Zoho books
Zoho Books has what no other competitor that we have discussed has: a whole suite of Zoho apps that it integrates seamlessly with. If you currently use a Zoho app and you are looking for an accounting software that will work with it, then Zoho Books might the right fit for your freelance business.
Zoho Books has three pricing plans. The Basic plan is priced the same as Xeroprices its Starter plan, at $9 per month, and the top-tier plan is the most affordable of all paid plans at $29 per month. The main differences in the Zoho plans are the number of customers you can invoice, the number of users you can give access to, and several advanced features like reporting tags and inventory management that are included in the Standard and Professional plans but not the Basic plan.
|
|
Basic |
Standard |
Professional |
|
Monthly Pricing |
$9 |
$19 |
$29 |
|
Number of Contacts |
50 |
500 |
Unlimited |
|
Number of Users Included |
2 |
3 |
10 |
|
Automated Workflows |
5 |
10 |
10 |
|
Accounts Payable |
✔ |
✔ |
|
|
Time Tracker |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
|
Project Tracking |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
|
Accounts Receivable |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
|
Recurring Invoices |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
|
Accept Online Payments |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
|
Reporting Tags |
✔ |
✔ |
|
|
Purchase Approval |
✔ |
✔ |
|
|
Sales Orders |
✔ |
||
|
Inventory |
✔ |
||
|
Custom Domain |
✔ |
The pricing plans for Zoho Books are:
Zoho Books Basic is the most budget-friendly out of the three tiers at $9 per month ($108 per year). Similar to the Xero Early and FreshBooks Lite plans, it is limited in the number of features included. With this plan, you can invoice up to 50 customers each month, give two additional users access to your data, track hours worked by project, and track income and expenses for all projects. It also allows you to schedule recurring invoices and accept online payments from customers.
Zoho Books Basic is ideal for a freelancer business that has no more than 50 customers they need to invoice each month. Unfortunately, you cannot track your unpaid vendor bills (i.e., accounts payable) with this plan, so if you do have a lot of bills that you need to pay, you need to purchase the Zoho Books Standard plan.
Zoho Books Standard is the middle tier plan that is $10 more per month than the Basic plan at $19 per month ($228 per year). This plan includes ten times the number of customers you can invoice than the Zoho Books Basic plan includes (500 versus 50). It also comes with three users versus the two that the Basic plan includes, and it also includes double the automated workflows that the Basic plan includes.
Zoho Books Standard is ideal for a freelance business that has no more than 500 customers to invoice each month and heavy accounts payable. If you need the ability to tag transactions by project, department, or location, or you could benefit from a purchase approval process, this plan is ideal for you.
Zoho Books Professional is the high-end plan at $29 per month ($348 per year), which is $240 per year more than the Basic plan and $120 per year more than the Standard plan. For the additional cost, you get all of the features in the Standard plan plus you can invoice an unlimited number of customers and give access to ten additional users. If you sell products, you can track sales orders and inventory as well.
Zoho Books Professional is ideal for a freelancer who sells products and services. The ability to create sales orders, track inventory quantities and costs, and create unlimited customers will come in handy with this plan.
Unlike its competitors, Zoho Books does not include a built-in payments feature. To accept credit card payments from customers, you must connect your Zoho Books to a payment app like Stripe. Fees will generally vary based on transaction amount and type of credit card used. If you prefer a software with built-in credit card processing, choose QuickBooks Online. You can turn the Intuit payments feature on any time.
To summarize Zoho Books users, they feel that the product is very intuitive and easy to use. In addition, the ability to automate tasks like recurring invoices and invoicing is a huge plus. However, there is room for improvement in the area of customer support. There were some complaints that the support reps always struggle to resolve the customer’s issue.
Similar to its competitors, you can try Zoho Books out for free to see if it is ideal for your freelance business. Just visit their website to sign up for a free 14-day trial to access all of the features that we have shared with you. At the end of the trial, if you decide to continue using Zoho Books, you will need to sign up for a paid subscription.