Verifone offers its own back-office tools, and many stores with Verifone registers use PDI as their back office. This page explains what each does, how to decide, and why your books need the same checks either way.
Works with your POS, back-office & accounting stack
Both are used to see and control what is happening in the store, and they overlap, which is why owners ask whether they need both. The short answer is that most stores run one back office alongside the register. What is more useful to decide is which one fits how you run the site, and who is reconciling it to your books.
Verifone describes its back-office solution as handling fuel and inventory management, foodservice, and tobacco and lottery sales, with live updates on daily reporting, sales and inventory. It is built around Verifone's own register and site controller.
PDI is a back-office system used by gas stations and convenience stores. It takes what happens at the register and the pumps and turns it into daily totals: sales by department and tender, fuel, lottery and expected deposits. It is made by a separate company, PDI Technologies, and is used with registers from several vendors.
Usually one back office does the job of totaling and reporting the store, so running two for the same purpose adds cost and a second set of numbers to reconcile. Whether you keep the Verifone tools, PDI, or both depends on what you use each for, so ask your Verifone and PDI representatives what overlaps in your setup.
Neither system keeps your books. Whichever back office you use, its totals still have to be posted into QuickBooks Online, matched to the bank and checked for fees, lottery and sales tax. That reconciliation is the same either way.
To compare the two side by side, see the comparison table. To see what your books need, go to where the numbers move. If you want a team to run the reconciliation, what we do covers it.
A step-by-step month-end close checklist for a gas station running Verifone, PDI and QuickBooks Online.
Read more →What Verifone Commander does, which reports we need from it each month, and where those numbers go next.
Read more →What a Verifone register records at the pump and counter, and how those sales end up in your books.
Read more →What the Verifone end of day report shows, what to check on it each day, and how it ties to your bank and QuickBooks Online.
Read more →Which Verifone Commander reports to pull each month, what each tells you, and where it goes in QuickBooks Online.
Read more →Send us a day or a month and we'll show you where the three systems disagree.
Get started →We use the reports from your Verifone tools, from PDI, or from both, with no change to your setup.
Each total goes to one clear account in QuickBooks Online, with pass-throughs kept out of income.
Deposits, settlements, fuel and lottery are matched to their outside sources.
If two systems disagree, we find which is right and why.
FinTruction · Construction Clients
Real US-based contractors. Same team, same operational discipline that we now bring to gas stations. Construction is a different vertical - but the muscle (multi-stream books, cost reconciliation, niche specialization) is the same one stations need.
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Owner, Hearth & Haus
"They set the accounts up properly first, then cleaned up everything I never entered."
Rolian
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Clay PearsonFrom the register, from the back office, and from your bank and card statements.
Where both are used, we check their totals against each other for every day.
The agreed totals go into QuickBooks Online, one account each.
Cash, card and fleet totals are matched to deposits and settlements.
You get the books and a short list of differences and what caused them.
Features and plans change, so confirm current details with each vendor. This compares what each is generally used for.
The two systems report slightly different numbers and nobody knows which one is posted.
QuickBooks is fed from one system while the manager works from the other.
Departments or tenders are named differently, so totals map to the wrong accounts.
The same day is entered from both systems.
Sales tax and lottery inflate revenue whichever system is used.
The processor's fee is deducted before depositing and never recorded.
You are deciding between Verifone's tools and PDI.
You suspect the two overlap and want to know what to do about it.
You want to know whether two systems are part of the problem.
If you are not sure which system is main, tell us and we will work it out.
A 30-minute call, then about 48 hours while we review your books. You get our findings and a plain explanation of how we would fix them.
We agree which system the books are posted from and document it.
The first month is reconciled, closed and reported, then it runs on a schedule.
Fuel inventory, daily POS reconciliation, jobber statements and fuel versus store margin.
5 services →Car wash, lottery and ATM, vendor and DSD invoices, prepared food, shrinkage and more.
9 services →Fuel excise and motor fuel tax, multi-category sales tax, BSA/AML-aware books and entity tax.
4 services →Multi-location consolidation, store acquisitions and disposals, and loan and financing packages.
3 services →FAQ
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Gas station & c-store accounting questions, answered.