Zoho Books Reviews

I have worked to integrate Zoho Books with Zoho Creator and created one application.

I use Zoho Books internally in my company at all times and I also consult my customers.

I work with usual use cases for Zoho Books, where I have synced all the customers in Zoho Creator, synced all the vendors in Zoho Creator, and synced all items in Zoho Creator. Later on, they create estimates from Zoho Creator, and once the estimate gets finalized, they make their sales order and the sales order gets pushed into Zoho Books. After that, once it gets invoiced, the status gets updated on the respective sales order in books in Creator as invoiced. Later on, they raise the payment on that invoice from Creator and the payment gets synced to the respective invoice in Zoho Books. I also have all tax master, place of supply master, and all the units master in Zoho Creator itself, and I have sent all the address master to sync properly from Creator to Books. For example, if they want to select additional addresses, they can create multiple addresses in Creator and later use them while creating that sales order.

With Zoho Books, I have found the most valuable features that we don't need any reports because the reports get already generated based on the sales and purchases. We can easily find all the account receivables and accounts payables, and by the chart of accounts, we can create multiple charts of accounts under the category, whether it is expense, asset, or liability. We can easily verify and check those reports, file the tax in Zoho Books, and use the tax filing system that is available. We can also do e-invoicing in Zoho Books and integrate WhatsApp with Zoho Books, so if the invoice is overdue, the customer automatically gets a WhatsApp notification against the invoice number. There are multiple functionalities, including a banking system that allows us to directly integrate our bank with Zoho Books to reconcile the payments. If any payments come against the invoice, it gets reconciled, and we can integrate multiple payment gateways such as Razorpay, which automatically gets updated on the invoice when payment is received.

The integration of Zoho Books with other applications influences my business operations significantly. For example, Zoho CRM provides the customer contacts that sync directly as customers in Zoho Books. The vendor information from Zoho CRM also syncs directly to vendors in Zoho Books. Estimates from Zoho CRM sync to Zoho Books when I enable Zoho Finance Suite in Zoho CRM, and the same vice versa for Zoho Books.

Another feature is that I can add data sources in Zoho Analytics, so whatever reports get created in Zoho Books sync to analytics, allowing me to create better dashboards according to my needs. I can join the tables pushed from Books in analytics to gain more insights, and if any reports aren't generated in Zoho Books report section, I can join the tables in Zoho Analytics for that purpose.

The financial insights from Zoho Books reporting module that most impact my decision-making processes include features such as transfer orders and adjustments. For instance, if I lose any quantities or items are destroyed, I can easily manage the transfer from one warehouse to another. If items are kept in one warehouse but someone purchases from another warehouse, I can create transfer orders and invoices. Additionally, after delivery, I can create delivery challans for the transportation systems. If I have created an invoice but don't have enough quantity, I can create a purchase order and request for a purchase, which later helps in creating that invoice. These features make Zoho Books more proficient than other accounting software such as QuickBooks and Tally.

Areas of Zoho Books that could be improved or enhanced include the requirements for data size, as sometimes there is too much data. When importing anything, I must first segregate the data in Excel. I have to check the data type needed, so when I am importing, it doesn't throw errors. The client often provides data, but it isn't always clean, so I have to clean it, understand the sample CSV or XLS file of Zoho Books for data import and fix the client's data accordingly before attempting to import it, thus ensuring smoother importing.

I have been working with Zoho Books for three years.

My impression on the stability and reliability of Zoho Books is quite positive as it is compatible with mobile preview, allowing me to log in via mobile, tablets, and laptops. It does not require any extra software to be downloaded for access, unlike some other software that needs additional installations for usage.

When it comes to scaling up or scaling out as my customers' needs grow, Zoho Books adapts well. I can create multiple users, roles, and permissions within the system. Scaling is easy; I can purchase for 10 users, 20 users, or any number of users as needed.

I often communicate with the technical support of Zoho Books, but for most things, I solve issues on my own. Certain points that seem unfeasible or beyond my knowledge lead me to reach out to Zoho support, which is helpful.

Positive

The invoicing feature of Zoho Books helps me manage my invoicing needs because I don't need to create an invoice every time. For instance, when I create a sales order, there is an automatic button to make an instant invoice. When I click the instant invoice, it automatically creates one invoice, and a pop-up opens if I want to modify the quantities or anything, which allows me to create that invoice. Additionally, I can create multiple templates for an invoice based on the tax invoices I want to see in the template and those I don't want to see, as the template is submitted based on customer requirements. Some customers want different templates, and in the invoicing feature, I also have an HTML snippet that I can customize according to the customer's needs, depending on the plan I have taken.

I use Zoho Books for tax management and we can create multiple taxes based on country specifications. In India, for example, there is a 5% GST, 12%, 18%, and 28% GST, which depend on the GST and IGST. Outside India, there is a VAT system with 0% VAT and 5% VAT. We can manage the tax and map it accordingly with items, so when we create any invoicing, the tax depends on the place of supply, which is the state of supply. For example, in Dubai, there is Ajman, and GCC states exist as well, so we manage the taxes according to those regions.

My impression on the pricing and licensing of Zoho Books is that it depends on the needs of the client. Zoho provides multiple pricing options according to their plans. For example, if a client requires journals, they can use the essential plan, whereas others may opt for premium plans. It is completely dependent on the features that the client wants. If the client's needs are fulfilled, I do not suggest that they shift to a better plan like the premium plan; essentials may suffice.

On a scale of 1-10, I rate Zoho Books a 9.

I use Zoho Books for almost any accounting purposes across any industries. It is not limited to a service-based or product-based approach; I use it in manufacturing, shipping industries, medical, and everywhere accounting is normally needed.

I only work with Zoho technology, not with any other vendors.

I do services for my customers and third-party customers, while we use it internally in my company. I am the Zoho developer, so I normally provide the solution on Zoho Books, accounting, and how the inventory works.

The most valuable features and capabilities of Zoho Books I have found include vendor management, customer management, accounting, invoicing, and inventory. Within Zoho Books, you can handle both accounting and inventory, covering all areas like purchase and sales. Almost all features are available, including bank reconciliation.

Invoicing is also included in the accounting features. The sales section includes quotation, sales order, invoicing, packing, shipments, delivery note, delivery challans, invoicing, and payment received. The purchase section includes purchase orders, purchase received (GRN), bill, supplier invoices, and advance payment. All these features are available.

You can communicate and send to the customers using it. It enables managing different statuses, scheduling recurring invoices, and customers can pay through direct online payment using Zoho Books direct invoices. Customers can log into their portal and see their own invoices.

In terms of improvement, there are two things which they are going to improve, but they have dedicated products for them. Obviously, they are a business as well. If they could give everything in one product, then how would they run their business? The RFQ is something they should provide. That is the only thing missing, along with a proforma invoice. Although there is an alternative, I still think they need to provide these two things dedicatedly.

I have been using the solution for the last 12 months.

Regarding stability and reliability, I would rate it 10 out of 10. Stability is not an issue at all, and you can rely on it completely. They have different data centers in each country; for example, the UK has one, Europe has another, the Middle East has different centers in Saudi and Dubai, India, the USA, and Australia all have their own data centers. Almost every country has its own data center now.

In terms of scalability, I would rate Zoho Books as a nine.

I often communicate with the technical support of Zoho Books, and they are quickly available to help.

I can share examples of my interactions with them; I directly call the product teams because I have access. You can either call, chat via live chat, or email with their product team. You can go with any method. If I get stuck anywhere, documentation, videos, and knowledge base resources are already available. Normally, it is not required, but in case you need it, then you can reach out.

Positive

Zoho provides solutions for almost all industries. When you consider it, you can implement the ERP concept with supporting applications from Zoho. Compared to SAP, NetSuite, and Oracle, you have a lot more complexities and the implementation costs are too high. You have to spend millions of dollars, and fixing issues and implementation quickly is very difficult on Oracle and SAP. The developer costs even for on-premise implementations on your server-side are also high. In comparison to Zoho's perspective, it is very less and very cheap, and it is easy to fix issues and navigate other processes. This is why Zoho Books is very easy to use and convenient for implementation as well.

My usual use cases for Zoho Books involve all accounting, characterized by very simple and simplicity. Any person can easily work on it with no need for lots of training. It is very simple and online, cloud-based accounting software where you can do fixed asset management and handle the inventory as well.

I think the reporting module of Zoho Books is comprehensive because they have all reporting: aging, financial, profit, and all organization reports. Receivable, payables, inventory, banking, everything, shipments, all reports are there. You can build your custom reports. If you feel that you want to extend business intelligence, then you can use Zoho Analytics integrated for quick listing.

Financial insights that I receive from the reporting module include the organization report with a business perspective covering profit, cash flow, balance sheet, and movement of equity. In the sales reporting for customers by item, sales history, category, person, and sales profit by item summary, there is inventory with many details, such as all inventory by quantity, adjustment summary, stock summary, movement, and aging summary. Valuation summary report is there, and additional reports are available for different locations including receivable in the AR summary, aging summary, invoice detail, sales order detail, quotation, receivable, taxation, banking, payable, and their purchase and expense. Project management is also included; you can create a project and manage all profit and loss statements against that project. Fixed asset management is included as well, along with various accounting transaction reports like general ledger, general report, trial balance, currency management, and gain and loss. Different automation functionalities are there, including portal activity.

Tax management is also part of Zoho Books. You can file online tax directly to the government portals, including VAT payment, which you can handle. It meets all tax compliance requirements. If you are from the UK, then you can connect to the direct government portals. The CIS feature is also there, including labor charge and everything. You can define budgets and handle different currency adjustments. There are many features available for document management, handling all document purchases. Almost all the features are there, and they have different plans with lots of features.

I integrate Zoho Books with other applications. Any Zoho support provides their notification system, and you can write customizations, workflows, Deluge script, and use webhooks to receive incoming notifications. You can create a custom module, write logic for every module, and create workflows, reports, emails, and everything.

The pricing of Zoho Books is very cheap. Its cost is not an issue at all. In short, it is a replacement for Tally. My overall rating for this product is 9 out of 10.

I am an accountant who works in bookkeeping and accounting tasks. I have the most experience with Zoho Books and Analytics. I previously worked on the e-commerce side with Shopify and other platforms. We used Zoho Books Analytics to track orders and manage our accounting processes.

What I appreciate most about Zoho Books is its inventory functionality. It can allocate import costs to each inventory item. I love how it handles inventory management, including maintaining pictures, quantities with measurement units, and related features. Having used eight accounting software systems, I consider this one among my favorites.

A notable feature is the ability to manage technical aspects when exporting reports. When creating a chart of accounts, even if I mistakenly create an account with a lengthy name or need to adjust it to a shorter version, the system accommodates these changes.

The user interface of Zoho Books is frustrating when compared to QuickBooks or other alternatives. Tasks that require two or three tabs in QuickBooks need multiple deep navigation steps in Zoho Books. I recommend improving the interface and enhancing the reporting features. For instance, profit and loss statements, balance sheets, and other reports appear more polished in QuickBooks and Xero. Zoho Books needs to be more customizable with a more appealing visual presentation.

Regarding pricing, QuickBooks offers better deals with three-month promotional offers. As a freelancer working with small and medium companies who need to file returns, I can purchase QuickBooks at wholesale prices and provide subscriptions to clients. This option isn't available with Zoho Books, where I must buy and pay for pro advisory services that are free with QuickBooks and Xero after completing online examinations. They should introduce promotions for wholesale pricing and allow practitioners to provide it to their clients. Additionally, they should implement a feature where I can manage all my clients under one username for detailed access and invoicing capabilities.

I have been using Zoho Books for four years and continue to use it today.

Regarding stability, there are some technical challenges with exporting reports. When creating a chart of accounts, Zoho Books does not allow changing an account from asset to liability or vice versa. If an account is created incorrectly, it must remain unchanged without any activity. Sometimes when exporting reports, entries appear despite having no figures, which can be frustrating.

In terms of scalability, I would rate it as neutral five. It isn't worse than other software but isn't as good as competitors such as Xero and QuickBooks, where I can customize everything.

I contacted technical support regarding an inventory issue where we were combining three finished goods (A, B, C) to create a new product (D). I needed assistance in adjusting the inventory to reflect this manufacturing process. While they couldn't provide the exact solution I needed, they offered an alternative method using manual inventory adjustments.

The support team's response and understanding of the issue merits a seven out of ten. They demonstrated good comprehension of the problem and provided a workable, though not ideal, solution.

Positive

I have used several accounting solutions including Xero (Australian-based), Sage 50, Tally, and Capium (from the UK). The main three software systems I've worked with are Zoho Books, QuickBooks, and Xero.

I have no partnership with Zoho Books, but I use it for all my clients. I purchase single subscriptions for each client. If they could provide wholesale pricing and pro advisory certificates without charge, I would recommend it more strongly. On a scale of 1-10, I rate Zoho Books an 8.

I work with Zoho CRM and we have different tools that we use, such as Zoho Books, Zoho Expense, and Zoho Projects on top of the Zoho CRM.

I use Zoho Books mainly for timesheets and invoicing POs, that's the main point.

I do not use Zoho Books for financial insights from the analytics side, as it's just some summaries and insights into different shadow bookings because we do not do the bookkeeping with Zoho Books; we just use it for internal access to data and not for real bookkeeping because that's done externally.

I would give Zoho Books eight points in general, where 10 is the best.

A positive aspect of Zoho Books is the integration into the different modules, especially over into the projects, Zoho Project side, and Zoho CRM.

What I consider a positive impact from Zoho Books is the integration into the different modules, which is done very nicely.

The major benefit I've seen from Zoho Books is its positive impact on saving time around CRM and projects, CRM, bookkeeping, and projects as that works very efficiently.

I do not have any challenges within Zoho Books, but sometimes if you want to change the currencies for customers, that can be a bit tricky, especially if you want to issue different invoices in different currencies, maybe even for the same customer, that's the only thing.

It's not easy because there's a standard currency created when you create the customer in CRM, and using it in Zoho Books is simple; however, changing that isn't easy anymore as you would have to create a new customer entry inside Zoho Books that runs on a different currency.

I have been working with Zoho Books for 10 years already.

There's no installation for Zoho Books as it's a SaaS solution, but if you talk about configuration in terms of custom configurations, that's fine, although there are some limits in the different subscriptions on what you can do, but that's fine for us.

The solution is stable, as there are no glitches or latency problems with just a few users.

The solution is easy to scale; we only have a few users in Zoho Books, and also only a few in CRM, while in Zoho Projects, we have not more than 50 users, so for that scale, it's easy.

I have experience with tech support, and that works efficiently; they come back with solutions in a short timeframe.

If I would rate my experience with support from one to 10, I would give them eight points.

Positive

I do not work with automatic bank feeds for my financial processes.

Regarding ROI from the product, I wonder what you compare it to.

In terms of pricing and licensing for Zoho Books, I find it affordable, and if you have issues, you can also talk to the team there; we had some licensing issues with Zoho Projects, but those could be settled after they changed the license model in Zoho Projects.

I do not have experience with something similar; mainly for invoicing, I've been utilizing Zoho while running our consulting company, while everything around SAP is just service provider.

SAP usage depends on the client systems as we don't use it ourselves, so I cannot say anything about the usage for as a company.

I'm not using it for tax management either.

I can be reached via email to confirm something.

I wouldn't want to go into Zoho Projects as this is not my specialty topic here anyway.

On a scale of 1-10, I rate Zoho Books an eight.

With Zoho Books, we're integrating all our accounts together so that we can create reports on them. We can have visual reports on our income and expenses and everything going in and out of our accounts. I can say Zoho Books is for bookkeeping.

I do it for my customers as I am actually a consultant.

Zoho Books invoicing allows me to set up accounts so my customers can create new invoices and send them to their clients. It automatically updates when the invoices have been cleared.

Since we can link banking in Zoho Books, the automation has been seamless because you can get real-time updates on your accounts. You can set up consolidation for customers with different accounts to get a single report. For instance, if an insurance company has three different accounts with different projects, when you invoice them, you can consolidate them into a single customer's account. It is easier to customize your invoice by adding your company logo. You can convert currencies if you are being paid in foreign currency, making it easier to convert to your local currency using the day's exchange rate, which I really appreciate.

You can get the balance sheet and create different reports. You can create profit and loss by segment and differentiate your sales report to see sales by item or sales by customer. There are extensive capabilities in the reporting features, which makes it really expandable.

Regarding tax management with Zoho Books, I work hand in hand with the company's accountant. When a customer wants to set up Zoho Books, we collaborate with their accountant since different companies have different policies. We custom make it so they can do their taxes using Zoho Books or outside of it.

The integrating part of Zoho Books has been the most valuable for my customers, along with the visual representation of their account status.

The reporting feature of Zoho Books has been impactful because you can create different reports from different accounts. You can merge accounts and create reports on them. You can track your sales, customers, invoices, and purchases. It provides clean bookkeeping, especially for mid-level companies.

The analytics features in Zoho Books should be easier to transfer between workbooks. When you have created a report in one workspace, they should make it easier to transfer that report to other workspaces.

I have been working with Zoho Books for around two years now.

The product has been reliable. I have not had any issues so far. They do their updates timely. I have not had any lag or misconfiguration from my previous customers.

As of now, Zoho Books is quite scalable. I have not had an issue with it on scalability. I would say it is good.

My professional experience with customer service is somewhat inconsistent because sometimes you can get good customer care service, while other times you might get a representative whom you are actually showing how things should be done. I would give them maybe a six out of ten.

Another problem is that not all customer care representatives are knowledgeable across all products. You might meet someone who is very fluent in Zoho Books but does not know much about Zoho Analytics. When you have a question about Zoho Analytics, transferring the call to another person takes time, which can be problematic during emergencies.

Neutral

First of all, I look at where the customers previously stored their data. If it is a new business, I ask them what they want from Zoho Books and then plan it out. We can integrate their previous data or map out the workspace. I show them how to work with the system and how to draw reports. We connect their bank and payment system, and that completes the setup.

Banking integration with Zoho Books has been seamless. That's the major feature my customers are looking for, along with different payment platforms such as mobile payment. It becomes easier to track finances with that. In terms of payment and different payment platforms, Zoho has excelled.

Since I have experience for about two years, it is not challenging. It is a straight process. The only challenges come at the beginning of working with the system, before understanding how it works. Some training or reading documentation is necessary.

Zoho Cloud has worked seamlessly. It is easy to draw reports, fetch data, and access everything on your mobile phone.

The pricing of Zoho Books is fair for any small or mid-sized company or SMEs. The pricing is reasonable because you just set up and go.

I have majorly worked with medium and small businesses with Zoho Books, and it works perfectly with them.

My overall rating for Zoho Books is 9 out of 10.

There are multiple applications I am working on, so there's a list, a whole bunch of a list.

They are completely from Zoho. I am aware of Zoho CRM as well. I have worked on Zoho CRM, Zoho Books, Zoho Inventory, Zoho Expense, then Zoho Flow. I'm not able to remember all of the names, but there are a few I remember.

It provides us clear visibility in terms of the reports. When we look at the reports, it's a user-friendly application. Users don't have to look into each and everything. They have everything in front of them. They just have to do some clicks and everything gets done.

I have worked with multiple clients for Zoho Books, and they are completely satisfied with the implementation and customization automation we did. For invoicing, they have certain requirements where sales orders that get into their system automatically generate invoices on the due date as mentioned in their sales order. It provides an automated system.

The bank reconciliation is quite easy to manage because it provides you a clear picture of transactions that have been credited or debited. You can reconcile them using certain options. It also provides automatic reconciliation if there aren't any issues or wrong transaction entries into the bank. You can automatically reconcile it or do it manually as well.

Basically, you have the balance sheet, horizontal balance sheet which provides year-to-year balance sheets, P&Ls, vertical P&Ls, overall general ledger report, account transactions, bank reconciliation, categorized transactions, uncategorized transactions, and audit logs.

Taxation reports are available. You can directly file GST and everything from Zoho itself. Zoho Books also provides receivables and payables as an inbuilt functionality.

Zoho Books is a basic accounting software. It's an application for basic accounting purposes where you can manage all accounting activities. There are multiple customizations that we can implement in Zoho Books as well.

They can improve their approval process and access matrix in Zoho Books.

I noticed a drawback around six or seven months back, but they might have covered it in the latest version. The use case was for an organization doing sales out of the country - an Indian client who exported everything to the US. When they paid custom duty to the government, they received a return, including GST over that custom duty. This functionality wasn't available in Zoho Books at that time.

I have been using it for three years.

The customer service is totally good. They provide us timely resolution. If we reach out to them, they provide us the solution and get it done for us.

Neutral

I've worked on Tally as well. Tally is quite a large application, but it isn't user-friendly. When we look into the reports, it doesn't give us the reports or dashboards and P&L and balance sheets which would help us out.

If you are using any other Zoho application, then it is quite easy to integrate. Even if it's a third-party application other than Zoho, you can use the APIs and everything.

The cost is reasonable.

Zoho Books is a basic accounting system. You can't compare it to SAP's accounting because it's a large scale of activities or operations done in the background. But if you are looking for the basic structure, then Zoho Books is quite better than SAP.

We use Microsoft Azure for deployment. I would rate Zoho Books 8.5 out of 10. The overall review rating is 9 out of 10.