Zoho Books vs. Zoho Expense

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Zoho Books
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Zoho Books is an accounting solution that is designed to help small businesses manage their finances. This solution includes dashboards and a wide variety of reports. Business users can automate tasks and set up custom workflows. Zoho offers a 14 day free trial.
$20
per month
Zoho Expense
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Zoho Expense is online expense reporting software, tailor-made for businesses worldwide to automate expense report creation, streamline approvals and make swift reimbursements.
$5
per month per user
Pricing
Zoho BooksZoho Expense
Editions & Modules
Free
$0
For businesses with turnover <50K USD per annum
Standard
$20
per month per org
Professional
$50
per month per org
Premium
$70
per month per org
Free
$0
Standard Plan
$5
per month per user
Premium Plan
$9
per month per user
Custom
Get a Quote
per month per user
Custom
Get a Quote
per month per user
Custom
Get a Quote
per month per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Zoho BooksZoho Expense
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional DetailsZoho Books is available for both monthly and yearly plans. Users who sign up for the annual plan get a discount.20% discount for annual pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Zoho BooksZoho Expense
Considered Both Products
Zoho Books

No answer on this topic

Zoho Expense
Chose Zoho Expense
I have only used Expensify before and it stacks up nicely to it. Expensify is probably a bit better, but it's also more expensive, especially if you already use other Zoho products.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Zoho BooksZoho Expense
Customization
Comparison of Customization features of Product A and Product B
Zoho Books
7.5
16 Ratings
0% above category average
Zoho Expense
-
Ratings
API for custom integration7.516 Ratings00 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Zoho Books
9.5
25 Ratings
14% above category average
Zoho Expense
-
Ratings
Single sign-on capability9.020 Ratings00 Ratings
Role-based user permissions10.023 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Zoho Books
8.8
24 Ratings
12% above category average
Zoho Expense
-
Ratings
Dashboards8.524 Ratings00 Ratings
Standard reports9.022 Ratings00 Ratings
Custom reports9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
General Ledger and Configurable Accounting
Comparison of General Ledger and Configurable Accounting features of Product A and Product B
Zoho Books
8.4
25 Ratings
9% above category average
Zoho Expense
-
Ratings
Accounts payable8.523 Ratings00 Ratings
Accounts receivable8.524 Ratings00 Ratings
Cash management7.022 Ratings00 Ratings
Bank reconciliation8.022 Ratings00 Ratings
Expense management8.523 Ratings00 Ratings
Time tracking8.515 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-currency support9.514 Ratings00 Ratings
Regulations compliance8.012 Ratings00 Ratings
Self-service portal9.016 Ratings00 Ratings
Inventory Management
Comparison of Inventory Management features of Product A and Product B
Zoho Books
7.0
14 Ratings
1% below category average
Zoho Expense
-
Ratings
Inventory tracking9.014 Ratings00 Ratings
Automatic reordering5.08 Ratings00 Ratings
Order Management
Comparison of Order Management features of Product A and Product B
Zoho Books
9.0
22 Ratings
17% above category average
Zoho Expense
-
Ratings
Pricing9.018 Ratings00 Ratings
Order entry9.017 Ratings00 Ratings
Credit card processing8.019 Ratings00 Ratings
Cost of goods sold10.017 Ratings00 Ratings
Expense Management
Comparison of Expense Management features of Product A and Product B
Zoho Books
-
Ratings
Zoho Expense
6.9
3 Ratings
19% below category average
Employee Expense Reporting00 Ratings8.33 Ratings
Corporate Card Reconciliation00 Ratings5.53 Ratings
Payment Management
Comparison of Payment Management features of Product A and Product B
Zoho Books
-
Ratings
Zoho Expense
7.4
3 Ratings
10% below category average
Customizable Approval Policies00 Ratings7.73 Ratings
Financial Document Management00 Ratings8.02 Ratings
Payment Status Tracking00 Ratings7.73 Ratings
Payment Audit Trail00 Ratings8.02 Ratings
Duplicate Bill Detection00 Ratings6.73 Ratings
Advanced OCR00 Ratings6.82 Ratings
Electronic Funds Transfer00 Ratings6.93 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Zoho BooksZoho Expense
Small Businesses
Dext Prepare (with Receipt Bank)
Dext Prepare (with Receipt Bank)
Score 9.6 out of 10
Dext Prepare (with Receipt Bank)
Dext Prepare (with Receipt Bank)
Score 9.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Accounting Seed
Accounting Seed
Score 7.4 out of 10
BILL Spend & Expense
BILL Spend & Expense
Score 8.9 out of 10
Enterprises
Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP
Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP
Score 6.8 out of 10
Webexpenses
Webexpenses
Score 8.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Zoho BooksZoho Expense
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(26 ratings)
7.7
(7 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(8 ratings)
8.0
(3 ratings)
Support Rating
5.3
(5 ratings)
10.0
(3 ratings)
User Testimonials
Zoho BooksZoho Expense
Likelihood to Recommend
Zoho
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.
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Zoho
easy of use for the end users as well as to manage. The option to add new categories (expenses) and have the end users use them immediately is wonderful. The ease of creating a new user as well as customer support has been great. The customer support while having issues has been quick to resolve any issues
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Pros
Zoho
  • 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.
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Zoho
  • The program will notify users if they have entered a duplicate charge.
  • Once the end-users understood that receipts were mandatory, attaching those receipts has become second-nature. The app makes it very easy to do so.
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Cons
Zoho
  • 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.
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Zoho
  • Could have more default options. Instead of making my users select payment method, allow us to default it to one of the options.
  • More room for customization by department. My service department needs different categories of expenses then my sales department.
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Usability
Zoho
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.
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Zoho
Ease of use for the simple basic options. I wish the there was an option for reimbursement to be marked separately. Example for all corporate credit expense reports with $0 reimbursements still have to be marked as reimbursed in order to be removed from pending reimbursement section. For the cost the features offer benefits
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Support Rating
Zoho
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.
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Zoho
The only reason I give Zoho a 9 is because of the issue with the Chart of Accounts skewing every time I export/import. I believe this is due to the fact that I use sub-accounts and Zoho cannot differentiate. Still hoping. :)
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Alternatives Considered
Zoho
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
Zoho
We selected (switched) to Zoho Expense because it had similar features at a lower price and we were able to receive a discount through our partner relationship with another software company. We have considered moving from Zoho Expense to something else recently due to continued issues with being able to accurately import credit card charges and organize them correctly be team member. Creating some confusion among users.
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Return on Investment
Zoho
  • 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.
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Zoho
  • We have had some issues with the credit card reconciliation process which has made our monthly accounting / close process. This has been a negative
  • Positive ROI is that team members spend less time on expense reports due to the ease of reporting
  • Positive ROI is that substantial training and onboarding is not needed due to the features and simplicity.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Zoho Books Screenshots

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