Zoho Books and FreshBooks are two leading accounting software solutions. They both are popular in the business landscape as they can help with carrying out intricate accounting operations. Their functionalities and features can differ, but they both have captivating characteristics that can transform how you handle your business accounts. With a broad variety of accounting software on the market, opting for the best one requires a complete understanding of your business needs and the functions they offer.
This blog offers a complete comparison overview of FreshBooks vs. Zoho Books. We will explain the significant features and their similarities and differences to improve your decision power in the business arena.
Zoho Books vs. FreshBooks: Understanding the Distinctions
FreshBooks vs. Zoho Books is an interesting debate, as both platforms are equally competent and are popular cloud-based accounting software solutions. However, if your business requires small-scale accounting convenience and automation, FreshBooks is a go-to option. On the contrary, if you have multiple users and wish to integrate with other modules, Zoho Books can be considered. It offers inventory, expense management, and mobile accounting options to streamline business accounting processes.
Fresh Books
It is a cloud-based accounting and invoicing software that stands out for its excellent customer service and invoicing functionality with a customer base in over 160 countries. It suits the needs of freelancers and businesses with small-scale services.
Zoho Books
It is more suitable for small and medium businesses that require firm control over inventory, accounts payable, management, and careful insights over accounting patterns.
Zoho Books and FreshBooks: Gauging the Differences
Zoho Books has a variety of beneficial features to offer, with customer support being a prominent one. It involves phone and live chat options as well. However, free users can only access the email support feature. Also, calls can be made from 9 am to 5 pm on business days for paid users to facilitate queries.
Opting for premium support is pricier with 20% subscription charges with around-the-clock service availability. It also involves remote assistance, a 3-hour response time, and product onboarding and configuration options.
On the other hand, FreshBooks involves a range of mediums for connecting businesses and customers, such as virtual chat, emails, online support tickets, and more. The phone call support for all users is active from 8 am to 8 pm on working days. This makes it easy to connect with the service support team and discuss any challenges faced by customers.
Learning Base
Zoho has a strong digital footprint and offers an extensive learning curve. Although FreshBooks is also user-friendly and offers comprehensive resources, there is a distinction between the two.
Zoho Books:
- Knowledge Base: Comprehensive resource with guides, tutorials, and FAQs.
- Webinars: Regular online sessions covering topics like accounting, invoicing, and best practices.
- Video Tutorials: Step-by-step guides on using Zoho Books features.
- Community Forum: A platform for users to ask questions, share experiences, and get help from peers.
- Blog: Articles on accounting, business management, and industry trends.
FreshBooks:
- Guide Center: Resource hub with tutorials, guides, and FAQs.
- FreshBooks Blog: Articles on small business management, accounting, and entrepreneurship.
- Learning Portal: Video tutorials and courses on using FreshBooks.
- Community Forum: Space for users to ask questions and get support.
- Webinars: Occasional online sessions on topics like small business growth and productivity.
User Interface
Zoho Books offers an interesting user interface, and anyone can access the required information easily by accessing the app. The data is available in an organized manner and helps to ease accounts handling with easy-to-understand features. The home view option offers all required features accessible from the dropdown menu. Moreover, you can tailor these options as per your business needs.
The enticing visuals help to enhance the clarity of data, yet there is room for customization as per business needs. This can be done by watching tutorials and learning more about Zoho. Moreover, it has a Sandbox feature to test custom features before they are set up. Interestingly, FAQs and forums are also easily accessible for better understanding.
FreshBooks’ interface is user-friendly, intuitive, and visually appealing, making it easy for users to navigate and manage their finances. Its clean design and customizable features allow businesses to tailor the platform to their needs.
In contrast to Zoho Books, FreshBooks prioritizes simplicity and ease of use, making it a great option for small businesses or those without extensive accounting experience.
Invoicing Option
Zoho Books and FreshBooks both offer customization of invoice templates. They allow a recurring billing option and online payment inflows and outflows. Nonetheless, FreshBooks renders more flexibility for multi-currency invoices that is crucial for international transactions. With the option of sending invoices in one of 16 currencies, they offer automated conversions of your home country.
Zoho Books allows invoices in your home currency only, making it suited to domestic business. However, if global expansion and business are the case, clients may face limitations on currency, thereby affecting growth initiatives.
Expense handling
In order to record expenses and manage vendor bills, Zoho offers an improved array of toolkits. It offers comprehensive modules for expense tracking and linking them to related projects. FreshBooks offers expense handling via accounting features, without specialized expense forms, and both handle international payments via ACH or wire transfers. For a rapidly thriving firm, Zoho Books features are robust and business-friendly.
Analytics
FreshBooks offers customizable reports such as loss and profit statements, balance sheets, and invoices, yet its reporting features are not as advanced as any other accounting platform. FreshBooks can handle multiple locations but with limited capabilities.
Zoho Books offers a variety of financial reports and offers multi-location tracking. However, the option that best aligns with your business needs depends on factors such as business size, long term and short term goals, and complexity of operations.
Global Payments
For the collection of global payments, FreshBooks syncs with payment gateways such as Stripe, PayPal, and Apple Pay, among others. Thus, it offers safe access to credit card processing in more than 100 currencies. Moreover, the ACH payments and SEPA transfers to the European Union region are a plus.
On the other hand, Zoho Books also integrates with PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.net for global payment acceptance. Moreover, it supports ACH payments, cash, and checks. For simplicity, Zoho automatically records client payments in their currency for ease. Although both platforms are feasible for payments, Zoho may have a comparative edge owing to a broader payment range.
Language Support
With regard to language support capability, FreshBooks is accessible in French, German, Spanish, and English, making it limited to a few languages. Zoho Books is available in Chinese, French, English, Arabic, and Spanish with language customization based on client invoices.
The broader language accessibility of Zoho Books gives it a comparative advantage over FreshBooks. However, if English is the mode of communication, both can work for English-centric businesses.
Integrations
In case of integrations, as far as third-party app integration goes, Zoho Books takes the lead over FreshBooks with its expanding marketplace of add-ons. Zoho Books integrates frictionlessly with tools such as Shopify, Amazon, PayPal, and even Zoho CRM. This is useful in supporting end-to-end data and processes in your sales, inventory, shipping, accounting, and customer management processes.
FreshBooks has fundamental accounting integrations with payment processors, banks, and ad platforms. But its third-party ecosystem is not as broad or cohesive as Zoho’s. Therefore, growing businesses can gain more from Zoho Books and its highly integrated solutions.
In crux, FreshBooks leads on multi-currency invoicing and financial reporting for international growth, but Zoho Books offers superior specialist expenses/payments and an integrated solutions platform.
Bookkeeping Feature
Zoho Books allows an assisted option for bookkeeping by offering users access to a range of more than 500 certified advisors, most of them being US nationals. On the contrary, FreshBooks does not offer assisted bookkeeping. However, it partners with Bench and renders tax filing and bookkeeping services to small enterprises with prices between $299 and $499.
Tax Management
Compliance with taxes can be challenging for businesses with international clientele; interestingly, FreshBooks and Zoho Books can both handle taxes.
Zoho Books features multi-tax rates and tax report generation by user location. The Zoho Tax Assist integration allows VAT filing and tax ID validation in more than a hundred countries. It also facilitates reverse charges, exemptions, zero-rated, and compound taxes. On the other hand, FreshBooks allows the creation of various tax rates for varying products and services. Taxes are auto-calculated based on the location of the client. While it also allows VAT-compliant invoices and reporting for the EU and UK.
Which One is Better?
Both platforms have a variety of common features such as inter-team collaboration and integration with third-party applications. However, they both have significant pros and cons.
Pros of Zoho Books
- Zoho Books has a range of learning and helping material.
- Its inventory tracking is exceptional.
- It offers an in-built sales tax tool.
- More customization options
- Zoho is economical for small businesses.
- It also easily integrates with payroll apps.
Cons of Zoho Books
- No option of custom dashboard
- Complicated interface
- Time tracking syncs to projects
Pros of FreshBooks
- Prolonged trial period
- Offers double-entry accounting
- Supports estimation and proposals
- Allows payment history
- Automatically organizes files
- Mileage tracking
- User-friendly, customizable dashboard
Cons
- Establishments of bank connections may not be operational.
- Invoice customization is limited.
- Limited budgeting option
Choosing an Accounting Platform with Techloyce
Opting for a suitable accounting platform for operational efficiency and streamlining day-to-day operations is a good idea. As mentioned above, FreshBooks vs. Zoho Books is a complex comparison, as both are efficient in their own ways. With robust tax compliance features, inventory and supply management tools, economical pricing, and user-friendly features, they both target small to medium-sized thriving businesses. Yet, opting for a resilient and reliable accounting software poses decision-making challenges. With thorough know-how and guidance from industry experts, you can choose what meets your business requirements.
Techloyce offers top-tier guidance and consultancy for both Freshworks and Zoho Books. The suite of features offered by both are unique and may help businesses struggling with accounting inefficiencies to adapt and strengthen their financial aspects. Moreover, with our expertise, your decision power can smoothen as we are official partners for Freshworks and Zoho. With our guidance, you can:
- Identify your business needs.
- Compare features and pricing.
- Choose the best accounting solution.
- Streamline your financial operations
Bottom Line
Zoho Books and FreshBooks are both reliable platforms for accounts and business operations. Both are more or less similar, but their span of usability and scope of features vary as per business needs. Opting for the right platform, especially when it is Zoho Books vs. FreshBooks, is solely dependent on your business type and similar factors. We at Techloyce can guide you to select the best software that maximizes profitability and helps with business expansion and accounting operations.
Contact us today for detailed information.
