We thought we would announce this small but useful enhancement on Zoho Books/Zoho Invoice, not only because it is a useful function but because we like how it demonstrates how Zoho listen to their customers and take valuable feedback on board to improve their software. 

A customer of ours one day asked whether they could - instead of including lengthy terms and conditions in an invoice template - include them as an attachment on the email that send the invoice. 

Different terms and conditions, could be attached to different email templates, rather than trying to remember to attach them when sending the invoice. 

We suggested this to Zoho and within a week, they had introduced this enhancement. 

You are now able to add attachments to the email template itself:

These can be Terms and Conditions, standard contracts, a company introduction pack, or anything else you want to send to your customers in the quotation/invoice process. 

If you have different contracts or Terms and Conditions documents, depending on what you are selling, then you can create different email templates. 

This example is just one way that user feedback has helped to improve a Zoho product and we hope you will like this new function! 

For more information on Zoho Books/Zoho Invoice, please contact us here. 

Zoho Reports, which is the online BI (business intelligence) app from Zoho, is now integrated with their online accounting software, Zoho Books.

After the integration of Zoho Reports after Zoho CRM and Zoho Projects, and also Zoho Recruit, Zoho Reports integration to Zoho Books is the next logical step in an all encompassing platform that provides users with a powerful platform to take their financial reporting to the next level.

Zoho Books inbuilt reporting module is pretty good, and provides all of the standard financial reports one might expect to need to run any small business.

Zoho Reports however allows you to do much much more in the way of data mining and real time data visualisation / analytics that one can only get using a fully fledged business intelligence service.

Quick setup

Setting up the advanced analytics is easy - in just a few clicks your Zoho Books platform will be synched to a new Zoho Reports database and even get numerous reports built in as standard.

Ready made reports and dashboards

In fact, the advanced analytics for Zoho Books function comes with a whopping 75+ pre-packaged reports and dashboards, designed with your needs in mind.  

For example: important finance metrics like quick ratio, activity ratio, EBIT, gross/net profits etc, to viewing trends… 

Create reports and dashboards

Zoho Reports is not a finite platform either, you can build on the standard reports to create more in the way of unlimited ad hoc reports and dashboards using the easy drag-and-drop interface.

Easily share reports and dashboards

All reports on the Zoho Reports platform can be shared with your team, management or shareholders. Fine grained access control permissions allow you to set who sees what and all reports are dynamic and interactive, meaning recipients can click links and use filters to drill down on the data in real time. 

Analyze Zoho Books and Zoho CRM data together

The best part about all of this is that you can bring in your Zoho CRM data and combine it with Zoho Books data, and then create valuable sales/financial reports seamlessly, something that’s not easily doable with most other business intelligence tools in the market as they normally run as separate entities.

And, just like with the Zoho CRM advanced analytics option, you can get data from other sources and blend it with Zoho Books data, and create reports out of these mixed data sources.

Zoho offer a free 15-day trial of the add-on. Try it out, and we would love to hear your feedback.

And one last thing. In addition to the advanced analytics add-on for Zoho Books, Zoho also have an equally powerful advanced analytics add-on for QuickBooks Online! 

Contact Us

Please contact us here for more information on this latest integration or about our Zoho Books and Zoho CRM setup services. 

You may or many not have noticed the new widgets in Zoho Invoice and Zoho Books but we thought we would blog about them just in case as they can be quite useful!

Take a look at the top left of the screen now and you will see a couple of new icons, next to the Zoho logo:

These new icons allow you to... 

Quickly add new records

Rather like the Add button in Zoho CRM, which allows you to click one time then select what it is you want to add, this function also allows you to add a new Quotation, Invoice or whatever, directly from clicking this button. This means you do not need to go into the relevant module to add new data, saving clicks and ... clicks mean time!

Go to your recent items

Again, it looks like the Zoho Invoice/Books team have been collaborating with the Zoho CRM guys and have implemented one of their most useful functions, the 'recent items' clock type icon that in the CRM appears on the firmest left side of the screen and shows the last 10 records you accessed.  The same function is now in Zoho Invoice and so you need not have to search for the record in the relevant module in order to view it.  Simply click the recent items icon, select the one you want!

Although these are pretty basic functions they are just one way Zoho are taking these suggestions on board to try to improve their products based on your feedback.   

Contact Us

For more information or a free trial of Zoho Invoice or Zoho Books, please contact us here.

Zoho have just released a Google Chrome extension for tracking the time spent on projects in the timesheet module of Zoho Books, hopefully making the process of tracking time much simpler.

Picture it: you start the timer to begin working on a task, but then you go to lunch and then do something else and forget to stop the timer… before long something that should have taken 2 hours of billable time has taken (on paper) 8 hours!  Yes, you forgot to stop the timer. We do it too.  

This chrome extension will allow you to easily see that the timer os on and stop it whenever required, without the need to login to Zoho Books..

This extension allows you to do the following regardless of which tab in Chrome you are using:

1. Start the timer. While the timer is running, the extension's icon will show the timer is ON.
2. Stop the timer.
3. Log the time spent on a particular task.
4. View the latest time entries.

You can find the extension in the link below:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/zoho-books-timer/noekmgopfaldnjbckdddjbnjcdklcadb

Zoho Books administrators can now introduce improved role based access for their users by refining what their external users, e.g. customers and accountants, and also their accounting team members can access.

So for example you could set up roles for supplier & purchases access only, sales access only, external accountant access only, customer access only, e.g. view only invoices and cash payments, and reports only access. 

The following screen prints demonstrates the improved role based access.

Discover how the Zoho Books can help you to better manage your finances and to stay on top of your cash flow by contacting us today or drop us a note to info at mangoho dot com. 

Creating online business solutions for our Zoho clients in the U.K. is at the heart of what we do at Mangoho.

Mangoho quick links:

Contact Mangoho.

Zoho Books including a short video. 

Zoho have recently announced the online Zoho Expense tracker application that has been designed to save sales execs time when tracking their client related expenses.

Zoho Expense allows sales reps. to automate a number of financial management processes that takes away from the time that they should selling. 

The main features of Zoho Expense are: 

• Automate expense recording.
  
• Import card transactions.
  
• Expense on the go.
  
• Control expenditures.
  
• Simplify approvals.
  
• Gain visibility into spending.
  

Sales people using the Zoho Expense tracking application’s auto scan feature can take images of their receipts and automatically upload them into the app. 

Furthermore they can also sync their credit cards with Zoho Expense and, with a quick click, the transaction is converted to an expense. 

Expense approval is streamlined with sales managers being able to approve requests that go over the expense budget. 

Additionally sales managers can be notified when a Zoho Expense user has breached an expense policy.

Integrated with Zoho Books and Zoho CRM

Zoho Expense integrates with Zoho Books which makes the reimbursement procedure much easier for the accounts department.

And for sales execs that are Zoho CRM users a user account is automatically created for them in Zoho Expense. 

And in the future the Zoho developers plan to have Zoho CRM users creating and submitting expense reports without leaving their CRM.

Expense Reporting

Zoho Expense makes it very easy to collate expenses and create expense reports which means that you can gain more visibility into spending. 

Expense Claims On the Go

Record expenses on the go and then submit them for approval with only a smartphone.

Furthermore a built in mileage tracking feature assists Zoho Expense users to keep track of the distance they have driven relating to a client.

Discover how Zoho Expense can assist your company to improve the control your expenditures, simplify expense approvals and gain better visibility into spending by contacting us today or drop us a note to info at mangoho dot com.

Crafting online business solutions for our Zoho clients in the U.K. is at the heart of what we do at Mangoho.

Mangoho quick link:

Contact Mangoho

We recently announced the UK version of Zoho Books and we thought that CPAs in South Wales would want know more about the UK features: 

• Collect and record VAT on transactions.
  
• Send ‘HMRC’ compliant VAT invoices to customers.
  
• Track sales made to EU customers.
  
• Accept online payment from customers.
  
• Automatically import bank transactions.
  
• Generate VAT returns with ease.
  
• Apply the new VAT rule for sale of digital services.
  

And then add in that we will provide you with the resources and tools to help you talk to your customers, and, importantly, support your customers. 

Add in that we are locally based in South Wales and then add in the cost of only just over £160 a year and you will be a super star to the clients in your practice. 

Yes, for just over £160 a year you get unlimited invoices, estimates, bills, expenses, customers and vendors and multiple currencies, projects and users.

Online Mobile Accounting

• Collaborate and work together online with your customers. 
  
• Forget about asking them to send all their paperwork to you. 
  
• Give immediate advice to them when they need it.
  

Discover how Mangoho and Zoho Books can assist your practice grow by contacting us today or drop us a note to info at mangoho dot com.

Crafting online business solutions for our Zoho clients in the U.K. is at the heart of what we do at Mangoho.

Mangoho quick links:

Contact Mangoho

Zoho Books, including video introduction.

Zoho Books is an outstanding online accounting application for small business owners and freelancers.

And the really astute people at Zoho Corp. have recently released Zoho Books, UK edition.

The Zoho Books UK edition has been developed to:

• Collect and record VAT on transactions.
  
• Send ‘HMRC’ compliant VAT invoices to customers.
  
• Track sales made to EU customers.
  
• Accept online payment from customers.
  
• Automatically import bank transactions.
  
• Generate VAT returns with ease.
  
• Apply the new VAT rule for sale of digital services.
  

For more details of these features just drop us a note to info at mangoho dot com or send us a message here.

At Mangoho we think that the announcement of the UK version of Zoho Books is a lot more than just a new accounting application for SMBs.

We believe that the Zoho Books accounting application makes a compelling statement about our commitment to: 

• SMBs in South Wales to provide a reasonably priced accounting application.
  
• CPAs in South Wales to provide a locally supported accounting application for their clients. 

And the release of the applications further confirms our understanding of the accounting system market in the UK.

Discover how Zoho Books can assist your company by contacting us today or drop us a note to info at mangoho dot com.

Crafting online business solutions for our Zoho clients in the U.K. is at the heart of what we do at Mangoho.

Mangoho quick links:

Contact Mangoho.

Zoho Books, including video introduction.

Zoho Books and Zoho Invoice, the online business accounting solutions from Zoho, now have a new feature to reduce the tedious process of charging recurring invoices to customers on a regular basis.

Zoho Books and Zoho Invoice have long had a recurring invoice function that sends a manually checked or fully automated

The new feature lets you charge your customer's credit card for recurring invoice payments on a daily/weekly/monthly basis.

In the case of failed payments, Zoho Books/Invoice will then try to process the payment again after a few days, before suspending it (dunning).  

The ‘dunning process’ is defined by Wikipedia as:

“... the process of methodically communicating with customers to ensure the collection of accounts receivable. Communications progress from gentle reminders to threatening letters and phone calls and more or less intimidating location visits as accounts become more past due. Laws in each country regulate the form that dunning can take. It is generally unlawful to harass or threaten consumers. It is acceptable to issue firm reminders and to take all allowable collection options.”

Zoho have currently enabled this new function for Stripe, which allows you to accept payments from almost any credit card and debit card, no matter where your customer lives. 

It is important at this stage to note however that in order to accept payments with Stripe, you or your business must be located in one of the countries Stripe supports.

• Australia
  
• Canada
  
• Ireland
  
• United Kingdom
  
• United States
  

Stripe is also available in open beta in:

• Belgium
  
• Finland
  
• France
  
• Germany
  
• Luxembourg
  
• The Netherlands
  
• Spain
  

This function will require basic steps as follows:

Step 1: Set up recurring invoices.

Step 2: Set up recurring invoice preferences.

Step 3: Configure Auto Charge.

Step 4: Configure payment failure retries (Dunning) and more.

We’ll keep you updated as we learn more but this looks like it will be a very useful function for small businesses!

Contact Us

For more information on Zoho Books and Zoho Invoice online accounting software for small businesses please contact us here.

With Zoho Books & Zoho Invoice you can now provide your customers with their own client portal so that they can review their payments, latest transactions and also provide them with the ability to make online payments.

All superb features that will help you to get paid quickly!

Fortunately now (or perhaps 'unfortunately' for clients!), customers will not be able to delay payments of your invoices by using lines like "I did not receive the email" or "please can you send to me by regular mail".  

This is done using the new 'client portal', available in both Zoho Books and Zoho invoice, which allows your clients to login and view what they owe you and make quick online payments, wherever they are.

They can also review estimates that you have made forthem meaning you can more easily discuss open sales potentials online or on the phone, to help close the sale more quickly.

Another nice feature is that you will also be able to see when your customer has viewed an invoice in the portal! So again, excuses like “Sorry, I did not see the last invoice" or "the statement has been lost in the post” are running thin for would be payment procrastinators!

Contact Us

For more details of this new function or for information on how to implement Zoho Books or zoho Invoice in your small business, please contact us here.