Zoho has a great line of apps to help you manage almost every aspect of your business, including six standalone apps to manage your company's finances. In this article, we will focus on three of the most popular financial apps: Zoho Books, Zoho Invoice, and Zoho Expense.
Zoho Books, Zoho Invoice and Zoho Expense: comparison table
| Zoho Books | Zoho Invoice | Zoho Expenses | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary purpose | Bookkeeping, including issuing and managing invoices. | Issue and manage invoices. | Management of expense reports and employee reimbursements. |
| Prices | Free up to $275 per month | Always free | Free up to $9 per active user, per month |
| Free plan limitations | Less than $50,000 in annual revenue and one user | None | Maximum of three users |
| Issue personalized invoices | Yeah | Yeah | No |
| Accept payments from customers online | Yeah | Yeah | No |
| Customer Portal | Yeah | Yeah | No |
| Track time and expenses | Yeah | Yeah | No |
| Manage customer quotes | Yeah | Yeah | No |
| Tracking and paying supplier invoices | Yeah | No | No |
| suppliers portal | Yeah | No | No |
| Manage inventory | Yeah | No | No |
| Connect bank and credit card accounts | Yeah | No | No |
| Employees submit expense reports. | No | No | Yeah |
| Visit Zoho Books | Visit Zoho Invoice | Visit Zoho Expense |
Zoho Accounting Product Comparison: Pricing
Zoho Book Prices
- Free: Single user for businesses with less than $50,000 in annual revenue.
- Standard: $20 per month for three users.
- Professional: $50 per month for five users.
- Premium: $70 per month for 10 users.
- Elite: $150 per month for 10 users.
- Last: $275 per month for 15 users.
Additional users can be added to each plan for $3 per month per user. In addition to the number of users, the plans differ in the features available. Read our Zoho Books review to learn more.
Zoho Invoice Pricing
- Free: Always free for all users, without ads or feature limits.
Zoho uses Zoho Invoice as a way to attract new customers in the hopes that they will love Zoho and sign up for some additional paid Zoho apps. Learn more in our Zoho Invoice review.
Zoho Expense Pricing
- Free: Up to 3 users.
- Standard: $5 per month per active user, minimum of three users.
- Premium: $9 per month per active user, minimum of three users.
- Habit: Get a quote for 100+ users.
You will learn about the different features available in each plan by reading our Zoho Expense review.
Feature Comparison: Zoho Books, Zoho Invoice, and Zoho Expense
Billing
Winner: Tie: Zoho Books and Zoho Invoice
Zoho Books and Zoho Invoice have the same billing features, so we declare this feature a tie. However, we prefer Zoho Books as a general solution because billing transactions (such as issuing an invoice and receiving payments) are automatically recorded in accounting records.
With Zoho Invoice, you will need to manually record issuing invoices and receiving payments in your accounting software. This duplicate work not only requires additional time but can also lead to errors, as cash payments applied to invoices will not necessarily match cash payments deposited into your checking account. The only way to detect these errors is through manual reconciliation.
Despite being free, Zoho Invoice is a powerful small business invoicing solution with fantastic customization options and useful tools. Zoho Books and Zoho Invoice share the following billing features:
- Issue great-looking personalized invoices.
- Create recurring invoices.
- Accept online payments.
- Provides customers with a portal to view and pay invoices.
- Tracks time and expenses by client project.
- Attach receipts for billable expenses.
- Manage client quotes and estimates.
- Include quick response (QR) code on invoices.
- Issue credit notes to customers.
Bookkeeping
Winner: Zoho Books
Unlike Zoho Invoice and Zoho Expense, Zoho Books is a complete accounting software and even makes it to our list of best accounting software. Zoho Books will track all your assets, liabilities, income, and expenses and produce financial statements that are often required by banks and other stakeholders.
As a complete accounting software, Zoho Books has the following features not found in Zoho Invoice or Zoho Expense.
Banking
Connect all your bank and credit card accounts to Zoho Books and categorize your expenses as transactions are imported. Easily reconcile your bank statements with your books and print paper checks when needed.
Inventory
Zoho Books will automatically separate total inventory costs into the costs remaining in inventory at the end of the year and the cost of inventory that was sold during the year. This is a crucial calculation for retailers and wholesalers and is time-consuming to perform by hand. Zoho Books will also track your inventory quantity, so you know when to place a new order.
Invoice tracking
You can enter unpaid invoices as soon as you receive them and Zoho Books will help you track them until they are paid. When cash is tight, you can access a report showing all your outstanding bills, so you can decide which ones you need to pay.
suppliers portal
In addition to a customer portal, a feature shared with Zoho Invoice, Zoho Books has a supplier portal. Your suppliers can use the portal to upload their invoices to you and automatically track their progress until they are paid.
Reports
The culmination of all the features of Zoho Books is its ability to provide a balance sheet and profit and loss statement. These are vital financial statements that every business needs to file tax returns and provide information to various stakeholders, such as potential lenders and investors.
Employee expense reports
Winner: Zoho Expenses
Zoho Expense serves a different purpose than Zoho Books or Zoho Invoice by providing a workflow for employees to track expenses, attach receipts, and submit expense reports. Administrators can then approve employee expense reports and provide reimbursements.
Zoho Expense exclusive features that are excluded from Zoho Books or Zoho Invoice are:
- Employees create expense reports and upload receipts.
- Employees can add per diem to expense reports.
- The administrator approves the expense reports.
- Expense refunds are processed using Automated Clearing House (ACH) transfers.
- The administrator creates expense policies.
- The manager sets travel policies and employees book trips themselves.
Pros and cons of Zoho Books
Advantages of Zoho Books
- It is a complete accounting system, while Zoho Invoice only does invoicing.
- It has the same invoicing features as Zoho Invoice.
- Record invoice transactions automatically in accounting records.
- Track expenses, assets and liabilities in addition to income.
Cons of Zoho Books
- It is more expensive than Zoho Invoice, which is free.
- It has additional features that make it more complicated to use.
- It lacks a feature to approve employee expenses like Zoho Expense.
Pros and cons of Zoho Invoice
Advantages of Zoho Invoice
- It is completely free for organizations of any size.
- It has very comprehensive billing features, including time and expense billing.
- Offers an invoice approval process.
- Integrates with Zoho Books and QuickBooks Online.
Disadvantages of Zoho Invoice
- Requires invoices issued and payments received to be entered separately into accounting software, allowing for potential errors.
- It does not link entered expenses to a payment account, so they cannot be reconciled and are subject to a higher risk of error.
- It is not accounting software, so it cannot produce financial statements.
Pros and cons of Zoho Expense
Advantages of Zoho Expense
- Integrates with Zoho Books, QuickBooks Online, Xero, Sage Accounting, Microsoft Dynamics, and Oracle for accounting.
- Offers several ways for employees to import expenses: take a photo of the receipt, select the receipt using a Chrome plugin, email the receipt to a unique address, or import transactions from corporate or personal bank cards.
- Allows you to easily add receipts to expense reports.
Cons
- Requires expense reimbursements to be manually entered and reconciled in the accounting system, unless you have an accounting integration.
- It only tracks expenses paid by employees, not expenses paid directly by the company.
- It does not track the company's net income or assets.
Should your organization use Zoho Books, Zoho Invoice, or Zoho Expense?
Every business needs accounting software to track profits and losses on income tax returns. Zoho Invoice does not track expenses, so I only recommend it in conjunction with accounting software. If you can't afford Zoho Books, check out our roundup of the best free accounting software to find a solution you can use alongside Zoho Invoice.
Choose Zoho Invoice if you have accounting software and. . .
- You need customizable invoices.
- You want customers to be able to pay online.
- Requires a customer portal.
- Need to approve draft invoices before they are issued.
- Look to track time by project and add it to invoices.
- You want to issue quotes and estimates to clients.
Choose Zoho Books if you want all the features of Zoho Invoice on top of you. . .
- Need to print financial statements.
- Need to track company expenses.
- Need to manage unpaid invoices.
- You want a supplier portal to communicate with suppliers.
- You have inventory and need to calculate cost of goods sold (COGS).
- Seeks to import transactions from bank accounts and credit cards.
Choose Zoho Expense yes. . .
- Have employees who travel.
- Have employees incur company expenses that must be documented and/or reimbursed.
- Issue corporate cards to employees.
- Have expense policies to govern employee expenses.
- You want employees to book their own trips while respecting the company's travel policies.
Review methodology
We review the available features and best uses of Zoho Books, Zoho Invoice, and Zoho Expense by visiting the Zoho website. First, we read the descriptions of each product and then signed up for free 14-day trials of each. Additionally, we use the free demo account provided for each software. The demo account is pre-populated with sample company information to provide a better understanding of all its capabilities once the company is properly set up.
