Zoho Expands Business Focus With Zoho Invoice
Online Invoice App Gives Finance, Sales Users Multi-Currency Support and More
Calif. (March 31, 2008) –
Zoho today announced Zoho Invoice, its online invoice generation and tracking application for organizations that want to run their businesses online. A live demo is available at http://invoice.zoho.com for users who would like to test drive the application without registering.
With Zoho Invoice, Zoho further expands its suite of business applications, which also includes Zoho CRM, Zoho Meeting, Zoho Projects, Zoho DB, and the recently-announced Zoho People. Zoho Invoice brings online invoices and estimates, multi-currency support, online payment options, and more to consultants, individual professionals, and other one-person companies, as well as traditional small and medium businesses.
“Zoho Invoice reinforces the stance we’ve taken with our earlier business applications – Zoho is IT for SMBs,” said Raju Vegesna, Zoho evangelist. “We offer Zoho CRM for sales and marketing departments, Zoho People for HR departments, and now Zoho Invoice for finance and sales departments. As we continue to build out our portfolio of business applications, our goal is to be the company that SMBs turn to for online collaborative productivity applications and business applications.”
For a Zoho Show presentation and screenshot examples of Zoho Invoice, visit Raju Vegesna’s blog post at http://blogs.zoho.com/invoice/introducing-zoho-invoice/.
Inside Zoho Invoice
Zoho Invoice creates, sends, and tracks estimates and invoices for users in sales and finance departments, as well as for one-person shops. Users can issue estimates to customers and prospects; convert estimates into invoices, which are issued at the users’ discretion; and track and manage customer payments. Given the nature of the application, Zoho is using SSL to encrypt data in transit.
In typical Zoho fashion, the company has built a powerful business application that offers a wealth of customizable features, yet remains easy to use and access via interface tabs. When users first login to http://invoice.zoho.com, they are directed to the Settings page, where they can define their company profile, select the logos that will appear online and on invoices and estimates, and customize the look and feel of their invoice and estimate templates. Users can also define email notification settings for sending customized messages to their customers.
Other parameters found on the Settings page include time zone, taxes, currency code – Zoho Invoice supports over 150 currencies – and an online payment gateway (currently through PayPal), which lets users accept payments directly from customers once invoices are emailed. Beyond the initial setup, Zoho Invoice users have access to several modules.
* The Home Module lets users track open and overdue invoices, as well as track overall sales, receipts, and amounts due for the current day, week, month, quarter, and year. Users can also create new (and view existing) estimates, invoices, customers, or items. The reports found in the Reporting Module can also be accessed from the Home Module.
* The Estimates Module displays a list of all estimates, which can be sorted by categories, such as status (draft or sent), date, estimate number, customer name, and amount. From the Estimates Module, users can create, edit, delete, email, and print estimates, as well as export them as .PDF files and convert them into invoices.
* The Invoices Module lets users create, manage and send invoices. Zoho Invoice also supports creating recurring invoices. Invoices can be sorted by status (draft, open, overdue, and closed), date, invoice number, customer name, amount, and outstanding balance. Users can automate repeated invoicing by defining recurring profiles (weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly) and letting Zoho Invoice automatically send invoices to customers. Users also define late fees, taxes, discounts, and other parameters for their invoices.
* The Customers Module provides a sortable listing of all customers, including contact names, phone numbers, and email addresses. Users can add, edit, and delete customers. Clicking on an individual customer brings up that customer’s detailed profile, including payment terms, invoice details, and currency code. Users can also export and import contact information in .VCF format.
* The Items Module is where users manage the list of goods and/or services they sell. Users can create, edit, or delete items. The list itself can be sorted by item name, description, and rate.
* The Reporting Module gives users an array of powerful reports that reveal the health of their business. Reports can be run on data from sales, payment, invoice, customer, tax, and activities – with each report category offering reportable sub-categories. Users can generate reports that reflect the data from the current day, week, month, quarter, year, or custom time period.
Zoho Invoice is currently integrated with Zoho Projects. Users working on a project can invoice their clients by creating an invoice and choosing the option to ‘Create Invoice from Zoho Project.’ Going forward, Zoho Invoice will be closely integrated with Zoho CRM and other Zoho applications.
Pricing
Zoho Invoice is available in a variety of service plans, including a free plan that includes five invoices per month but lacks multi-currency support. The Basic plan is $5 per month for 25 invoices. The Standard plan is $15 per month for 150 invoices. The Premium plan is $25 per month for 500 invoices, and the Elite plan is $35 per month for 1500 invoices. More information on pricing is available at http://zoho.com/invoice/invoice_subscription_pricing.html.
Market Responds to Zoho Invoice
Zoho adds strong Invoice app to growing business suite
“Zoho Invoice is a clean, straightforward, and flexible invoicing service…But Zoho has more than just another invoice app. The company is building a full suite of business apps, which at some point will connect together at the logical places: CRM to invoicing to project management to HR, for example.” Rafe Needleman, WebWare
Zoho’s business offerings still growing with online invoice tool
“Zoho Invoice expands Zoho’s already formidable offering of 16 other applications, moving well beyond the company’s initial focus on productivity apps.” Anthony Ha, Venture Beat
Zoho adds Invoice software to online business suite
My verdict: I am very pleased with invoices by Zoho. In about 8 minutes I had everything setup just as I had it in SimpleInvoices. All worked as expected. And Zoho offers a few extras too: the paypal gateway is a sweetening addition.” Tech Interest Blog
Zoho Gets closer to SOHOs with Zoho Invoice – Online Invoice Creation App
“No doubt, Zoho is getting closer to SOHOs/Small Businesses with applications that are a perfect fit for these companies.” PluGGd.IN
For more information on Zoho, please visit www.zoho.com. To get breaking Zoho news, please visit and subscribe to the RSS feed at blogs.zoho.com.
About Zoho and AdventNet
Zoho is creating the most comprehensive suite of affordable, online productivity tools for today’s knowledge workers. Nearly 120 developers work on the Zoho suite, often implementing new features just days after customers request them and responding to customer queries within minutes of their posting. To date, Zoho has launched 15 different applications and more are in the works. For more information on Zoho, please visit www.zoho.com and blogs.zoho.com
Zoho is a division of AdventNet, in business since 1996 providing innovative software tools and serving more than 10,000 customers worldwide. For more information on AdventNet, please visit www.adventnet.com.
Media Contact:
Susan D’Elia
TECHMarket Communications
(650) 344-1260
Susan@TECHMarket.com
Source: Zoho