I've got a potential new client who has been using the web-based ZoHo Books (www.zoho.com/books) to record his daily accounts. Does anyone have any experience (or hearsay) of this system?
His business has centred around public training courses; he's now expanding into something akin to a franchise operation and I'm unsure that what looks to be like a cash book solution will be sufficient for his business.
Does your client find that using American software they have to very much work around it rather than it working for them? I'm thinking here of the production of invoices where the product seems geared towards American taxes (Sales, interstate, etc.). Sure that the product will be adaptabe but just wondering if things like the sales tax cause more problems than working around them is worth.
Looking at the site the product does look very professional and at $24 per month (about £15) its competatively priced. If I was in America I might be tempted by this one myself so nothing against the product per se.
There may be other problems such as allowing expenses that would not be allowed on this side of the pond but that of course all comes down to the knowledge of the person entering the data as sometimes you find with these sort of products that if the software allows the client to do something then they believe that it must be ok. Then again, unwinding errors and misconceptions can be quite lucrative from our side of the fence!
From your perspective can you extract the data you need and export it to Sage or QB or even just a spreadsheet package such as Excel in order to do the books properly under UKGaap? Or will you end up having to have everything that they have entered re input into more relevant software?
Good luck with this one. Fingers crossed your client is either obliging and changes their software or if they stick with this then hope that you can at least extract the data into something more appropriate for UK reporting.
kind regards,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
I'm seeing the guy later today so I'll have a chance to look at how he fits his business onto the ZoHo system. I've just had a look at KashFlow which seems just as competitive and, maybe, more versatile (quotes and invoicing both look interesting). Your point about taxes and allowables goes to the heart of the matter.
Luckily, the client is as straight and ethical as they come; I really look forward to working with him if the price is right. If the story is interesting, I'll let you know how I get on.
Let me introduce myself. I am Prashant from the Zoho Books team. Thanks so much for your interest in Zoho Books.
Zoho Books is a global accounting system and not a US specific accounting system. We have customers across the globe and lot of them are in the UK. You can configure taxes to suit the requirements of your jurisdiction. For UK, all you need to do is configure your VAT rate and use them on your customer invoices and vendor bills and expenses. Zoho Books automatically calculates the tax you owe; you need not make any adjustments.
You can just run a tax report and see how much you owe to HMRC at any moment in time.
You can export your data in standard formats like CSV or TSV and export all reports in PDF. Feel free to e-mail me or contact our support team at zohobooks dot com. We will be happy to answer your questions.
We also have an invoicing software for businesses that might not require a full accounting suite. It is called as Zoho Invoice and you can try it at www.zoho.com/invoice
welcome to the forum and many thanks for clarifying those points about your software.
Its always good to have representatives of the software manufacturers on the site to clarify the scope of their products.
As mentioned in my first message I was quite impressed by your product from your website. Very professional looking.
Now that you have clarified the points I hope that this thread serves to help improve your business in the UK.
One suggestion, don't know if this is something that you would run with but have you thought of having a seperate website for the uk (.co.uk) as the thing that put me off initially was the fact that the website is geared towards the American market. I can completely understand the reasoning behind that but think that you may be losing out on European sales purely down to assumptions such as those I had in my initial thread related to the difference between reporting under FASB rather than IFRS or UKGAAP.
Andrew will be having a look at your product in use later and also getting a report from one of your existing users. I look forward to hearing his feedback on the site on that.
Good luck with your companies continued growth,
kind regards,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
I was wrong - I find the client (yes - he is no longer "potential") doesn't actually use ZoHo Books - he uses home-made spreadsheets and an "occasional" accountant.
But he does use ZoHo.com as a platform for business collaboration and he spoke very highly of the professional support that the ZoHo staff have given him in the past.
congratulations on the new client (beers are on you tonight matey!).
Shame that we didn't get a hands on review but on the bright side this thread has highlighted a piece of software that I had not come accross before.
Excellent news on the Zoho support though. I think that we all know who I'm thinking about when I say that such is not alwayts the case from accountancy software vendors.
Keep up the good work Prashant and look forwards to talking again soon.
Kind regards,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Thanks a lot for your reply and your feedback regarding the website domain. I will take this up with my colleagues over here. Thanks again for your wishes.
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for the clarification. Great to hear that your client likes Zoho. Yes, Zoho includes 25 different services for business colloboration, CRM apart from Accounting etc. all under zoho.com domain. You can just sign up for Zoho once and use any these applications.
Please do let me know if you require further information on Zoho.
We are bringing out an API, later in the year. API allows your software to connect with 3rd party software, who also have an API.
Including early stage conversation with Zoho on their CRM potentially integrating with Arithmo online accounting software via API. (though timezones can be pain when contacting one another by phone because their staff are based in Chennai and California and we are based in UK)
Will keep you posted on software we are integrating with, once API is live.
Also feel free to contact me, if you are a software vendor; your target audience are micro or small businesses; and you can see that your software integrating with Arithmo can enhance the experience and choice of Arithmo users and respectively your software users.
Dalbir
-- Edited by Dalbir on Friday 17th of June 2011 12:00:03 PM
Could you inform us about the degree and type of integration between ZOHO Books, Zoho Invoice and Zoho CRM?
Our company would potentially like to implement ZOHO Books. We are already using Zoho CRM and would possibly use the inventory features within Zoho CRM through Zoho Invoice and into Zoho Books if they all integrate cleanly.
Thanks for your help.
Wilbur
-- Edited by Wilbur on Saturday 18th of June 2011 12:16:54 AM
Zoho Books encompasses all features of Zoho Invoice. So if your clients are using Zoho Books they need not use Zoho Invoice. However, if all they need is invoicing they can go for Zoho Invoice and can move over to Zoho Books anytime later if they desire.
As regards integration between the Zoho CRM and Zoho Books or Invoice, at the moment you can import only the Accounts and associated Contacts from Zoho CRM into Zoho Books or Invoice (one-way integration). I have some good news for you though. In the days to come, we will be taking this integration a few notches up.
It would be great if you can also share your thoughts on anything specific on the integration. I will pass on your inputs to our product develoment folks.
many thanks for your excellent support and feeback. I run the books for a car key specialist called http://www.autokeysquad.com and we are looking at moving our invoicing over to zoho. i have a critical question however. I know zoho kindly amended the software a few years back to include display of vat reg nos recently for invoicing, but according to this thread here http://forums.zoho.com/topic/vat-invoice-tempate-for-uk on your support site, zoho invoicing cannot currently create invoices which comply with the local tax authorities requirements here - Her Maj's Rev & Customs by creating legal vat invoices.
Can you clarify if this forum thread is correct that the invoicing software does not issue legally compliant invoices for the UK yet, and if it's correct, maybe it would be worth urgently prioritising finding a solution, as the overwhelming majority of businesses in the UK are vat registered, and I would think it will severely limit your uk take-up of your product otherwise (admittedly a relatively small market compared to India/US!) are the invoices on google books more comprehensive form a vat persepctive I wonder?
The link you had pasted was from Zoho CRM forums and not Zoho Invoice. You must be able to issue HMRC compliant invoices using Zoho Invoice. We already have several customers in UK. I also went through the HMRC website to understand their norms and I believe Zoho Invoice can issue invoices that can comply with it.
I think you meant Zoho Books in your question on if invoices on google books are more comprehensive from a vat persepctive. As far as accounts receivable invoicing is concerned there is no diffrence between how Zoho Books and Zoho Invoice handle. Zoho Books covers all accounting functionalities while Zoho Invoice just handles the accounts receivable part with time tracking and expense billing.
Please let me know if this answers your question. Thanks again and I look forward to your feedback.
This is Gaurav from Zoho Books team. We are glad to inform you that Zoho Books now have country specific edition for United Kingdom. And the best part is, it integrates well with Zoho CRM.
The UK edition supports UK VAT and completely comply with UK accounting rules. It also provides report for VAT return and EC sales list to make your accounting more easier. For more information, please visit http://www.zoho.com/books/help/vat .
In case you have any questions, feel free to e-mail us at support[at]zohobooks[dot]com. We'll be glad to assist you :)
We have updated the help documentation for Zoho Books. Here is the link on getting started with Zoho Books. In case you need any help, remember that you can always write to support[@]zohobooks[dot]com.
Regards, Gaurav
-- Edited by Gaurav on Saturday 30th of May 2015 12:47:54 PM
