Stampli vs. Zoho Books

The Stampli tech is very good in processing our transactions and linking to our accounting system. And even for any pain points encountered, we have worked with their tech and customer rep teams (specifically [...]) to promptly resolve the matter in a seamless and pain free way (unlike our previous invoice processing provider).

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.

Incentivized

• Learning - Billy the bot learns much quicker than our previous OCR.
• Global lookup - we have multiple entities which creates a challenge for finding invoices entered in the wrong place. Stampli has removed this issue.
• Maximizing manpower - reduces the need for more personnel.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Only 1 template for vendor onboarding--we have multiple vendor "types" that would benefit from having tailored invites to the vendor portal
• The software doesn't locate invoice details (such as invoice total) after the 1st page
• Invoice discrepancy reporting could be easier and more robust

Incentivized

• 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.

I cannot imagine going back to pre-Stampli processes. Our jobs in the Accounting department (not just AP) have all become more engaging because we've cut out so much mindless, non-value added work: data entry, signing checks, stuffing envelopes, stamping envelopes, etc.

Incentivized

A lot of checks and balances in the system that are an accountant's dream - just takes some time to understand the new process to get up to speed.

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.

Incentivized

Never an issue with downtime

Very fast and no issues with the Sage Intacct integration

We have a dedicated rep (who was also our implementation rep--they stay with you after implementation) who we can email whenever needed and meet with every quarter. There is a chat option within the software that gets responded to by a real person within minutes.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Excellent documentation, step-by-step instructions

We lost an AP employee right as we were deciding to implement, so we had to speed up our timeline. We went from signing the contract to fully functional system within 4 weeks. We did not dedicate any more than 4 hours per week during the implementation.

Incentivized

Tipalti was not system friendly to what we needed (syncing with NetSuite) and the implementation process was frustrating. We experienced delays and no responses from their team. Stampli has been the complete opposite! It's user friendly, from approvers to coders, reasonably priced, and their team members are responsive, caring, and genuine in getting you set up for success

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

I would not change anything

Ease of deployment both domestic and international

• The best testament to Stampli is that is has decreased DTP (days to process) by over 3 days.
• It has transformed invoice approval. No invoices are being sent duplicate times for approval by error. Stampli does a great job at identifying duplicate invoices.

• 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.

Incentivized