Zoho Books vs. QuickBooks: Unraveling the Best Accounting Software for Your Business

In the realm of small business accounting software, two names stand out: Zoho Books and QuickBooks. Whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting your business journey, selecting the right accounting software is crucial. In this blog, we will dive into a comprehensive comparison of Zoho Books and QuickBooks, exploring their pricing, key features, user-friendliness, and more. By the end, you’ll have a clearer understanding of which platform aligns best with your business needs, enabling you to make an informed decision and streamline your financial operations.

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Pricing

Zoho Books gives businesses the flexibility to choose between annual or monthly subscription plans, while QuickBooks solely offers monthly subscription options. Zoho Books provides a variety of pricing plans, consisting of a complimentary plan and five paid plans, tailored to meet the diverse requirements of different businesses. On the other hand, QuickBooks offers four paid plans and does not currently offer a free version. The complimentary plan of Zoho Books is well-suited for businesses with revenue below $50,000 and allows for up to two users. Starting at $25 per month, QuickBooks pricing is based on a monthly subscription model and supports one user per subscription.

Zoho Books’ free plan offers a range of features, including invoicing, estimates, bank reconciliation, a client portal, item management, reporting, and more. Moreover, the paid plans of Zoho Books begin at $20 per month and provide excellent value compared to QuickBooks. These paid plans include advanced functionalities such as recurring expenses and bills, sales and purchase approvals, a vendor portal, custom roles, multicurrency handling, a custom domain, advanced inventory control, analytics, and various other capabilities. The paid plans of Zoho Books offer a comprehensive set of features that enhance business operations and provide an affordable solution for businesses seeking advanced functionalities beyond the offerings of the free plan.

Zoho Books provides a convenient 14-day trial period that does not require any credit card information for sign-up, whereas QuickBooks offers a 30-day free trial. However, it’s important to note that opting for QuickBooks’ free trial may result in the loss of eligibility for pricing discounts.

It’s worth mentioning that Zoho Books prioritizes delivering value rather than solely focusing on apparent discounts. The pricing plans offered by Zoho Books are designed to cater for businesses of different sizes and capacities, ensuring that it remains a budget-friendly option even without relying on discounts.

Zoho Books	QuickBooks
Free $0 <2 users>	__
Standard $20 <3 users>	Simple Start $30 <1 user>
Professional $50 <5 users>	Essentials $55 <3 users>
Premium $70 <10 users>	Plus  $85 <5 users>
Elite (+Advanced Inventory Control) $150 <10 users>	Advanced $200 <20 users>
Ultimate (+Advanced Analytics) $275 <15 users>	__

With Zoho Books, you can have peace of mind knowing that not only is your data secure, but your business is also protected from unpredictable pricing updates. You have the freedom to select a plan that aligns with your specific requirements, and the option to upgrade to a higher plan is entirely based on your own discretion, rather than being compelled to do so.

Zoho Books ensures transparency and stability in its pricing structure, allowing you to focus on running your business without worrying about sudden cost changes.

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Account Receivables

When it comes to accounts receivable, Zoho Books and QuickBooks Online provide advanced functionalities, but QuickBooks falls short by offering a more limited set of features.

Both Zoho Books and QuickBooks allow users to customize their invoice templates to suit their preferences. However, Zoho Books outshines QuickBooks by offering a broader selection of 18 templates, while QuickBooks only provides six options. Likewise, QuickBooks attempts to address customer order tracking by offering estimates as a workaround. However, the absence of a dedicated sales order feature in QuickBooks makes order tracking more challenging compared to the comprehensive capabilities offered by Zoho Books.

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Sales and Purchase Approval

Zoho Books has an additional advantage over QuickBooks with its transaction approval functionality. This feature enables users to review and approve transactions before sharing them with their contacts. By incorporating transaction verification and approval, Zoho Books minimizes the possibility of processing and sending inaccurate transactions to customers.

With transaction approval, employees can create transactions and submit them for review, while a user with designated approval access can carefully assess and make necessary edits to the transactions before granting final approval. This ensures a thorough and accurate approval process, reducing the risk of errors and ensuring the highest level of transaction quality.

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Payroll

QuickBooks has its integrated payroll service called QuickBooks Payroll, which comes with an additional cost. While Zoho Books doesn’t have built-in payroll functionality, it seamlessly integrates with third-party payroll providers like SurePayroll, offering users an easy way to manage employee payroll.

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Client and Vendor Management

Zoho Books surpasses QuickBooks in terms of customer and vendor management through its client and vendor portals. These portals offer a centralized platform for business contacts to access and manage transactions, simplifying collaboration and enhancing the overall management experience.

The client portal in Zoho Books enables customers to access and review their transactions, accept estimates and timesheets, make invoice payments, and provide feedback. Similarly, the vendor portal (Zoho Books Elite) allows vendors to upload invoices, track payments received, and view transaction statements, eliminating the need for extensive email exchanges and phone calls.

	Zoho Books Professional	QuickBooks Essentials
Client Portal	✔	✗
Vendor Portal	✗	✗

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Automation

In comparison to QuickBooks, Zoho Books offers an extensive array of automation features to streamline manual and repetitive tasks. With capabilities like webhooks, workflow rules, and custom functions, Zoho Books empowers users to automate complex workflows, freeing up time and boosting productivity.

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Integrations

Zoho Books offers seamless integration with the extensive suite of Zoho apps, comprising over 55 apps, allowing users to enhance the functionalities of their accounting software. Additionally, Zoho Books provides multiple payment gateway integrations, including popular platforms like Stripe, PayPal, Square, and Authorize.net, among others. This integration, combined with SMS integration, simplifies the process of online payments for Zoho Books users, ensuring a smooth and convenient payment experience.

Zoho Books and Shopify Integration

Zoho Books seamlessly integrates with Shopify, one of the leading e-commerce platforms. This integration enables businesses to synchronize their sales data, orders, inventory, and customer information between Zoho Books and Shopify. By integrating Zoho Books with Shopify, users can streamline their accounting processes, track revenue, manage inventory, and gain valuable insights into their online sales. This integration simplifies the management of e-commerce transactions, ensuring a seamless flow of data and efficient financial management for Shopify-based businesses.

• Merchants can easily sync their products of Zoho Book with Shopify.
• Not only products, but merchants can sync their store orders to Zoho Books too.
• This app also provides the facility to sync store customers to Zoho Books.

Zoho Books vs. QuickBooks: Mobile apps and remote work

Both Zoho Books and QuickBooks have mobile apps for iOS and Android devices, enabling users to access their accounting data conveniently. However, Zoho Books offers additional compatibility with Windows desktop and MacOs, while QuickBooks is limited to iOS and Android devices.

Features	Zoho Books Professional	QuickBooks Essentials
iOS app	✔	✔
Android app	✔	✔
Windows desktop app	✔	✗
macOS app	✔	✗

Zoho Books vs. QuickBooks: More Features

Features	Zoho Books Professional	QuickBooks Essentials
Invoicing	✔	✔
Sales Approval	✔	✗
Billing	✔	✔
Vendor Credits	✔	✗
Payroll add-on	✗	✔
Purchase Approval	✔	✗
Expense Tracking	✔	✔
Budgeting	✗	✗
Data Backup	✔	✗
Custom Roles	✔	✗

Please note Zoho Books’s higher plans support features like vendor portal, custom domain, budgeting, custom reports, workflow rules, SMS integration, and more.

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Zoho Books offers a feature-rich online accounting experience that rivals QuickBooks. It provides an affordable and hassle-free solution for businesses seeking efficient accounting management. With its exceptional mobile apps, top-notch customer support, and secure data access, Zoho Books is the ideal choice for businesses that have surpassed the capabilities of QuickBooks and require a reliable and comprehensive accounting solution.

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