With running an accounting practice getting more complicated by the day, global software vendor Zoho has deepened its offerings for accountants with its recently released Zoho Practice.
In a one-on-one interview at Zoho's annual analyst briefing on Feb. 7 in McAllen, Texas, Val Steed, the company's director of accountants, briefed Accounting Today on its comprehensive practice management system, which is aimed at small and midsized accounting practices.
Zoho Practice consists of Zoho applications tied together to present a coherent system of capabilities to assist a practice in many areas, including:
- Client management and collaboration;
- Financial insights;
- Task management;
- Document management; and,
- Time & billing (though the actual invoicing is performed by Zoho Books).
Users can perform extensive customization, and Zoho Practice's features can be expanded with the addition of Zoho Books, Zoho Expense and Zoho Payroll. The application includes built-in integrations with Zoho Cliq, Zoho Mail and Zoho Sign. Additionally, custom features and functionality can be added. The Zoho Practice system also provides insight into client intelligence. These insights cover aged receivables and payables, cash flow, bank transactions, general ledger and more.
At the moment, Zoho Practice is free to firms with five or fewer users, with a $5-per-user monthly fee for firms with more than five users. Zoho is currently in talks with organizations such as the American Institute of CPAs and state accounting societies to offer Zoho Practice to their members. Steed also mentioned that these, as well as select other outlets, will be able to offer Zoho Practice for up to 10 users for three years free to their members. The offer will be limited to firms and practitioners who are in public practice or perform client-facing duties, including bookkeepers and Enrolled Agents. Ten-user Zoho Books Elite, Zoho Expense Elite and Zoho Inventory Elite are included with the membership offer for the firm's own use. On the client side, many Zoho applications are free for a limited number of users.
Steed feels that Zoho Expense will be particularly attractive: "Because firms are always reimbursing staff for running to and from different clients, usually it's a big mileage game," he said.
"The part that was unexpected," Steed mentioned, "is that you can use Zoho Practice for the rest of your clients, even those using QuickBooks. If you want to put a QuickBooks client in here and track conversations, you can also track Time and Billing. You just don't have the Zoho Books integration."
Steed was forthcoming that the Zoho Practice system may not be suitable for all practices, especially larger firms that may need the features and expandability that more expensive practice management systems offer. But he does feel that many smaller to midsized practices, and especially sole proprietorships, would benefit from taking a look at the system.
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