What is our primary use case?
We use Zoho Expense, and we are planning to implement Zoho Payroll. We are in a discussion about that.
In our organization, we use Zoho Expense because we have three different locations in India. If an employee needs to go to other locations for any client visit, they can raise a trip request. Their manager approves it, then a person from the accounts team will approve it. After that, they can raise the reimbursements and add a bill. If an employee needs a Udemy certification or some other certifications, they can add their bills, raise a request, and the accounts team can avail their amount for reimbursement.
We may use it for international expenses, but it is very minimal. On a scale of 100%, we may use it for 1% or 2% because we don't have branches outside of India.
What is most valuable?
What I appreciate about Zoho Expense is the sequential approval feature. We can add many sequential approvals in Zoho Expense. That is the best feature because if an employee asks for any trip, their manager should know about it. Then after the manager's approval, the accounts or finance team should validate the correct bills, and then they can reimburse it.
The customizable approval workflows in Zoho Expense help my organization manage business expenses because the workflows are very clear and simple. We don't use complex workflows; we use complex workflows in Zoho People. We use Zoho Expense to avail expenses, trip approvals, and all related tasks.
Zoho Expense's expense categorization helps to stay compliant. In terms of policy compliance, people can add expenses based on our reimbursement policies. We reimburse amounts per day based on the employee's grade. If an employee is a fresher, their grade is nine. If an employee is a senior manager, their level is six or five. We use the per diem feature; we give engineers a certain amount per day and managers receive a different amount. That is useful in Zoho Expense to differentiate by grades and levels.
What needs improvement?
Sometimes there are issues in the approval flow in Zoho Expense. There are some approval issues with permissions, though I am unable to recall the specific details at this time.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been working with Zoho Expense for six to seven months.
How are customer service and support?
We haven't escalated any questions to Zoho regarding the Expense solution because we don't use it extensively. We just use it for expenses; we haven't used it for any major automations and workflows.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have not used any different solution for expense management before using Zoho Expense.
What other advice do I have?
I have experience working with Zoho People, which is the HR platform.
I only know about Zoho People; I don't know about Zoho People Plus. Currently, we validate our data on Excel after exporting it. We haven't integrated with Zoho Analytics.
Regarding Zoho Expense, I don't use it extensively, so I cannot identify many negatives. If you use it extensively and spend hours in Zoho Expense, you might encounter some issues or drawbacks. We use it rarely because we have integrated all the workflows and automation in it. People avail the expenses and add their expenses, and we don't face any issues.
As for the pricing aspect of Zoho Expense, it is not costly. I don't know the exact figure, but it is not an expensive product.
The measurable benefit I see from Zoho Expense includes the digitalization of expenses and billings. Zoho Expense is a good platform. You can consider it if you want to digitalize your expense and trip approvals.
I rate Zoho Expense 8 out of 10.
