Zoho Books: Online Accounting & Bookkeeping Software Review

About Zoho

Zoho develops a handful of products and software for businesses to enhance their operations. Zoho ensures its products meet its own needs before it rolls out to the public, so it does not fail its customers.

Zoho CRM was the first software product to be released by the company in 2001, and since then, it has continued to develop numerous cloud-based software, taking on the industry with market-leading cloud-based solutions. As of 2021, Zoho has hit over 75 million users.

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Zoho’s cloud-based software has earned crushing customer reviews and ratings with an average of 4.5/5 stars from several reviewing sites.
 

Zoho Books Features & Solutions

Invoicing

Zoho simplifies invoice creation and receivable managing. It allows you to send customized statements to your clients and accept payments in multiple software. You can personalize your invoices to your business’s branding by adding your company logo, adjusting font, and more.

You can also provide your clients the choice of payment from cash, cheque, and online, in addition to their preferred currency. And with automated follow-ups, your clients will never have to chase a customer payment again.

Zoho’s accounting software also allows you to create recurring invoices for regular customers and verify transactions before you send them. Moreover, the software allows you to:

• Add your digital signature to your invoices
• Collect deposits and advance payments
• Process returns and refunds
   

Estimates

Zoho’s accounting software allows you to create estimates and invoices in mere seconds. You get a library of customizable templates to create estimates that reflect your business’s image and branding. Moreover, adding your digital signature to your estimates will offer an extra level of security to your documents.

Zoho also provides you with a client portal that you can utilize to send your clients estimates, get them approved, and collaborate with your clients in real-time. When a client accepts an estimate or makes a comment, the software will instantly notify you, and as soon as an estimate is accepted, it can be turned into an invoice in a few seconds without the need for double data entry.
 

Client Portal

The client portal is your collaboration gateway with your clients. You can use it to:

• Share recent transactions
• Accelerate estimate approval process
• Capture feedback
• Accept bulk payments from your customers
   

Expenses

Zoho Books provides you with a comprehensive dashboard that showcases all your expenses and allows you to track accounts payable, trace your bills, record customer credits, and more. The software allows you to categorize your expenses and create recurring profiles for regular purchases or expenses so that Zoho can record them automatically.
 

Bills

Zoho’s software allows you to put bills on recurring mode for regular purchases that happen at regular intervals. In addition, you can add landed costs to your bills, which fully allows you to calculate the full cost of your items and decide on the right selling price.

You can also associate your customer with their billable items. Line items from your vendor bills can be associated with the customers for whom they were purchased. Lastly, you can also record vendor credits if you return items to your vendor, allowing you to use them on a bill or receive a refund.
 

Banking

Zoho Books simplifies your bank account reconciliation as you can:

• Securely fetch transactions from your PayPal accounts and banks and reconcile your accounts in no time
• Receive precise cash flow predictions plus balance mismatches, expected recurring payments, and past reconciliations
• Place your categorization on autopilot
• Accelerate transaction matching
• Process in bulk
   

Projects

Zoho Books makes project tracking easier with its collaborative functions. It allows you to keep track of your billable hours by logging the amount of time you spent on a project or by using the timer widget.

You can also keep track of multiple projects at the same time and add tasks for each project, and assign specific tasks to your employees. You can offer role-based access to your Zoho Books users, which allows you to restrict certain employees from viewing customer-sensitive information.

Additionally, Zoho Books allows you to associate an entire project expense into one invoice at the time of billing and request and receive advance payments for projects.

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Inventory

Zoho provides you with inventory management software that allows you to keep track of all your inventory. You can set reorder levels, so you can reorder from your vendors before you run out of stock. Inventory management also allows you to track inventory changes in real-time and stay informed with in-depth inventory reports.

You can organize your inventory with critical information like SKU, product image, vendor details, costs, and the number of available stock. Furthermore, you can create a customized price list with markups or markdowns and offer it to your vendors and customers.
 

Sales Orders

Sales Orders allow you to confirm sales before shipping, keep your team informed, and avoid any delivery errors. You can convert an approved estimate into a sales order and then into an invoice in just a few clicks.

In the case that you are out of stock of an order, you can instantly convert a sales order into a purchase and have it sent to your vendor. Detailed sales reports can help you identify your top customers and your best-selling products.
 

Purchase Orders

Purchase orders are made super simple with Zoho Books. The software allows you to log every transaction detail, such as item orders and the agreed price with the vendor. You can also easily convert purchase orders into bills as you deal with your vendors and attach receipts, bills, and other files with purchase orders to your invoices.

Zoho Books lets you easily identify your top vendors and most frequently purchased products with real-time reports on your transactional history. Additionally, you can customize your purchase orders to match your business’s image and branding.
 

Online Orders

Zoho Books provides your client the ability to pay online through the client portal, and similarly, you can pay your vendors online as well. The software will provide you with detailed insights and reports on the payments you received with your customers’ payment trends and preferences, so you can understand them better.
 

Vendor Portal

Similar to the client portal, the vendor portal allows you to manage your vendor relationships. The vendor portal empowers your vendors to manage their transactions themselves, which will cut unnecessary calls and emails to your business.

The software will notify you when a vendor has viewed your transactions or made comments on your documents. Your vendors can also upload their invoices to the portal that you can then turn into bills with a few clicks. Lastly, your vendors can view all the transactions they performed with you in one place.
 

Mobile App

Zoho Books offer the best mobile accounting and bookkeeping application for small business. The mobile application is compatible with all Android and iOS devices. It provides you with most of Zoho Book’s desktop versions’ functions, such as:

• Getting instant insights
• Facilitating payments
• Sending customized invoices
• Tracking your payables
• Understanding your finances
   

Integrations

Zoho Books integrates with a variety of business software and applications to streamline all your business operations. Its recommended integrations are the following:

• Stripe Payment Processing
• Zoho CRM
• Zapier
• Square POS
• Zoho Docs, Google Drive, One Drive
   

Zoho Books Plans & Prices

Zoho Books offers four subscription plans for its accounting and bookkeeping software. You can choose between monthly or yearly payments. However, you can save more with yearly payments.

Free: $0/year

This plan is free, and it provides you with the following features and capabilities:

• 1 User + 1 Accountant
• Manage Clients
• Manage Invoices (Up to 1,000 per annum)
• Client Portal
• Online/Offline Payments
• Automate Payment Reminders
• Multi-lingual Invoicing
• Credit Notes
• Recurring Invoices
• Expenses & Mileage Tracking
• Add Multiple Bank and Credit Card Accounts
• Import Bank and Credit Card Statements
• Bank Rules & Reconciliation
• Chart of Accounts & Sub-accounts
• Manual Journals
• Reports
• Invoice Customization
• Taxes
• Payment Gateways
• Integrations
   

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Standard: $90 per organization per year

This plan packs everything in the free plan plus the following:

• Invite 3 Users
• Manage Invoices (Up to 5,000)
• Recurring Expenses
• Connect and fetch bank & credit card feeds via the bank feeds provider
• Predefined User Roles
• Track Project Expenses and Invoice
• Project Tasks
• Bulk Updates
• Transaction Locking
• Custom Views
• Custom Fields
• Reporting Tags
• Timesheet and Billing
• Payment Gateways
   

Professional: $190 per organization per year

This plan includes everything in the Standard plan, plus:

• Invite 5 Users
• Sales Approval
• Retainer Invoices
• Bills
• Payments Made
• Vendor Credits
• Recurring Bills
• Sales Orders
• Purchase Orders
• Purchase Approval
• Multi-currency Handling
• Currency Adjustments
• Stock Tracking
• Price Lists
• Landed Costs
• Custom Roles
• Timesheet Approval
• Timesheet - Client Approval
• Contextual Chat
• Retainer Invoices for Projects
• Project Profitability
• Journal Templates
• Tasks
• Recurring Journals
• Workflow Rules (Up to 10)
   

Premium: $290 per organization per year

This is the fully-featured Zoho Books package. It includes everything in the Professional plan, in addition to the following:

• 3 Branches
• Custom Domain
• Vendor Portal
• Multi-Transaction Number Series
• Budgeting
• Custom Buttons
• Validation Rules
• Related Lists
• WebTabs
• Workflow Rules (Up to 200)
• Custom Reports
• 10 Custom Modules
• Tax Rules

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Zoho Books Addons

Users: $20/user/year

Branches: $90/branch/year ( only for the Premium plan)

Advanced Autoscans: $96 (50 scans/year)

Snail Mails: $2/credit
 

Customer Support

You can reach Zoho Books by phone or email at [email protected] and 8443165544. You can also contact its team through live chat straight from its website. Its website also packs several resources that include:

• Business guides
• FAQs
• Forums
• Webinars
• Help Documentation
   

Final Thoughts

Zoho Books offers an all-inclusive online accounting and bookkeeping software that will meet all your business needs. It offers intuitive and smart features such as automation, smart capture, client and vendor portals, project management, and much more. You can try the Free Zoho Books plan to test out its basic features before committing to a subscription.

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