Likelihood to Recommend If you're a freelancer or running a very small business where you do your own bookkeeping I think this is a great option, especially if you're familiar with accounting and bookkeeping in general. If you're not so familiar with bookkeeping, I would say that the learning curve is too steep and you might want to look elsewhere for a more intuitive solution
Read full review If using other cloud applications and you wish to create Zoho Books transactions via APIs, Zoho Books is great. The overall UI and flow of the application are great. If you need a detailed job cost accounting solution and robust reporting there is some room for improvement here.
Read full review Pros The program is very easy to learn, the interface is incredibly user-friendly and there are tons of free resources and tutorials available It makes managing payroll really easy for the employee and accountant on staff. No more lost time sheets or late paychecks! Managing bills and paying them has become streamlined and it's great having everything in one place so we don't lose track of things. Read full review Zoho Books invoicing and receipting features are second to none. We find it easy to quickly invoice clients and add items to their bills and also for our own receipting internally. The accounting features are great for our accounting team to be able to see where we are financially and how the business is doing. The ability to add contacts and run a mini CRM channel with clients within Zoho is invaluable. Since we use this in conjunction with our other CRM channels, it helps to have a centralized place to follow up and see through a sales funnel. Zoho Books allows us to take payments from clients around the globe a feature we didn't have when we used another accounting system. The pricing for Zoho Books is fairly reasonable for an SME organization which is a great for us as it pays itself back many times over every month. Read full review Cons The #1 complaint is that setting it up right is a challenge. People waste time trying to figure it out only to realize that they don't know accounting so of course they don't know how an accounting program should be set up. Like any time you are in over your head, reach out to your network and find someone who can log onto your computer and walk you through it. If you need to track the cost of wages to jobs you can't do it with the online payroll, but check for yourself because it's a function that landscaping companies and construction businesses usually need, so maybe they have added it by now. That would really help! It's premise-based software and that means you take on the role of hardware admin, and it's a lot of work for what is increasingly becoming a smaller gap in the functionality between QuickBooks for Mac and QuickBooks Online. QuickBooks for Mac 2015 has been updated consistently over the last 3 years and continues to provide for the bookkeeping needs of small companies using Macs in their offices. However, it has limited job costing functionality. It is similar in functionality to the 2010 version of QuickBooksPro which runs on Windows. Shelly Robbins Intuit Accounting Professionals Trainer/Writer specializing in QuickBooks for Mac, Meetup Groups Organizer/Founder, Adjunct Instructor at Bellevue College
Read full review Zoho Books is only available in Texas and California. There is no integration allowed for paying employee expenses. The absolute worst aspect is the fact that if you make even the slightest error in data input there is no backing up. You cannot undo an error. The system does not allow change once implemented, so you must get every one of your beginning balances perfect. The practice of Journal Entries is cumbersome. When reconciling, Zoho Books has adopted a number of required steps that significantly overcomplicate reconciliation using practices that are not consistent with general accounting principles in the US. On the customer side, you must look in two places to see the beginning balance and the current receivables that might exist for current invoicing. The way the system works, you must avoid having much trust with the balances depicted. So far, it appears that Zoho Books uses what we called in school "that new math." It would be terrifying to rely on this bookkeeping system to support an IRS Audit. The system violates too many fundamental accounting principles. The software is used by so few people that there is concern that we might never find a skilled bookkeeper. Read full review Likelihood to Renew I haven't spent that much time with the newer versions of QuickBooks for Mac, but I think I'm seeing it make the much-needed improvements. For example, something as simple as undoing the previous reconciliation was a terrible chore, and I'm glad that feature has been included in the newer versions of QuickBooks for Mac
Read full review Usability The Mac version is OK overall. I find the Windows versions to be much more robust but Mac is quite good for Mac users. Though I think die hard Mac users should consider QuickBooks Online instead as there is a new QB for Mac app that makes using QBO much better!
Read full review Customization is the biggest struggle for us and most of the time we need to involve a tech person. The chat support is a great feature and very helpful. It would be great to be able to customize and create invoices and correspondence (templates) such are reminders in multiple languages within one organization. The currency (USD) would be the same. We have clients in different countries that don't speak English but pay in USD.
Read full review Reliability and Availability I've been using the QuickBooks online version for a little over 6 months now (upgraded from Mac desktop) and I haven't had any access issues. There have been times when it was down for service/upgrade however there is always plenty of notification time given by the Quick Books Online Support team. These upgrade maintenance time frames are always over night hours and on the weekends so everything can be worked around very easily.
Read full review Support Rating Fortunately, I haven't had to reach out much for support.
Read full review The support team feels very disjointed. We have filtered through a number of "lead" contacts and are frequently spammed by other Zoho members. Once getting an appropriate support contact on the phone - the team is very helpful, it just takes a lot of hoop jumping to get there. We actually unsubscribed from their support package as we were not getting the value we were looking for.
Read full review Alternatives Considered I love using Quickbooks compared to other software we've tried. QuickBooks Online and TSheets interface. Customer service and problem resolution are generally excellent, with well-trained and proficient agents taking calls or on chat. Ease of use and accessibility via the mobile app. Great courses were available to help with learning the basics and some advanced accounting background. I love learning! Online accessibility - it can work anywhere with an internet connection. Linking to bank and credit card accounts is handy.
Read full review We had a lot of problems with
Exact Online , support-wise and price-wise. So Zoho Books wins on every point there. While Exact offers way more options, it tends to be really slow... and complex. Again Zoho Books wins. If you want an easy-to-use tool and not pay a lot of money, or if you are a small administration office with a few clients, this tool will be perfect for you.
Read full review Return on Investment The ROI was good for when we were a smaller company because it is a lot cheaper than other more sophisticated programs. The negative impact is that it caused a lot of extra manual entering and data entry that too often resulted in mistakes. Read full review Integration: Zoho Books offers out of the box integrations to extend the functionality and connect with the applications you love like MailChimp, Microsoft Outlook, PandaDoc, and Quickbooks, etc. Flexibility makes Zoho Books great! Since I can use forecast reports, I can create customizable sales forecast data from the dashboard to accurately measure revenue forecasts and establish sales quotas. Read full review ScreenShots