QuickBooks Online vs Zoho Books

Which Is Right For You?


Trying to decide which business accounting software program suits you best can be a time-consuming, tedious process. To make this decision easier for you, we’ve created a series of comparison articles.

In this QuickBooks Online vs. Zoho Books review, we’ll be looking at similarities, differences, pricing, some of their popular features and customer reviews. Afterwards, you’ll get a chance to hear our thoughts and make the call yourself. So without further adieu, let’s get started!

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QuickBooks & Zoho Books Commonalities

Zoho and QuickBooks both offer a number of impressive features to their members, for example they’re both cloud-based and make it possible to setup handy reminders on upcoming transactions. Some of the other features they share in common include:

1) Bank Integration: Connect with all of your bank accounts and easily keep track of spending and expenses.

2) Inventory Tools: QuickBooks & Zoho both have inventory tools that allow you to monitor your orders, and automatically conduct inventories.

3) Collaboration: Create multi-users, collaborate with other members and your accountant through both platforms.

4) Time Tracking: Keep track of your billable hours easily with this well-designed feature.

5) Expense Tracking: In addition to time-tracking, you can also keep track of expenses.

6) Customizable Invoices: Easily choose one of their invoice templates, customize it to reflect your brand and your needs, and send it off in minutes.

7) Reports: QuickBooks & Zoho both create a number of automatic reports so you can keep up with your business growth.

Where QuickBooks & Zoho Books Differ

While these two accounting software companies have a number of fantastic commonalities, there are important differences to keep in mind. Some of these include:

QuickBooks

  • QuickBooks, and their parent company Intuit, have been around for more than 30 years, which has given them plenty of time to create a robust platform with millions of users.
  • Their mobile app is well-received from reviewers and allows users access to all the necessary features. Unfortunately, Zoho Books doesn’t have a mobile app available yet.
  • If we’re being nitpicky, QuickBooks offers more complex capabilities and essential functionalities than Zoho Books, especially for larger startups.

Zoho Books

  • We get down to the pricing specifics in the next section, but Zoho is a tad more cost effective per package.
  • Your information remains your own. Unlike QuickBooks, who saves your data within Intuit, Zoho gives you full ownership of all account info.

Pricing & Packages

Zoho and QuickBooks offer different perspectives. QuickBooks is a universal giant in the industry and has been for years. Zoho is an international newbie first created in India in 2005, but didn’t release their accounting software until 2011. At the time, they only had one or two app-based business tools. But today, they’re quite comparable both in features and price.

In essence, here’s how they break down:

Quickbooks vs Zohobooks

As you can see, Zoho beats QuickBooks Online when it comes to affordability. Additionally, there’s a number of other price-related issues to keep in mind:

  • QuickBooks charges based on number of features available per package, so if you need more complex features like tracking inventory and 1099’s, you’ll need some of their more robust packages.
  • Zoho Books charges based on number of contacts and number of features. For example, their basic package includes 50 contacts, 2 users, 5 automated workflows and features like Bank Reconciliation, Custom invoices and more.
  • QuickBooks doesn’t allow for multiple users until their Essentials package, so you’ll end up paying significantly less for the same feature through Zoho.

Both companies offer different discounts as well. QuickBooks offers new members a choice between a 30-day free trial or 50% off your monthly fees for the first six months. Zoho on the other hand offers a 14-day free trial, and if you choose their yearly option, they’ll give you two months of accounting software for free.

Customer Reviews

Moving on to customer reviews, QuickBooks has over 280 reviews on TrustRadius (TR), which has earned them a 7.5 out of 10 rating.

Quickbooks Online Ratings_New

Additionally, reviewers have left their scores on a number of important components. They had difficulty with implementation and availability, but were overwhelmingly positive in their likelihood to renew, support and usability. Here’s the wide-spectrum breakdown through TR.

Quickbooks_Online_Rating_Summary_New 2

Zoho books Reviews

Looking at Zoho, they have far less reviews on TR, counting only 16. But surprisingly, they still have exactly the same score as QuickBooks -- an impressive 7.6 out of 10. Keep in mind both have plenty of app votes and reviews on other 3rd party sites, but we like TR.

Zoho Books Rating Summary

The jury hasn’t weighed in on all the available categories yet, but what we can see is that they get a perfect score on usability and members are also likely to recommend. Not too shabby!

Which is Best For You?

While Zoho is doing a great job so far, in the end, we’d recommend QuickBooks for the majority of our readers.

They’ve had years to perfect their packages and features, making some of the strongest accounting software in the industry. To get started today and see for yourself, click the link below or continue your research. Cheers!
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