Zoho Books Accounting: Is It Right for You?

Finding the perfect accounting software for your small business is of the utmost importance.

After all, your accounting platform will house all of your financial information and help you manage this core piece of your business operations. Therefore, you need a system that you can rely on, that meets your business requirements, and that is affordable. With all of this in mind, you may be considering a solution like Zoho Books.

Is the Zoho Books accounting software right for your business? We’ll help you decide with our ultimate Zoho Books review. We’ll break down Zoho Books pricing, features, and discuss the benefits and possible drawbacks of using this platform—this way, you’ll have all the information you need to determine what’s best for your business.

Let’s start our Zoho Books review by going through the basics of this accounting software.

As part of the Zoho One suite—which includes over 40 integrated business operations apps—Zoho Books is the accounting-specific software designed to help small businesses manage their finances, automate workflows, and work cross-functionally between different parts of the business.

Zoho Books is a web-based platform that allows you to access your account wherever you have internet, as well as use their mobile accounting app for either iOS or Android.

With four tiered versions and add-on options, Zoho Books can grow with your company, allowing you to upgrade and accommodate your business’s expansion.

Before we discuss the different plans that Zoho Books offers, let’s explore the overall features you can expect with this accounting software. On the whole, Zoho Books includes:

• Invoices: Send customized invoices to customers, set up recurring invoices and automatic payment reminders, connect to payment gateways to allow customers to pay invoices online
• Estimates: Create and send estimates, track estimate history, collaborate with clients, easily convert estimates into invoices
• Time and project tracking: Track time using web platform or mobile app, manage multiple projects, associate expenses with projects, add tasks to each project and assign them to specific employees
• Banking: Connect one or multiple bank accounts and automatically import transactions into Zoho Books, view all account activity on your dashboard, automatically categorize transactions, use Zoho Books best match tool for transactions to expedite reconciliation
• Expense tracking: Track and categorize expenses, bill expenses to customers, create recurring expenses, attach bills, receipts, and credit notes to particular transactions
• Client portal: Give customers access to the client portal so they can manage their information, approve estimates, pay invoices, leave comments, and receive real-time account alerts
• Reporting: Use dashboard to view total receivables, sales, top expenses, and more; generate business reports such as your profit and loss statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement; create custom reports; share reports with your team; organize reports with tags
• Taxes: Define multiple taxes, set a default tax rate, calculate sales tax liability for tax time, track contractor payments and file 1099s, integrate with Avalara to get current tax rates and exemptions automatically
• Security: Zoho Books includes SSL encryption and two-factor authentication to ensure your transactions are secure
• Mobile: Download the Zoho Books app for smartphone or tablet to track time, send invoices, and view account information on the go
• Integrations: Integrate with other tools within the Zoho Suite, such as Zoho CRM, Zoho Inventory, or Zoho Subscriptions; connect your Zoho Books account to third-party platforms like Zapier, Square POS, Evernote, Slack, Stripe, PayPal, and more
• Customer support: Access customer support via email, live chat, or phone 24 hours a day, five days a week, as well as utilize the support resources on the Zoho Books website

Although you can expect the features discussed above as part of your Zoho Books accounting software, the ultimate capabilities you receive will depend on which of their four plans you choose. This being said, let’s explore each of these plans, their pricing, and what accounting tools and functionalities they offer.

If you’re a new business owner who needs a no-nonsense accounting system, then the Zoho Books Free Plan may be perfect for you.

With no monthly cost and core features that can help you automate your accounting and bookkeeping processes, the Free Plan can be an effective solution for many small businesses.

Let’s dive into the details.

One of the most notable benefits of this baseline version of Zoho Books is its extremely affordable pricing.

This version has no monthly cost.

The Free Plan will allow two users to access your Zoho Books account: you and your accountant. With limited user access, therefore, the Free Plan is designed for very small businesses, like sole-proprietorships. This also makes it an appropriate home-based business accounting software.

This being said, however, if you want to add another user to your account, you can purchase a user add-on, for $2.50 per user per month.

What capabilities can you expect from the Zoho Books Free Plan? Overall, the Free Plan includes the following features:

• Invoices
• Estimates
• Expense tracking
• Client portal
• Financial reports
• Bank reconciliation
• Credit notes
• 1099 tracking
• Payment reminders

The next step up from the Free Plan is the Zoho Books Standard Plan. This accounting software option is well-suited for small businesses that are growing and need a platform that can accommodate their expansion—offering more features and fewer limitations than the Free Plan.

Let’s take a closer look at the details of the Standard Plan.

Although the Standard Plan is the second-tier version of the Zoho Books accounting software, this plan is still very affordable.

If you opt for the Standard Plan on a month-by-month basis, the Zoho Books pricing will be $20 per month.

This Zoho Books plan will allow you to have three total users: two users plus a business accountant.

Additionally, if you need more than two users on your account but don’t want to opt for the Professional Plan, you can purchase an add-on user, for $2.50 per user per month.

On the whole, then, the Standard Plan will give you access to all of the features we listed in regards to the Free Plan, as well as:

• Recurring expenses
• Predefined user roles
• Track project expenses and invoice
• Bulk updates
• Transaction locking
• Custom views
• Custom fields
• Reporting tags
• Avalara and Zendesk integrations
• Additional payment gateways
• Sales tax tracking
• Chat and voice customer support

The next plan that Zoho Books offers is the Professional Plan. This version of the software can accommodate small businesses with additional capabilities, more users, and fewer restrictions.

Let’s learn more about this Zoho Books plan.

The Professional plan costs $50 per month.

With the Professional version of Zoho Books, you’ll be able to attach a total of five users to your account.

Moreover, just like with the other two plans, you have the option to purchase additional user access for $2.50 per user per month.

The Zoho Books Professional Plan will offer the greatest feature set so far. With the Professional Plan, you’ll have access to all of the capabilities of the previous two plans as well as:

• Sales approval
• Bills
• Vendor credits
• Sales orders
• Purchase orders
• Multi-currency
• Stock tracking
• Price lists
• Custom roles
• Time tracking and billing
• Timesheet approvals
• Project profitability
• Workflow rules (up to 10)

The last plan Zoho offers is the Enterprise plan. This plan can accommodate small businesses with the most needs, especially for customized workflows and a greater level of automation.

The Enterprise plan costs $70 per month.

This plan offers 10 users, the most of any of the plans. As you might expect, you still have the option to add users for $2.50 per user per month.

The Enterprise plan includes all of the features of the previous three plans, as well as:

• Custom domain
• Vendor portal
• Budgeting
• Validation rules
• Related lists
• Custom functions
• Custom schedulers
• Workflow rules (up to 200)

In addition to the third-party integrations as well as other Zoho tools (CRM, Inventory, etc.) you can connect to your Zoho Books accounting software, Zoho also offers three specific add-on options: Users, Snail Mail, and Auto-scans.

As we mentioned earlier in regards to adding users, these options allow you to increase specific features without needing to pay for an upgrade to another Zoho Books plan.

Let’s explore further.

If one of the Zoho Books plans offers up the perfect accommodations for your business’s accounting needs, minus the restriction to the number of users that can be on your account, you can opt for their user add-on feature.

You can add a user to your account for $2.50 per user per month.

If you need to send hard copies of estimates or invoices to your customers, you’ll need to use the Zoho Books Snail Mail add-on. These credits, priced at $2 per credit, allow you to send paper invoices or estimates to both U.S. and international customers.

For U.S. customers, you’ll need one credit per paper invoice or estimate and for international customers, you’ll need two credits.

If you want to automate your business’s accounting processes even further, you can consider using the Zoho Books auto-scan add-on.

This Zoho Books exclusive feature allows business owners and their accountants to scan financial statements and documents into a Zoho technology that will automatically extract key data from the documents and input it into a Zoho Books account.

For $8 per month, the auto-scan add-on feature will give you access to 50 scans per month.

Now that we’ve covered all of the Zoho Books plans, their features, and pricing, let’s take the next step in our Zoho Books review and discuss the possible benefits and drawbacks of this accounting platform.

Starting with the positives, here are four advantages to Zoho Books to consider:

Zoho Books not only offers four plans to choose from, but they offer a free plan with impressive features that rivals some of the paid entry-level plans of competitors.

If you’re just starting your business, or running a smaller business, this can be a great option for automating your bookkeeping — without investing in an expensive software.

Plus, you always have three other plan options to consider, and you can upgrade to any other plan if necessary.

On top of their free plan, Zoho Books gives you the ability to choose a plan that works for you, customize the solution with add-ons and integration options, and upgrade as your business grows. Scalability can be an important feature of an accounting platform and isn’t something that all solutions offer.

However, with tiered plans that increase in functionality, the Zoho Books plans can give you the opportunity to grow within one accounting software and as your business expands, manage more of your processes within one place.

Moreover, regardless of the plan that you choose, Zoho Books offers a robust feature set that truly gives you the ability to automate and streamline your business bookkeeping and accounting.

With significant invoicing, payments, reporting, and expense tools included within all four plans, Zoho Books allows you to go beyond simple reconciliation and manage these core processes using their platform. Plus, if you opt for the Professional Plan, you’ll be able to pay your business’s bills with Zoho Books—as well as place sales and purchase orders and manage and track your inventory.

Therefore, with each of these Zoho Books options, you’ll have access to impressive functionality.

Finally, not only is the Zoho Books accounting software platform full of noteworthy features, but it’s also easy to use. You can quickly and easily get set up with Zoho Books, adding your information and connecting your accounts.

Additionally, if you have any issues or questions, you have not one, but three different ways to contact their customer service team, as well as the ability to use any of their self-service resources online.

This being said, even if you have an accountant or bookkeeper managing the majority of your finances, it’s important that you can easily access and utilize your accounting software if necessary—making usability a top benefit of Zoho Books.

Despite all of these benefits, it’s also worth considering the possible drawbacks of the Zoho Books accounting software. After all, regardless of the specific solution, every option is going to have both advantages and disadvantages.

Therefore, let’s continue our Zoho Books review by discussing the downsides of this platform. Here are three points to keep in mind:

Although Zoho Books gives you four plans to choose from, they do restrict the number of users you can have on your account.  Even though you can add more users by paying a monthly or annual fee, the Enterprise Plan even caps the number of users included upfront at 10.

Compared to other solutions, like Wave accounting or Xero, both of which allow an unlimited amount of users, this restriction could be particularly problematic — and costly if you need to be to add more team members.

Another possible downside of Zoho Books is their lack of payroll services. Whereas many accounting solutions—QuickBooks, Xero, Wave—either include payroll capabilities or offer specific integration options with different payroll software systems, Zoho Books does not provide these types of tools.

Although Zoho does offer 1099 tracking and filing, they do not dive deeper into the larger area of payroll and taxes, both of which can be crucial parts of business accounting. Therefore, if you’d like to be able to directly integrate your payroll or pay taxes within your accounting software, you may consider another platform that will allow you to do so.

Finally, although perhaps not as significant as the previous two points, Zoho Books is also limited in their third-party integration options. Similar to their lack of payroll services, compared to competitors, Zoho does not connect with nearly as many third-party tools as platforms like QuickBooks or Xero.

As we mentioned, however, Zoho Books does offer their own apps—CRM, Inventory, Subscriptions, Checkout, and more. This being said, though, if you already pay for and utilize third-party tools for some of these functionalities, you may have to operate those platforms separately from your accounting software with Zoho Books.

You may consider QuickBooks Online as a top alternative. One of the most popular accounting solutions on the market, QuickBooks Online is known for their overall features, different plan offerings, and vast integration options.

Compared to Zoho Books, QuickBooks provides many more third-party integration possibilities and offers their own payroll service add-on option. Moreover, with four plans to choose from, QuickBooks also gives you notable scalability and with their top-tier plans, some of the most advanced features available—including project profitability tracking, inventory tools, up to 25 users, and more.

Plus, as one of the most popular and long-standing accounting software platforms, most bookkeepers and accountants are familiar with QuickBooks, and the resources available regarding this solution are abundant.

Therefore, if you think you’ll need more advanced features from your accounting software, especially payroll or integrations, you might consider QuickBooks as an alternative to Zoho Books.

On the other hand, if you’re looking for a Zoho Books alternative designed specifically for self-employed professionals and contractors, you might consider FreshBooks.

FreshBooks offers greater options for integrations and workflows, as well as tools for time-tracking and working with different team members.

Additionally, between their mobile app and web platform, FreshBooks is known as one of the most intuitive, flexible, and accessible accounting software options.

Therefore, FreshBooks is a worthy Zoho Books alternative for those business owners who need a simple, easy-to-use platform that can connect to their other business tools—especially those that are service-based and don’t require inventory capabilities.