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With QuickBooks getting a complete overhaul and Zoho Books becoming even more competitive, the question becomes which one is best for small businesses? We took an in-depth look at the features of both platforms to find out.
Zoho Books is a cloud-based accounting software that offers features and pricing that are comparable to QuickBooks. The best thing about Zoho Books is the free trial period, which allows you to test out the software before purchasing it. Read more in detail here: zoho books pricing.
Both Zoho Books and QuickBooks Online are excellent accounting applications that provide many of the same functions, such as invoicing, cost tracking, inventory management, and project accounting. The biggest difference is that Zoho Books offers a free plan for organizations with less than $50,000 in sales, making it a better option for freelancers and part-time firms than QuickBooks. Many small companies across a variety of sectors choose QuickBooks Online, but Zoho Books has a lot to offer.
When Should You Use Zoho Books?
For businesses with less than $50,000 in sales, Zoho Books provides a free plan that includes important features like inventory, recurring invoicing, bank and credit card integration, and bank account reconciliation.
Even Zoho’s paid plans are surprisingly affordable for the amount of value you get. For example, if you have a small business with five users and require inventory management and project accounting, Zoho Books Professional costs $50 per month versus $80 per month for QuickBooks Online Plus. If you require more than five users, unlike QuickBooks Online, Zoho Books Professional allows you to add them for $3 a month per person. Furthermore, Zoho Books features a more functional mobile app than QuickBooks, as well as exceptional customer support, making it one of our top QuickBooks alternatives.
Zoho Books is a better option for you.
- The Zoho Books mobile software provides more functionality than the QuickBooks Online App when it comes to accounting on the go. For example, the Zoho Books software, unlike QuickBooks, allows you to record invoices and bill payments.
- Companies that need less than 1,000 invoices per year and have yearly sales of less than $50,000: For businesses with less than $50,000 in yearly sales and less than 1,000 invoices per year, Zoho Books is free. There is no free version of QuickBooks Online.
- Businesses that use other Zoho products: Zoho Books is simply one of the Zoho suite’s applications. If you’re currently using Zoho Expense or Zoho CRM, Zoho Books is a better fit since it’s simpler to operate in a linked environment.
- Users who require a client portal: With Zoho Books, you can utilize the client portal to let customers see and control their transactions. You may also see your account information, accept or reject estimates, and pay bills. QuickBooks does not have a function like this.
Visit Zoho Books for more information.
When Should QuickBooks Online Be Used?
QuickBooks Online is a feature-rich, all-in-one accounting software that includes bill management, inventory management, and reporting. Because QuickBooks is more expandable than Zoho Books, with a maximum of 25 users in the Advanced plan, it is our overall best small company accounting software. One of the most impressive features of QuickBooks Online is its extensive network of QuickBooks ProAdvisors, which makes it simple to locate a local bookkeeper if you need one.
QuickBooks Online is superior than QuickBooks Desktop.
- Working with a local bookkeeper or tax preparer: QuickBooks allows you to ask an accountant to handle your books without using one of your paid users. You may invite an accountant to Zoho, but this will use one of your premium user subscriptions. In addition, QuickBooks Online has a far larger number of accountant users in the United States than Zoho Books.
- Paying workers, calculating and withholding payroll taxes, and accounting for employee benefits in any state: QuickBooks Online integrates smoothly with QuickBooks Payroll, which allows you to pay employees, calculate and withhold payroll taxes, and account for employee benefits in any state. Only New York, California, Texas, and Florida have Zoho Payroll.
- Integrating with third-party applications: QuickBooks is compatible with over 650 business applications. QuickBooks is simple to deploy in organizations that use software services like as customer relationship management (CRM), e-commerce applications, and many others because of the large number of apps available. Instead of third-party connectors, Zoho Books concentrates on Zoho One applications.
Go to the QuickBooks Online website.
When to Use a Substitute
- Businesses that need fixed asset accounting: Neither Zoho Books nor QuickBooks Online are capable of tracking fixed assets. Fixed asset managers in Xero enable you to monitor fixed assets like automobiles and equipment and set up depreciation schedules.
- Companies that favor desktop software include: Locally installed desktop software is soon becoming obsolete, but if that’s what you’re looking for, QuickBooks Pro and Premier, the desktop versions of QuickBooks, are worth considering.
- Businesses who need to send an infinite number of invoices for free: Zoho Books’ free plan only allows you to send 1,000 invoices per year. Sign up for Wave to send limitless invoices for free if you have a lot of clients and need to send a lot of invoices.
Case Study of a Fit Small Business
In an internally generated case study, we compare Zoho Books and QuickBooks Online to make it simpler for you to select between these two sophisticated accounting solutions. Our rating is based on 11 main parameters that we used in our case study. General features, accounts payable (A/P), accounts receivable (A/R), banking and cash management, inventory accounting, and reporting are among the 11 measures or categories. Check out our Zoho Books review and QuickBooks Online review for a more in-depth look at our case study for each product.
According to the findings of our case study, QuickBooks Online provides excellent banking functions and is somewhat superior in terms of A/P and A/R, as well as reporting (as indicated in the graph below). In the areas of inventory, mobile app, and customer service, Zoho Books shines out. The major flaw in both packages is fixed asset accounting, which is a function that only Xero offers.
The following is a summary of our case study:
Results of the Zoho Books vs. QuickBooks case study
A Quick Comparison between Zoho Books vs QuickBooks
Read our Zoho Books and QuickBooks Online reviews for more details.
Is it better to use Zoho Books or QuickBooks?
We’ll offer you a tailored product match once you answer a few questions about your company.
Pricing for Zoho Books vs. QuickBooks Online
Zoho Books and QuickBooks Online both provide tiered subscription options that may be paid monthly or annually. While Zoho Books offers a free plan for organizations with yearly sales of less than $50,000, QuickBooks Online costs $25 per month for one user. Each plan in both Zoho Books and QuickBooks Online includes a varied number of users and features.
Pricing for Zoho Books
Zoho Books has a free plan and three premium membership tiers, starting at $20 per organization, per month, with each plan allowing for a certain amount of users. The Free plan is for companies with yearly sales of less than $50,000, and it includes features like cost monitoring, bank reconciliation, and regular invoicing. In the higher tiers, further capabilities like as inventory management, recurring billing, budgeting, and custom reports are available:
- Free version of Zoho Books supports one user and up to 1,000 invoices per year.
- Zoho Books Standard: $20 per month per business; three users; 5,000 invoices per year
- Professional version of Zoho Books costs $50 per month per company and includes five users and unlimited invoices.
- Premium version of Zoho Books costs $70 per month per company and includes 10 users and unlimited invoices.
Add-ons may be purchased, such as:
- Additional users are $3 per month per user.
- Autoscans with advanced features are $10. (50 scans per month)
- $2 per credit for snail mail
Pricing for QuickBooks Online
QuickBooks Online has four pricing options, starting at $25 per month. Each subscription comes with a certain number of users with varied levels of capability, ranging from simple spending monitoring to more advanced features like inventory tracking and project management, as well as a dedicated support manager. The most popular QuickBooks Online package, Plus, allows you to manage revenue and spending by class and location, as well as track inventory and projects.
The four QuickBooks Online plans are shown below.
- Start Simple: $25 per month for a single user
- $50 per month for the essentials, which covers three users.
- Plus, for $80 per month, you get five users.
- Advanced: $180 per month for a total of 25 users.
We compare QuickBooks Online programs to help you choose the right one.
The Conclusion is that Zoho Books is less expensive than QuickBooks. If you’re a one-person business with less than $50,000 in annual sales and just require basic invoicing, bank account reconciliation, and cost tracking, Zoho Books’ free subscription is the best choice. Another key consideration is the inexpensive cost of adding more users to Zoho Books ($3 per user). When we do the arithmetic, the Professional plan would cost $80 per month for a total of 15 users, compared to QuickBooks Plus, which costs the same but only has five users.
Features of Zoho Books vs. QuickBooks Online
Zoho Books and QuickBooks are both advanced accounting software systems with several features. To make it easier to detect important differences, we’ve compared Zoho Books and QuickBooks by plan.
Tiered Features Table from Zoho Books
Table of Tiered Features in QuickBooks Online
We’ll compare and contrast Zoho Books and QuickBooks Online in terms of banking administration and general features based on our case study.
General Features of Zoho Books vs. QuickBooks Online
In comparison to QuickBooks Online, Zoho Books provides more advanced general accounting functions. The ability to input business information, including entity type, upload and change your chart of accounts, and add extra users with unique access permissions are all features we consider essential in excellent accounting software. These capabilities are available in both applications, although QuickBooks Online has a few restrictions. When transferring data from your previous program, you can’t input starting balances without making a journal entry, which might be difficult.
QuickBooks Online vs. Zoho Books: Banking
In the banking area, QuickBooks Online outperforms Zoho Books. Both applications allow you to link your bank and credit card accounts, although it is not essential for account reconciliation. If you don’t want to connect your bank, you may manually upload your transaction data. Viewing cleared and outstanding transactions, saving the reconciliation and returning to it later, and recording and printing checks from the register are all comparable functionalities. Unfortunately, Zoho Books has a number of flaws. You can’t decide where the check is placed when issuing a sales receipt for client payment, unlike with QuickBooks, where receipts may be put into any bank account or recorded in undeposited funds. You can record a vendor refund in Zoho Books, but you can’t issue a refund check.
Takeaway: Zoho Books and QuickBooks have a lot of features in common. Bills, invoices, inventories, and projects may all be managed by both. One important consideration is if you’re prepared to pay extra to have more local bookkeepers accessible to assist you, which QuickBooks Online allows you to do.
Ease of Use: Zoho Books vs. QuickBooks Online
We established example firms in both QuickBooks and Zoho Books for our case study to get a sense for how they perform. Both Zoho Books and QuickBooks Online provide an intuitive user interface and a robust set of support resources to aid you when you need it.
Ease of Use with Zoho Books
Zoho Books is simple to use. Once you’ve signed in, you’ll see a left navigation bar and a dashboard with quick access to useful information. A snapshot of the left navigation bar and a piece of the dashboard can be seen below. The dashboard’s information is provided in a big, easy-to-read manner that necessitates scrolling:
Dashboard for Zoho Books (Source: Zoho)
The left navigation bar gives you access to the program’s many sections, such as Contacts, Items, Banking, Sales, and Purchases. Click Sales in the menu bar, for example, to examine open invoices or generate new invoices. You may also make new transactions by choosing the transaction you want to generate and clicking the + symbol in the top bar.
The Ease of Using QuickBooks Online
QuickBooks Online is more harder to set up than Zoho Books, but it’s a joy to use with a little experience. QuickBooks includes a left navigation bar in its dashboard, similar to Zoho Books, that incorporates all of the important functionality, such as Banking, Sales, Cash Flow, Workflows, Projects, and Payroll. You may utilize the +New button on the dashboard to easily make transactions like recording a bill or producing an invoice.
A screenshot of the Dashboard for QuickBooks Online may be seen below. We’ve also included some notes on the information you may anticipate to see on this page:
Dashboard for QuickBooks Online
- Most activities, such as producing invoices, bank accounts, and reports, may be accessed from the left menu bar.
- Invoices: You can view how much your customers owe youA/R, how much is past due, and how much has been received in the previous 30 days by looking at your invoices.
- Spending: This tab displays the total expenses for a certain time period, as well as the top three categories.
- Profit & loss: Keep tabs on your profit & loss (P&L) for a selected time period from the dashboard without having to run a report.
- View the trend in your sales over a certain time period.
- Bank accounts: From your dashboard, you may check the available balance in your bank accounts. The QuickBooks balance as well as the real bank balance are shown in connected accounts.
Takeaway: Setting up Zoho Books is simpler than setting up QuickBooks Online. It has a more user-friendly layout, but after you’ve gotten acclimated to the differences, you should be able to manage both apps with ease. The +New Button in QuickBooks and the +sign in Zoho Books are two examples of useful tools that make it simple to commence transactions. We consider this segment a tie, notwithstanding the time it takes to set up the software.
Integrations between Zoho Books and QuickBooks Online
The way QuickBooks Online and Zoho Books handle integrations differs dramatically. QuickBooks Online features hundreds of third-party connectors, but Zoho Books is one of many Zoho tools that work together to administer your complete company.
Integrations with Zoho Books
Zoho Books works seamlessly with the rest of the Zoho suite, including:
- Invoice, Books, Inventory, Subscriptions, Expenses, and Checkout in Zoho Finance Plus
- People, Recruit, Expense, Collect, Cliq, Sign, Vault, Payroll, Zoho People Plus (California and Texas only)
- Sales, marketing, help desk, visitor tracking, social media, projects, surveys, analytics, and AI [artificial intelligence] are all included in Zoho CRM Plus.
- Mail, WorkDrive, OfficeSuite, Cliq, Meeting, Connect, and ShowTime are all part of Zoho Workplace.
- Zoho One: More than 40 Zoho Apps
PayPal, Stripe, Gusto, Shopify, BigCommerce, and Mailchimp are among the third-party software systems that Zoho Books interfaces with.
Integrations with QuickBooks Online
While most QuickBooks interfaces are provided by third parties, there are a few that are provided directly by QuickBooks, including:
- QuickBooks Payroll: Payroll capability may be activated with a single click from inside QuickBooks Online.
- QuickBooks Time: The QuickBooks Time Mobile app allows users to log time that may be invoiced to clients and utilized for payroll in QuickBooks Online. QuickBooks Time has advanced features such as employee GPS monitoring, jobsite geofencing, and timeclock terminals with face recognition.
With QuickBooks Online’s extensive third-party software library, you can:
- TSheets, ClockShark, and eBillity are three apps that may help you keep track of your time.
- Track inventory: eBay by OneSAAS, Shopify by OneSAAS, Amazon Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) & Seller Fulfilled Accounting by Entriwise, and Katana Inventory and Manufacturing
- Bill.com, Deluxe eChecks, Plooto, and Veem are all services that allow you to send and receive payments.
- Customers to manage: Method:CRM, Insightly CRM, WORKetc, and Capsule CRM are examples of CRM software.
- Contractors may use BigTime, ServiceTrade, Jobber, Corecon, and Knowify to manage projects.
- Syft Analytics, Qvinci, Fathom, and LivePlan are some of the analytics tools available.
- Payroll software includes QuickBooks Payroll, Gusto, ADP, and Paychex.
Takeaway: Both Zoho Books and QuickBooks offer a large number of connectors that may be used to automate various company activities such as time tracking and payment processing. The superior option is determined by the kind of integration you want; nevertheless, both applications are already working, and the integrated apps are really a bonus.
QuickBooks Online Mobile App vs. Zoho Books
You may use the mobile apps for Zoho Books and QuickBooks Online from any mobile device with an internet connection. Zoho Books is the most functional mobile app of all the accounting software we tested. You can send invoices, receive payments, collect expenditure receipts, allocate spending to clients or projects, classify costs from the bank feed, and see reports on both the QuickBooks Online and Zoho Books mobile applications. The Zoho Books software, on the other hand, is superior since it can input bills and bill payments, as well as track time spent and allocate it to a project or client, which QuickBooks cannot.
Takeaway: Zoho Books’ mobile app allows you to accomplish more, making it the obvious winner in this area.
Assisted Bookkeeping using Zoho Books vs. QuickBooks Online
A local bookkeeper can assist business owners with their accounting needs. Customers of Zoho Books and QuickBooks Online may get help with their bookkeeping. Various accounting duties, such as live feed setup, bank account reconciliation, and monthly reporting, may be assisted by a professional bookkeeper.
Assisted Bookkeeping with Zoho Books
Users of Zoho Books who want accounting assistance may reach out to an impartial Zoho Books Advisor. Zoho Books consultants are certified accountants, bookkeepers, and tax experts who have met all of Zoho Books’ certification standards. Check out Zoho Books’ online database of independent accountants, bookkeepers, and financial consultants to discover a Zoho Books Advisor.
Assisted Bookkeeping using QuickBooks Online
You may activate the QuickBooks Live add-on inside the QuickBooks Online program if you require a live accounting service. QuickBooks Live is an optional service that allows you access to a professional bookkeeper who will own and manage your accounts for you. Video chat will be used to connect with your bookkeeper. For up to $25,000 in monthly spending, QuickBooks Live Bookkeeping costs $200 per month.
Finding a local QuickBooks ProAdvisor is another option. One of the most significant advantages of QuickBooks Online is that it is widely utilized by numerous companies and accountants. You’ll have no trouble locating a local bookkeeper in your area.
Takeaway: With its large network of local bookkeepers and QuickBooks Live assisted accounting service, QuickBooks Online has the upper hand. If QuickBooks Live isn’t for you, a capable, independent QuickBooks ProAdvisor bookkeeper will be easy to discover.
Customer Support in Zoho Books vs. QuickBooks
In terms of customer service, Zoho Books clearly outperforms QuickBooks. You can receive assistance with Zoho Books and QuickBooks Online in a variety of methods, but Zoho Books provides more tools and support. The most apparent feature of Zoho Books is that, unlike QuickBooks, you may phone a person without first sending a ticket and then waiting for them to call you. You may also write an email or use live chat to communicate with a representative. You can’t send an email from QuickBooks. Tutorial videos, blogs, webinars, frequently asked questions (FAQs), and user community forums are all available with Zoho Books and QuickBooks.
Takeaway: Because new users often seek assistance when they need it, having a customer support staff that is accessible and responsive is critical. This is when the value of phone assistance comes into play. In the fight for customer service, Zoho Books triumphs.
Conclusion
With its extensive features and large network of ProAdvisors, QuickBooks Online continues to dominate the small company market. However, Zoho Books provides many of the same capabilities as QuickBooks, but at a lower cost, with better customer service and an unequaled mobile app. Choose QuickBooks Online if you’re dealing with an outside accountant and cost isn’t a concern. Choose Zoho Books if you already use other Zoho products.
Zoho Books vs QuickBooks: Price, Features & What’s Best for 2022. Zoho Books is a cloud-based accounting software that offers the best features for small business owners and freelancers. QuickBooks has been around for decades and it is still one of the most popular options for businesses of all sizes. Reference: zoho books features.
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