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Kimberly is a career writer and editor with more than 30 years' experience. She's a bankruptcy survivor, small business owner, and homeschool parent. In addition to writing for The Motley Fool, she offers content strategy to financial technology startups, owns and manages a 350-writer content agency, and offers pro-bono financial counseling.
Zoho Books is a cloud-based accounting solution designed to streamline financial operations for small- and medium-sized businesses. Part of the wider Zoho suite of business tools, Zoho Books provides a robust yet user-friendly platform for tasks like invoicing, expense tracking, project management, banking, and reporting. It strikes a nice balance between affordability, features, and a focus on making accounting accessible to users without deep accounting expertise.
Pricing:
Zoho Books' pricing tiers provide great scalability. They even offer a free plan for very small operations. Each plan includes dozens of features, and the higher tiers include everything beneath.
Free: Up to 2 users. 1,000 invoices per year. Import bank and credit card statements.
Standard: Starts at $15/month. Automatically fetches bank and credit card feeds.
Professional: Starts at $40/month. Track project expenses, forecast cash flow.
Premium: Starts at $60/month. Vendor portal, workflow rules.
Elite: Starts at $120/month. Unlimited custom reports, multi-currency.
Ultimate: Starts at $240/month. Advanced analytics, track key metrics.
Zoho Books caters primarily to the needs of small to medium businesses. Many freelancers and solopreneurs can benefit from the free plan to manage their basic finances. Its feature set and affordability make it an excellent alternative to more expensive accounting solutions.
Let's delve into some of Zoho Book's key features:
One of Zoho Books' greatest strengths lies in its membership within the wider Zoho suite of applications. Zoho offers a vast array of business tools covering CRM (customer relationship management), sales, marketing, project management, HR, payroll, and more. By using Zoho Books alongside other Zoho apps, businesses benefit from seamless integration that allows data to flow effortlessly between these tools. This eliminates the need for manual data entry between systems, reduces errors, and provides a unified view of your business operations, leading to better decision-making and improved efficiency.
Zoho Books provides business hour support via phone, email, and live chat across its paid plans. Free plans get email support. It has a decent online knowledge base, extensive online documentation, and offers webinars for training purposes. If you're really passionate about being a Zoho guru, there is an annual Zoholics conference in the U.S.
Let's break down the Zoho Books pricing tiers in detail:
| Plan Name | Price (Monthly) | Price (Annual) | Users | Invoices per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | 2 | 50 |
| Standard | $20 | $180 | 3 | 1,000 |
| Professional | $50 | $480 | 5 | 5,000 |
| Premium | $70 | $720 | 10 | Unlimited |
| Elite | $150 | $1,440 | 10 | Unlimited |
| Ultimate | $247 | $2,880 | 15 | Unlimited |
Zoho says its free Zoho Books plan is designed for businesses that have less than $50,000 in annual revenue. Once you pass that threshold, the robust Standard and Professional plans remain affordable for even smaller businesses.
If you're a freelancer and you want to manage invoices but aren't interested in full-fledged bookkeeping software yet, Zoho Invoice is free. You get 500 invoices per year but you don't get any of the bookkeeping features. Note that receiving online payments
Zoho Books excels in its user-friendliness. The intuitive interface features clear navigation, making it easy to learn and use even for those without a background in accounting. The software avoids complex accounting jargon, simplifying financial processes into understandable steps. The result is a short learning curve, so that you can focus on your business rather than spending countless hours trying to figure out the software.
The Zoho Books mobile app allows you to handle everyday tasks on the go.
If you're a new business owner and new to accounting, Zoho Books is probably one of the best applications for you. There are a ton of resources geared towards the non-accountant.
While Zoho Books is designed to help you to easily keep track of your business finances, it also spends some time explaining why a particular task needs to be done. Scalability is another key benefit, so you can start small and grow into a more advanced plan over time.
| Invoicing & Payments | Budgeting Capability | Customer & Vendor Management | Good Reporting Options | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zoho Books |
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| Sage 50cloud Accounting |
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| Sage Business Cloud Accounting |
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| FreshBooks |
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| QuickBooks Online |
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A portal lets you share information and documents with your customers and, more importantly, makes it easier for them to pay you.
Yes. The items feature in Zoho Books lets you track products, services, or both.
Yes. Set them up as a user with Admin rights, and they will be able to access all of the information they need.
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