft Previews Teams Payments App for Small Businesses -- Redmondmag.com

Microsoft Previews Teams Payments App for Small Businesses

By Kurt Mackie
05/01/2023

Microsoft on Monday announced a preview of a Teams Payments app for small businesses.

The app permits small businesses to "collect payments from within Teams on your desktop or mobile device during a meeting." It works with services from payment-processor partners, namely PayPal and Stripe. It'll also be getting support from GoDaddy Payments, which will be "coming soon."

Microsoft depicted the Teams Payments app preview as "the first-of-its-kind app that allows you to accept payment during business conversations." It'll work with "any meeting you host in Teams." Lawyers, financial advisors or instructors might leverage the app, Microsoft suggested.

The app will show payments received and payments due. It permits the use of credit cards, debit cards "and more."

Currently, the Teams Payments app preview can be downloaded from Microsoft's AppSource repository here. The app is free, but it's just available for "Teams Essentials and Microsoft 365 business subscribers." The preview also only applies to U.S. and Canadian users.

Microsoft launched the preview during "National Small Business Week" (April 30 to May 6), hosted by the U.S. Small Business Administration, as noted in this announcement. The announcement included a few other small business notables.

For instance, for the month of May, Microsoft is floating a "15 percent discount off the first full year of Microsoft 365 Business Standard or Microsoft 365 Business Premium," if the subscription is bought from Microsoft's "direct website." Organizations have to commit to an annual purchase, and "promotional pricing applies to the first year only," Microsoft noted, in the announcement's footnote.

The announcement also promoted the use of its Loop app (currently in public preview) for collaborating across Microsoft 365 apps, as well as the AI-powered Microsoft 365 Copilot (still at private preview stage since its March debut). Also touted for small businesses was Microsoft Defender for Business, which now has "improved security summaries" and protection for unmanaged Android and iOS devices at the preview stage. Those two security improvements were described in this March announcement.

About the Author

Kurt Mackie is senior news producer for 1105 Media's Converge360 group.

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