Zoho Books Review: Features & Pricing for 2023

Zoho Books is cloud-based accounting software with integrated customer relationship management (CRM), inventory, and project management system. It offers a wide array of features, including income and expense tracking, invoicing, sales tax management, and time tracking. Zoho Books offers a free plan for businesses making less than $50,000 in annual revenue and five paid subscriptions that start at $20 per organization, per month.

Zoho Books

Overall Score: 4.40 OUT OF 5

RATING CRITERIA	Pricing	5.00	OUT OF	5
	General Features	4.90	OUT OF	5
	Accounts Payable	4.90	OUT OF	5
	Accounts Receivable	4.70	OUT OF	5
	Banking and Cash Management	4.60	OUT OF	5
	Project Accounting	4.60	OUT OF	5
	Sales Income Tax	3.90	OUT OF	5
	Inventory	5.00	OUT OF	5
	Reporting	4.90	OUT OF	5
	Ease of Use	3.60	OUT OF	5
	Mobile App	5.00	OUT OF	5
	User Ratings	4.50	OUT OF	5
	Overall Score	4.40	OUT OF	5

What We Like

• Competitive free plan
• Loaded with features but more affordable than other similar accounting software
• All paid subscriptions include access to phone support and live chat
• Powerful mobile application that can accomplish almost any accounting task

What's Missing

• Limitation to the number of invoices you can send in the free plan
• Advanced features, like project accounting and inventory management, are available only in the higher plans
• Requires subscription to the Professional plan to manage and track unpaid bills
• Cannot track fixed assets

Visit Zoho Books

Are you looking for something different? Explore other comprehensive accounting solutions for business owners in our guide to the best small business accounting software.

Zoho Books Deciding Factors

Zoho Books Notable New Features for 2023

• Added flexibility in mileage tracking: You can add and update mileage preferences, such as customizing different vehicles and adding multiple custom fields.
• Discounts for individual items in Price Lists: You can enter and apply a discount rate individually for each item, regardless of your preference for discount.
• Purchase Review module: This new feature allows you to track items that are already delivered and yet to be delivered by your supplier or vendor.

Zoho Books Alternatives

Visit QuickBooks Desktop	Visit Xero	Visit QuickBooks Online
Best for: Users who handle multicompany bookkeeping without needing to consolidate financial statements	Best for: Companies that need fixed asset management	Best for: Businesses that want support from an independent bookkeeper
Cost: Starts at $549.99 per year	Cost: Starts at $12 per month	Cost: Starts at $30 per month
Read our QuickBooks Desktop Pro review	Read our Xero review	Read our QuickBooks Online review

Zoho Books offers a free plan for businesses that make $50,000 or less per year in revenue. If needed, you can upgrade to any of the five paid subscription options, with prices ranging from $20 to $275 per month.

The table below shows how the plans compare in terms of the most notable accounting features. If you want to see the complete comparison, you can check out the provider’s pricing page.

You may also purchase these add-ons:

• Advanced auto-scans for $10 for 50 scans per month in all plans
• Snail mails: $2 per credit in all plans

Fit Small Business Case Study

In our internal case study, we thoroughly evaluated Zoho Books to see how it performs based on our scoring rubric. On a scale from zero to five, it is rated across several categories, including pricing, ease of use, and features, such as general accounting, A/P, and accounts receivable (A/R).

The table below sums up the results of our case study.

Zoho Books vs Competitors

Our comparative case study shows how Zoho Books stacks up against QuickBooks Online and Xero within the same set of features. The graph below shows the summary of our case study.

Based on the results, Zoho Books emerges victorious in the project accounting, customer service, and mobile app sections. While it trails behind QuickBooks and Xero in the sales and tax category, it is slightly ahead in terms of inventory and has a close fight against QuickBooks in the general features section. Zoho Books’ biggest weakness, just like QuickBooks Online, is fixed asset management.

Read our comparison guides of Zoho Books vs QuickBooks Online and Zoho Books vs Xero to learn more.

Zoho Books Features

While Zoho Books’ Free plan includes basic features, like invoicing and expense tracking, the advanced capabilities you will receive depend on your subscription. Below, we briefly discuss the results of our case study of Zoho Books Professional within several major categories, plus a link to videos where you can watch our complete assessment of each feature.

Zoho Books offers almost all the general features and benefits you may desire from an accounting program, including the ability to set up your organization profiles, import and modify charts of accounts, enter opening balances for bank, credit card, and other types of accounts, and lock your books when you’re ready to close out the year. For an additional fee, you can set up additional users and give them only the access needed for their role.

Zoho Books General Features Video

The only thing we didn’t like about Zoho Books’ A/P module is that it requires extra steps to apply a vendor credit to a new invoice. Other than that, there are many things to love about Zoho Books. You can enter, manage, and track purchase transactions, including bills, expenses, estimates, and even vendor credits for returns. The program enables you to manage your business expenses with purchase orders (POs), which you can convert to bills easily.

If you have periodic payments to make, such as utility bills and monthly marketing expenses, you can set up recurring payments and add payment reminders so that you can track bills to be paid easily. Recurring expenses can be scheduled to be sent out every week or two weeks, every month, or at any frequency you desire.

Creating recurring expenses in Zoho Books

The automated workflow for managing expenses allows you to categorize your financial transactions easily. Zoho Books offers an easy way to add product or service items using the Items menu located on the left sidebar on your dashboard.

Adding a new item in Zoho Books

The benefit of adding product and service items is that you can provide a description and price that will populate on all your purchasing and sales forms automatically.

Zoho Books A/P Features Video

Zoho Books could have been awarded a perfect score if not for the minor issues we encountered, such as the inability to issue a refund check if a customer has a credit balance on their account. However, Zoho Books’ invoicing feature is impressive. It offers different useful templates, including spreadsheet forms. When creating an invoice, you can customize the background color, upload your logo, and add a personalized message for your customers.

A unique invoicing feature is the ability to send your invoice in different languages and choose the appropriate currency based on the particular location of your business or customer. You can send recurring invoices or schedule them to be sent in advance and add attachments, discounts, shipping charges, and a salesperson field. When your invoice is sent, it reminds customers of unpaid balances, which allows for easy payment.

Sample customized invoice in Zoho Books

Zoho Books A/R Video

Zoho Books has an advanced banking module for reconciling bank transactions. There are two ways you can import bank account transactions into Zoho Books—by connecting your bank account (live bank feeds) and by importing bank statements manually. You can upload bank statements as comma-separated values (CSV) or Excel files. You can enter a statement balance manually when reconciling your bank account, which is important since it enables you to perform a reconciliation even if you don’t import your bank activity. This is a surprising rarity among the software we’ve reviewed.

After reconciling your bank transactions, you can see your detailed reconciliation status reports, including matched and unmatched transactions. You can save your reconciliation before completion and return to it later. The only issue we found is that there’s no option to enter monthly service fees as part of your reconciliation, so you’ll need to enter the fees in a separate transaction before reconciling.

Zoho Books Banking & Cash Management Features Video

Zoho Books did a great job in this criterion but could have done even better if there were an option to find the actual inventory used in a project in the actual vs budget report. In the current version, you can only view it in the profit and loss (P&L) statement.

Despite this weakness, Zoho Books has solid project management features. It allows you to create an estimate and associate a project to it using the Project module found on the Time Tracking menu. When creating an estimate, you can add items, like inventory, labor, and sales taxes. Once approved, you can convert the estimate into an invoice easily.

Estimates can be easily converted to invoices in Zoho Books

You can also assign actual labor to a project and record the actual inventory used in the project. If you need dedicated software for project management, explore our list of the best contractor accounting software.

Zoho Books Project Accounting Features Video

Zoho Books’ score in tax management took a hit because the platform can’t be used to pay and file sales and income tax returns. However, there are still some features you’ll find helpful. For instance, when the sales tax module is activated, Zoho Books calculates sales taxes automatically based on where you collect your taxes. You can also create and manage records for independent contractors, apply tax on inventory items, and view sales tax liability details.

The platform’s sales tax features are included in the assessment of the accounts receivable, so there is no separate video available.

Zoho Books has complete inventory tracking features for tracking stock levels. It allows you to track the cost of goods available for sale and divide that cost between the ending inventory and the cost of goods sold (COGS). You can adjust the quantity and cost of inventory, and sort items based on product details, vendor details, and stock keeping units (SKUs). Another useful inventory tool is the Price List feature, which provides a convenient way to customize item prices for specific customers (i.e., family and friends and high-volume customers). If inventory accounting is important to you, then Zoho Books is a great choice.

We have no separate video for Zoho Books’ inventory as it’s discussed in the A/P and A/R sections.

An important missing feature is that there’s no option to see the time and expenses you haven’t added to your invoice, which is something QuickBooks Online does. Nevertheless, Zoho Books has an excellent selection of financial and accounting reports, including a general business overview, P&L statements, cash flow statements, balance sheets, general ledger, trial balance, A/P and A/R, sales and payment received, inventory, taxes, and project and timesheets.

Zoho Books is a very complicated program, and there are some features that are hidden within each other, which makes it difficult to navigate, especially for new users. However, when you get used to the nuances, you should be able to understand the software easily.

First-time users would be glad to know that it has excellent customer support—better than other software providers. It offers only email support for Free users, but when you upgrade to any of the paid options, you’ll get access to all forms of customer support, including phone and live chat. You can directly call an agent as well, instead of having to send a request first and then wait for a call—which is the case with most similar programs like QuickBooks Online.

The live chat feature is available on the Zoho Books website and within the software itself. If these options are not enough, the provider also offers a comprehensive selection of self-help resources, including webinars, tutorial videos, a frequently asked questions (FAQs) page, and a user community forum.

Zoho Books has the most functional mobile app among all the accounting software we’ve reviewed. It offers all the mobile accounting features we wanted to see, including the ability to send invoices, receive payments, capture expense receipts, record time worked, and view reports from your mobile app. If you need an accounting app that can help you stay on top of your books even when you’re on the road, then Zoho Books is a great choice.

Many users like that the program is affordable and that it has an extensive set of features, even in the free version. Meanwhile, others who left negative reviews commented that the sales and purchase forms are not that customizable and that they can be difficult to use for beginners. Overall, most of the Zoho Books reviews online are generally positive—earning excellent ratings from several review websites.

• G2: 4.5 out of 5 based on around 120 reviews
• TrustRadius: 8.3 out of 10 based on about 120 reviews
• Software Advice: 4.37 out of 5 based on around 450 reviews

FAQs

Is Zoho Books more affordable than QuickBooks?

Yes, it is. If you only need five users and need project accounting and inventory, you can save with Zoho Books’ Professional plan ($50 per month), as opposed to QuickBooks Online’s Plus ($85 per month).

What makes Zoho Books unique?

Zoho Books’ biggest strengths over its competitors are its fully-featured mobile accounting app and integration with the entire line of Zoho apps to manage all aspects of your business.

What are the best Zoho Books alternatives?

Depending on your needs, you may prefer QuickBooks Online, Xero, and Lendio Accounting. Read our articles on Zoho Books vs QuickBooks Online and Zoho Books vs Xero to help you choose the right accounting software.

Bottom Line

Zoho Books is feature-packed accounting software that comes at a fraction of the cost of QuickBooks. It has a very competitive free plan, an easy-to-use interface, and ample features for automating business processes. Most especially, it has unbeatable customer service and a mobile application that is not even close to that of QuickBooks. Despite its invoice limitation particularly in the Free and Standard plans, you may find Zoho Books as good as, if not better than, QuickBooks.