Zoho Finance Plus review

Zoho Finance Plus is yet another one of numerous software applications from this publisher based in India. Zoho has grown its portfolio of products into a hugely diverse collection with, seemingly, a package to suit any productivity occasion. In this instance it’s all about improving workplace efficiency in the billing and invoicing department, combined with accounting. In fact, as is the case with Zoho products, there seems to be an effort to cover every possible office workflow scenario and more besides.

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Whether or not this will prove bewildering for potential customers or give them an effective one-stop option remains to be seen. Knowing where to begin with the Zoho software arsenal does require some careful consideration, but if you’re looking to cover any of the above mentioned bases then Finance Plus is as good a place to start as any.

Pricing

In the examples we looked at Zoho Finance Plus appears to be available in multiple territories, with pricing tweaked to suit each geographical location. Considering that different regions have frequently complicated differences with taxes and suchlike, it’s commendable that Zoho has been able to provide a pretty even pricing structure.

 So, for example, in the UK Zoho Finance Plus costs £119 per organization, per month for up to 10 users. In the US, the same package costs $149 per organization, per month and is again for up to 10 users. Paying in Euros? No problem, as Zoho Finance Plus costs €149 and covers the same criteria.

Features

The team at Zoho always seems to go the extra mile to cram in as many features and functions as possible, and Finance Plus is no exception. The publisher describes the package as a unified platform for all your back office needs, and it does live up to that claim. Zoho Finance Plus can take on sales ordering, payments, quotes, expense reporting, invoicing, ordering and warehouse management, subscription management and tops it all of with financial reporting. It’s nothing if not comprehensive. 

Zoho does, of course, offer some of these options via standalone products, with Zoho Invoice being a good example. Here though the component parts are assembled in a productivity suite, which should mean much better integration between different tasks as well as departments. So alongside Invoice, there’s Zoho Books, which lets you manage your bookkeeping with tools for managing receivables and payables. It also lets you import bank feeds and tackle sales taxes, VAT and GST where applicable. 

Next up is Zoho Inventory, which offers powerful management of stock and ordering. Zoho Subscriptions is a beefy solution for managing customer subscriptions while Zoho Expense lets you tackle employee spends, tackle reimbursements and connect corporate cards. The final part of the Zoho Finance Plus package is Zoho Checkout, which lets you personalize payment pages and boost the look, feel and performance of customer checkout areas on your e-commerce website.

Performance

Considering just how much Zoho has managed to pack into this Finance Plus package it performs very well. Of course, Zoho doesn’t just limit its cloud-based software portfolio to finance products and some might say it’s trying to cover too many bases with its array of different software applications. So it would be easy to expect areas of weakness in the performance department. However, Finance Plus delivers the goods, especially seeing as it combines several different applications into one solution.

Ease of use

Zoho has already proven its worth for delivering affordable software that can take on any type of task. Finance Plus is another neat alternative to individual products from rivals by providing users with a complete collection of options for tackling back office tasks.  

The software developer has clearly spent a long time working on the useability of its packages and this bundle is no exception, with a pretty solid and highly consistent interface that joins all of the component parts together very nicely indeed. Another bonus with using Finance Plus is that it can be used in tandem with other packages in the Zoho portfolio, so if you’re looking to build a complete software solution then this could be a decent route to follow.

Support

There’s no doubt that Zoho tries hard to cover all bases, not only with its software collection but also on the support front. If you’re just after basic guides then the Finance Plus package comes with plenty of online help in the shape of user guides, essential business guides, a guide specifically for administrators and tops it all off with a frequently asked questions area. 

However, Zoho also has round the clock support options from bases around the globe, so it seems to be possible to get real-time help whatever your geographical location.

Final verdict

Zoho Finance Plus is a neat bundle option if you’re looking to get numerous back office jobs nipped in the bud within a single software suite. Zoho has clearly done lots of work honing the interface of the assembled packages, which comprise Invoice, Books, Inventory, Subscriptions, Expense and Checkout. As a result, they all work well, look great and are generally pretty easy to use. 

Considering just how much you can achieve with the tools in this collection, the pricing also looks quite attractive. However, there are lots of competitor products to choose from all of which cover many of the finance tasks found here. But Zoho and its growing portfolio is certainly one publisher to investigate, especially via its free trial options.

Try Sage Business Cloud Accounting, QuickBooks, Xero, FreshBooks, Freeagent, GoSimpleTax, TaxCalc, Nomisma, ABC Self-Assessment or Crunch for some practical comparisons.

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