Do you want to know more about Zoho books accounting software? Find here a detailed Zoho books accounting software review including price, specification, features, etc.
Zoho was founded in 1996 as Advent Net by Sridhar Vembu. Zoho is a unique company in the tech world today. They have over 2,000 employees and 15 million users at last count.
The company offers a variety of software, including Zoho books. Zoho Books is a cloud-based accounting software developed primarily for Micro-Businesses. In the market today one of the most used apps is Zoho. Its cloud-based interface makes it easy to use.
The software comes at a reasonable price tag. This article seeks to understand if it’s worth the cash.
Zoho Books Accounting Software Review
Zoho Books is smart online accounting software. It is designed for all business sizes, from small businesses to large enterprises. Also, they work well for services, consulting, and marketing companies.
With the latest inventory feature, retail businesses can keep track of their stock and make smart purchase decisions. This allows you to invoice your clients in their currency and it’s also available in 11 languages.
Apart from its core functions, Zoho Books furthermore integrates with Zoho CRM. This provides a platform for your sales and finance team to interact effortlessly. Hence reduce manual & duplicate data entry.
Zoho Books is a web-based application and is furthermore available on iOS, Android, and even Windows apps.
Zoho Books Accounting Software Features
The software offers tons of features and facilities but let us go through the most basic ones first.
Invoicing
Zoho has templates for invoicing as well as customizable options. This means there’s something for everyone.
Most noteworthy options include the ability to add and adjust invoices for discounts, taxes, and shipping.
There’s also a way for clients to view and approve their invoices and bills. Also, see past transactions.
Their contacts view means that users can view transactions by the customer. This helps to check on the status of payables or receivables.
Invoicing is also a feature that can be automated. This saves a lot of time and works to create repetitive tasks.
Zoho also supports recurring transactions. This makes life even easier for owners who provide subscriptions or services.
Track Expenses
To input expenses, businesses need to manually enter expenses individually or import from existing sources. Receipts can be attached to each expense as it is added.
Once entered, expenses can be tracked through reports. These show where a business’s money is being spent during a specified period.
Expenses can be broken into categories for tax accounting purposes.
Pay Bills
Zoho Books lets users input bills and mark whether they’ve been paid or not. Recurring billing can also be set up for subscription-based billing.
They support client portals. Clients can gain access to information about their specific accounts and pay bills online.
Reporting
They come equipped with 41 reports, including all the necessary end-of-year paperwork.
It also allows users to analyze certain aspects of their businesses. Such as recurring payments, profit and loss, and more.
Being able to do your reporting is nice. Zoho features mean that you will need an accountant. Users will gain more utility out of full tax services instead.
Banking
Through settings, a business can set up Zoho Books to gather information directly from its bank account automatically.
This information can also be imported manually on an as-needed basis. This makes Zoho Books a virtual representation of a business’s bank account.
Zoho Books Bank Feeds helps businesses get bank transactions automatically in real time. Hence saving time and effort on duplicate entries. Transactions can be categorized to make it easy to find a specific item.
Time Tracking
These features are included with all Zoho Books plans. Allowing you to create tasks and track billable hours.
One can also bill based on project hours, task hours, staff hours, or at a fixed cost. You can also budget hours per project, task, or staff.
Other features of Zoho Books include
- Profit and loss (P&L)
- Multi-country
- Keep track of customer orders
- Convert sales orders to purchase orders if stocks are low
- Create sales reports
- Sales tax reports
- Project time tracking
- Real-time inventory tracking
- Workflow management
- Send quotes or estimates
Ease of Use
Zoho is cloud-based software, which means no installations to struggle with. It works with Windows PCs and MacBooks, as well as Linux OS.
There is a wide range of browsers supported, and as long as your browser is fairly recent, it should work well.
Setup is easy. Users enter their company’s data into the forms at the beginning of the process. The setup continues from there.
Zoho also gives users the ability to define and use custom fields as well. Users can choose to enable certain features or leave them dormant.
At the start screen, there are tips, a welcome video, and contact information for tech support.
The dashboard is minimalist and easy to navigate. The sidebar menus are organized and intuitive. Everything you need to do with this software can be found in one or two clicks.
The dashboard also includes widgets. Users can enable them to see balances on receivables and payables, charts for cash balances, expense rankings, and more.
Widgets operate as a quick view. This allows users to check the overall status of their business.
Zoho also comes with automated workflow features. Users can choose up to five workflows to automate with Basic. Ten with Standard and Premium.
The software has automatic invoices, recurring billing, expense tracking, and payment reminders. This enables users to spend more time on important tasks, and less effort on repetitive minutiae.
Zoho Books Accounting Software Specifications
- Deployment – Web-Based
- Payment – Monthly, Yearly
- Mobile App – Yes
- API – Yes
- Languages Supported – Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Slovenian, Spanish
- Customization – Yes
Security
Zoho Books servers are housed at secure data centers. They use 256-bit SSL encryption and state-of-the-art infrastructure. Software security to ensure the safety of the data.
The data is regularly backed up and replicated across secure locations.
They also have the feature of 2-step verification (through mobile numbers or registered email addresses).
Accessibility
- One can share or delegate the accounting duties to anyone in the organization. You can also set different permissions for you and your employees.
- You can access your data anywhere, anytime. All you need is a web browser and an internet connection.
- Mobile apps are available for iOS and Android phones, tablets, and smartwatches. It also has an app for Windows phones. With the app, you can create invoices, run reports, capture receipts, record expenses, and track billable time no matter where you are.
- Keyboard shortcuts allow you to quickly move through the software and create new transactions.
- You can connect your account with popular payment gateways. PayPal, Authorize.net, Stripe, Braintree, and 2Checkout are all supported.
- You can contact the company by phone, email, or live chat 24 hours a day, Monday through Friday, for free, unlimited customer support.
Drawbacks
- One needs to buy the Professional version to create purchase orders and track inventory.
- It doesn’t integrate with as many third-party apps. Unlike some of the other accounting software we reviewed. However, Zoho offers many of its compatible business apps.
- Zoho Books doesn’t include fixed asset management features. Those that calculate depreciation for computers, equipment, and office furniture.
- Zoho Books is that it doesn’t include payroll services. This may not be a big deal for really small businesses. But it’s an important consideration if your business is growing and you plan to hire employees.
Zoho Books Accounting Software Pricing
Zoho operates on a pay-as-you-go monthly service. They have discounts available for a yearly subscription. The developers allow users to only purchase the features they feel they need. There are three packages to choose from.
- The Standard package is available for Rs 749 a month. Standard comes with invoicing, estimates, and expense tracking for a single user and accountant. Also, there are 50 contacts allowed in Basic.
- The Professional package is available for Rs 1,499 a month. Professional includes all Basic functions as well as Accounts Payable and multi-currency.
- The Premium package is available for Rs 2,999 a month. Premium comes with all the Standard and Basic functions, inventory, and purchasing. It allows an unlimited number of users and contacts.
They offer a variety of pricing options, robust features, and strong customer support.
We can conclude that they provide us with all the necessary tools to create clients, accept payments, transmit invoices, etc. Its interface is quite easy to use and very simple. You can check out our full review of Tally.Erp9.
Invoicing and Reporting will stand out as premium features at a budget price. However, a lack of payroll and a large bias towards Zoho’s suite of apps can leave many users frustrated.
Also, Zoho has tiered pricing to fit everyone’s budget. But there is a lack of contacts in the Basic and Standard options. Hence this will leave some users frustrated as they begin to grow. Also, see our review of Profitbooks.
In case you are looking for accounting software that can be upgraded and integrated with different business-related features, then Zoho Books will fit your requirements.
