Zoho Social

Zoho Social helps marketers in SMB’s to increase the social media presence of your brand with actionable insights that are focused on content and engagement. The platform provides marketers with pre-publishing insights, based on the engagement level of previous posts and the activity of their audience. Zoho Social also shows users the percentage of your audience, that are likely to see your post now, suggests the next best time to post and lets them schedule a post to be distributed at the same time of the day in different time-zones. Zoho Social has a real-time monitoring dashboard, which helps marketers listen to what’s being said about your brand. With Zoho Social, users are able to search and track a keyword; and then respond when you need to. Instant notifications ensure quick reactions and ensure that no relevant conversations slip between the cracks. Within Zoho Social there is also a dedicated reports tab that provides detailed analytics, and social-network-specific statistics that enable you to understand more about your target audience and see exactly how people engage with your content. Key Features Zoho Social’s key features include a wide array of tools, including social network marketing, social media metrics, multi-channel marketing, automated scheduling, social media integration, feedback collection, real time reporting, activity logging, keyword tracking, brainstorming, a search functionality, real time monitoring, and real time notifications. Integrations Zoho Social integrates with the following social media tools: Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. It supports Android and iPhone devices, but unfortunately it doesn’t have an API available. Pricing Zoho Social uses a freemium subscription pricing model, with plans starting from: $10.00 per month. There is also a free trial available (no credit card required). Zoho Social’s plans consist of the Free plan, the Standard plan, and the Professional plan. The Free plan gives you 1 User, 1 Brand, 4 Social Networks, Publishing, a Default Zoho URL shortener and a SocialShare Browser Plugin. Next up is the Standard plan, which is priced at $10 per month. For this price you can have 2 Users, 1 Brand, 5 Social Networks, Publishing and Scheduling, a Default Zoho URL shortener + Bit.ly integration, Smart Q, Basic Reports, Collaboration, Monitoring (Up to 5 saved keyword searches + Twitter lists), and a SocialShare Browser Plugin. You can also have various Add-Ons if you need as well. These are priced at $10 per user, per month for Users, and $10 per brand, per month for Brands. Finally, the Professional plan is priced at $50 per month. This gives you 5 Users, 3 Brands, 5 Social Networks, Advanced Publishing and Scheduling, a Default Zoho URL shortener + Bit.ly integration, a Bulk Scheduler, Smart Q, Advanced Reports, Custom Reports, Sentiment Analysis, Collaboration, Monitoring (Up to 15 saved keyword searches + Twitter lists), and a SocialShare Browser Plugin. Again, you can also purchase Add-Ons if you need to as well. Bottom Line Zoho Social lets you publish and schedule an unlimited number of posts. You can track how your posts are performing and calculate what works best for your audience with detailed statistics, which are available for every published post. With in-depth visual reports and analytics you can understand your audience, and measure and improve the impact of your content. Overall, Zoho Social is a great way to helps marketers increase the social media presence of your brand.

Zoho Support

Zoho Support is a scalable help-desk solution for businesses of various sizes. By utilizing Zoho Support, businesses are able to build feature-rich help-desks that include ticket management, automation, and reporting tools. Businesses are able to engage with their customers across multiple channels, including various social media solutions and email. With robust workflow automations and request management tools, help-desks are able to manage and maintain large amounts of traffic. Mobile Support A really useful feature of Zoho Support is the ability for agents to answer tickets from anywhere using Zoho Support for iOS and Android. From within the app, users are able to view a feed that displays any recent updates in tickets. They can also choose to follow specific tickets, contacts or accounts. If any developments occur, it will show up automatically on the feed in real-time. Response times can be critical in dealing with customers, therefore the Zoho Support mobile app makes good use of push notifications, ensuring agents maintain rapid response times to tickets. Multi-Channel Request Support The ability to gather customer service requests from multiple channels is a superb way to build great customer satisfaction. Support from email, phone, social media, chat, self-service help center, forums and web forms are all supported on this platform. Zoho Support can be configured so managers can setup and maintain service-level agreements (SLAs). Tickets are created with a due date and time based on the pre-defined SLA. The software can automatically alert users or even re-assign the ticket to another agent. Automations Automations are a great way to improve productivity. By utilizing time based actions and macros, agents are able to maximise their time spent on activities. Zoho Support makes implementing flexible automation rules an easy affair. In this way, customers can be kept up to date regarding changes to their tickets, and any inactive tickets can be closed without wasting time and resources. Pricing Zoho Support uses a freemium, subscription pricing model, with a free 15 day trial available. The Free plan includes email ticketing, knowledge base, community forums, web contact form, default canned responses. This is useful for small businesses, however if you need integration with Zoho CRM then you need to move onto one of the paid plans. The Professional plan is priced at $12 per agent, per month. For this, you receive everything in the Free plan, plus workflows, time tracking, social media monitoring, custom reports and dashboards, custom canned responses, and phone integration. Zoho integrations and mobile versions are also available with this plan. Finally the Enterprise Plan is priced at $25 per agent, per month. At this level you receive everything that is available in the cheaper plans, plus scheduled reports, integration for multiple phone numbers, more workflows, and built-in live chat. Bottom Line Zoho Support is a good solution that can give businesses a clear, unified view of their customers’ requirements. With multi-channel ticket management, and custom reporting tools coupled with Zoho CRM integration, Zoho Support is a solid customer service solution that is best suited to SMBs, but as it is scalable can be used by larger organizations.

Zoho People

Zoho People is a useful HRIS solution for freelancers and SMBs. It can manage information such as company assets, training records, and leave applications. The self-service portal provides employees with access to their own information, thereby helping businesses maintain accurate, up to date records, whilst relieving administrative pressure on HR departments. Employee Self Service A great feature of Zoho People are the self-service tools. By utilizing these utilities employees are able to access and update their own records, based upon established rules. This is a superb way to maximise the time used by your HR staff, as they no longer have to manually enter updates for employees. Employees using the self service portal are capable of undertaking a number of different tasks including viewing attendance reports, leave reports and leave balances, along with having the ability to maintain their own records. Mobile Apps Zoho People’s ability to connect and collaborate with colleagues on the go, is easy thanks to mobile apps. By using the feature-rich mobile employee directory, employees can conveniently check in and out of work using their iOS and Android mobile devices. For managers, the ability to set IP restrictions is a great way to control when and where their employees can clock in. Pricing Zoho People uses a freemium, subscription pricing model with a 15 day free trial available (no credit card required). The software is free to use for up to 5 employees. Paid plans start from $19.00 per month for the Basic plan, which covers 10 employees. Next up is the standard plan, which is priced at $39 per month, for 25 employees. The Premium plan is priced at $75 per month, for 50 employees, and finally the Enterprise plan is $99 per month, for 100 employees. Bottom Line If your company is looking to streamline your inter-office communications and give your employees direct access to their personal information and more control over how they ‘check in’ with the office, Zoho People may be a good choice. The platform isn’t for everyone though. If your business is looking for a complete HR solution then this probably isn’t for you.

Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM is a solid customer relationship management platform that provides a complete CRM solution. With it you can manage sales, marketing, customer support and service and inventory management via a single system. Zoho CRM is based in the cloud, so no setup is required. It can be accessed from anywhere, using both desktop or mobile device. Zoho CRM allows you to generate and track leads, manage tasks, and follow the entire sales pipeline directly from within the app. By utilizing the power of mobile applications utilizing the cloud platform, Zoho CRM allows team members to work collaboratively by giving them access to the most current information available. Workflows Zoho CRM’s customizable workflow management tools allow true automation of regular tasks. This is really useful because every time a new event occurs, Zoho CRM can be configured to automatically deploy a new task and assign it to a specific user, who will then be notified accordingly. Zoho CRM’s Workflows lets administrators set up actions to be executed when certain criteria are met. This, in turn, gives you greater control over how leads are handled. Email Integration A key feature of Zoho CRM is that it can integrate with your existing email environment. This is useful because it provides users with a universal platform of communication across your organization. By integrating an existing email system, users will be able to access new messages and reply them from directly within Zoho CRM. Mobile Integration The Zoho CRM mobile app on both iOS and Android, allows you to access contact details, edit accounts and leads, and view and work with reports. Zoho CRM also supports offline access, which is another extremely useful feature. Alongside the aforementioned email integration, Zoho CRM has the ability to connect to many third party app: including Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Office, PhoneBridge, and QuickBooks. Zoho CRM for Google Apps also takes the software beyond simple email integration. It also integrates with MailChimp and Constant Contact for email marketing, Evernote for note-taking, ClickDesk for Help Desk service, Outlook for email and calendaring, Microsoft Office for documents, Quickbooks for accounting, and VWorkApp for job dispatching and tracking. Using Zoho's API, developers can customize Zoho CRM as required. Pricing Zoho CRM uses a subscription pricing model that starts at $12.00/month with a free trial available (No Credit Card required). For up to three users, a free plan includes all of the basic features of Zoho CRM, with up to 5,000 records. A standard plan that adds sales forecasting, reporting, and more, is available for $12 per user, per month; while a plan that includes email integration costs $20 per user, per month. An enterprise version for multi-level organizations is available for $35 per user, per month. Bottom Line Zoho CRM is particularly effective for organizations that already use the company's other products, such as Zoho Projects or Zoho Books. It makes good use of Google Apps integration, which also makes it a natural choice if your organization uses those tools for email and calendaring. It has comprehensive reporting tools, advanced CRM features, and good email marketing tools. It has seamless integration between pre-sales and post sales activities via the Inventory Management tool and great integration between Sales and Customer Support processes via the Cases and Solutions feature. Overall, Zoho CRM is a powerful solution for small and medium-size businesses that is available at an affordable price bracket.

QuickBooks Online

QuickBooks Online is a cloud-based financial suite that has been designed for SMBs, to perform accounting, billing and invoicing tasks, from a single platform. With QuickBooks Online you can create and manage invoices, print checks, track payments, reconcile banking and credit card transactions, manage bills, and create estimates. QuickBooks Online has an intuitive and user-friendly interface to work with, along with mobile tools for iOS devices and Android powered smartphones and tablets, that provide a more flexible and time-efficient way of managing financial transactions, such as creating invoices, and tracking expenses whilst on the move. Built-In Reports QuickBooks Online has numerous pre-built reports to choose from, which can give a visual representation showing the overall financial health of your business. These reports fall into several different categories: Business Overview, Manage Accounts Receivable, Manage Accounts Payable, Accountant Reports, Reconciliation Reports, Manage Products and Inventory, Review Sales, Review Expenses and Purchases, Manage Sales Tax and Manage Employees. To create a report, navigate to Reports from the QuickBooks dashboard and simply select the type of report you need. If you need to customise the reporting fields you can do so here, if required. Next, select a transaction date from a drop-down menu or specify your target date range. Finally, click Run Report. The produced information can be printed, emailed, or exported as an Excel file. Online Banking Integration With QuickBooks Online’s banking integration, you are able to securely connect and sync your online bank feed, in order to automatically gather financial transactions. This is a great time saving feature that saves you having to manually input the data. Once synced, using the information that your bank has stored with the funds going in and out of your account, such as amounts, transaction dates, and the places where the transactions occurred, you can either accept or delete transactions. You can then categorize and assign them to suppliers or customers. Connecting your bank to your Quickbooks Online account is straightforward enough. Navigating from the QuickBooks Online dashboard, choose Transactions, and then Banking. On the upper right hand of the screen there is a blue button marked Add Account. Here is where you will be prompted to enter your bank’s name or URL. You can also choose from a list of popular financial institutions. You will also need your online banking username and password to establish a secure connection. As soon as your login credentials have been verified, simply follow the prompts to continue. Invoice Creation The layout of the dashboard is easy to navigate and will feel familiar to most users. On the top section of the QuickBooks Online dashboard, in the middle, there are three buttons which allow you to view recent transactions, search for transactions, and create invoices. To create an invoice, simply click on the plus (+) button and select Invoice from the drop-down menu. You are then shown the Invoice page, where you then populate the data, such as customer name, email address, billing address, payment terms, invoice date, and due date. You can enter product/service line items manually, or select them from a pre-defined field. Any tax calculations and discounts are automatically deducted from the invoice amount, viewable in the top right corner of the screen. Invoices can also be branded by adding your company logo, a background image, choosing your own font and designating custom fields. Usefully invoices can be sent individually or in batches. Integrations QuickBooks Online seamlessly integrates with other QuickBooks apps such as QuickBooks Payments and QuickBooks Payroll. QuickBooks Online also offers add-ons such as Bill.com, Jobber, Mavenlink, Method CRM, Shoeboxed, and TSheets. QuickBooks Online also integrates with the following apps and services; Abacus, Chrometa, Concur, Fundbox, Gusto, Insightly, NimbleSchedule, PayPal TriNet Expense, Receipt Bank, Shopify, Vend, Workfront, Zendesk, Zoho CRM, Unleashed Software, Xpenditure Expenses, Unify by Webgility, and VeriClock. QuickBooks Online also has an API available for use. QuickBooks Online is available in English, French, Portuguese and is supported on Android and iOS devices. Pricing QuickBooks Online uses a subscription pricing model that has a free trial available (no credit card required) It has three pricing plans: Simple Start, Essentials and Plus. Simple Start is priced at $9.99 per month and allows one user to reconcile bank transactions and create estimates and invoices. The data can be shared with two accountants. The Essentials plan is priced at $19.99 and includes all the features of the Simple Start plan, with an additional accounts payable feature, which allows up to three users track and pay bills. Finally the Plus plan is priced at $29.99 per month and supports up to five users. It also comes with inventory and 1099 preparation included. Bottom Line QuickBooks Online is a complete accounting solution. With invoicing, billing, estimates, and more, all available from one single platform. It has native mobile apps for Android and iOS devices, which allow you to keep track of the financial health of your businesses anytime and anywhere. QuickBooks Online is easy to set up and highly customizable. With automatic syncing tools to link your bank and credit card accounts, QuickBooks Online gives you an easy way to collaborate with your accountant or bookkeeper.

Zoho Invoice

Zoho Invoice is one of the most rock-solid invoicing solutions available on the market today. It provides a stack of features for a reasonable price and has great integration with other Zoho solutions, including a really easy upgrade option for Zoho Books, which provides a level of scalability that is not found in other solutions on the market. Invoicing The critical feature in Zoho Invoice is the ability to create, manage, and track invoices. With Zoho Invoice, these can be sent directly to the payee or hard copies can be made for sending via post. If any invoices need to be created for recurring payments, such as ones used by subscription services, then they can likewise be created accordingly. As soon as an invoice has been created, it can be sent or saved, as required. All invoices are automatically stored and can be retrieved at any time for further use or duplication. Time Tracking and Expenses A great feature of Zoho Invoice is way that both managers and employees can create specific tasks associated with projects. Each task can be time tracked and billed accordingly. Any task can be created and assigned from either a desktop PC or from a mobile device. In this way an employee doesn’t have to stop working on a project, just because they are not in the office. Zoho Invoice also allows users to track expenses and attach receipts directly. This is a great time saving feature that shouldn’t be overlooked, as it can provide an easy record for reimbursements. Integrations Zoho Invoice integrates with a variety of apps for the purposes of making accounting and payments easier. The app integrates with online payment gateways such as Stripe, PayPal, PayPal Payflow Pro, Braintree, Authorize.Net, and 2Checkout. The integration with other Zoho apps such as Zoho CRM and Zoho Projects is, as you would expect, seamless. Pricing Zoho Invoice uses a freemium/subscription pricing model with a free trial available (no credit card required). There are three plans to chose from with Zoho Invoice, along with a free option. The free plan is for 25 Customers, 1 User, and Multi- currency support. The Basic plan is charged at $7 for 50 Customers, 1 user and Multi-currency support. The Standard plan is charged at $15 for 500 Customers, 3 users, unlimited projects, unlimited invoices and estimates. The Professional plan is charged at $30, for this price you receive unlimited customers, projects, invoices, estimates and users. Bottom Line Zoho Invoice is a robust solution to account invoicing. With Zoho Invoice you can create, send, and manage professional invoices. The system allows you to import and work with existing contact lists or you can add new contacts. With Zoho Invoice you can also issue cost estimates, which can later be converted to invoices. The client portal is also a neat feature that allows customers to login, view pending transactions, and even make payments. Zoho Invoice has support for multiple languages and various currencies as well.

Zoho Books

Zoho Books is a solid, cloud based accounting platform that includes numerous tools, templates and features for all aspects of running a business, from creating clients and sending invoices, through to accepting payments and tracking expenses. Zoho Books has been designed specifically with freelancers and SMB’s in mind. It is a great choice for those who need an affordable, customizable solution for their accounting needs without compromising on features and capabilities. Create Invoices Automated invoice creation with easy-to-use custom branded templates is a great feature of Zoho Books. Variables such as tax and percentage discounts can be applied to the invoice, as well as custom data. With the use of Price Lists, you can input up to date information regarding current pricing for both internal and external users. As soon as invoices have been finalised, they can be emailed or printed for postage. Integrations Zoho Books app integration with 3rd party payment gateways such as Stripe, PayPal, PayPal Payflow Pro, Braintree, Authorize.net, and 2Checkout are all superb and work seamlessly, as do Zoho’s native apps such as Zoho CRM, Zoho Sheet, and Zoho Projects. Inventory The inventory module of Zoho Books includes invoices, price books, products, quotes, sales orders, vendors, and purchase orders. The ability to input and track purchase orders and sales orders is as simple as populating fields with data. The related accounts will then be updated accordingly. Pricing Zoho Books uses a subscription pricing model, with a free 14 day trial available (no credit card required). The service is available in 3 plans: Basic, Standard and Professional. The Basic plan is charged at $9 per organization, per month and for this you get features such as Invoices, Expenses, Time Tracking, Banking, 50 Contacts, 1 User and 1 Account, Multi-Currency and 5 Workflow Rules. Next up is the Standard plan, which is charged at $19 per organization, per month. For this you get the Basic Plan plus Bills, Vendor Credits, Recurring transactions, 500 Contacts, 2 Users and 1 Account, Custom Roles and 10 Rules per module. The Professional plan is charged at $29 per organization, per month. This comes equipped with all the features of the Standard plan, plus Purchase Orders, Sales Orders, Inventory, Unlimited Contacts, and Unlimited Users. With this plan you also have access to Zoho Inventory Basic Edition free. Bottom Line Zoho Books is best suited to Freelancers and SMB’s. It does have some really neat features, such as the ability to create and send trackable invoices. You can also track the status of bills, create estimates for new work, and track expenses and attach receipts. Overall, Zoho Books is a solid platform to work from. It has some useful tools, good task automation and you can gain increased functionality with several integrated apps.

Chargify

Chargify is a subscription based invoicing platform for SMBs. With it you can automatically send invoices individually or on recurring basis. It comes with some handy tools and features, such as letting you create an order page for customers to sign up for your product or service, and then manage their own subscription. Reporting Chargify has lots of standard reports to choose from. The reporting feature is accessed from your dashboard. From here, you can see an overview of subscribers added/lost and the monthly revenue. From the ‘Analytics page, you can locate over 20 reports on various data points, including website activity, signup success/failure, upgrades and downgrades, expiring credit cards, and metered usage etc. It is worth noting that Chargify doesn’t allow you to build build custom reports from the ground up. Integrations Chargify integrates with over 300 apps via a 3rd party integration service called Zapier. The service lets you automatically synchronize your customers and transactions with services from Mailchimp, Quickbooks, Freshbooks, Nimble, Base CRM, Zoho CRM, SugarCRM, Evernote, Basecamp, Trello, and BigCommerce. Pricing Chargify uses a subscription based pricing model with a free trial available (No Credit Card required). The company charges no setup fees, no transaction fees, and there is no contract. Contact Chargify directly for current pricing. Bottom Line Chargify is a good platform for businesses that sell subscriptions. There service is designed to let customers manage payments themselves, whether that’s by customizing their own order on your payment page, or if its by logging into the self-service portal in order to add or remove services, or change payment information, for instance. Although Chargify is suited to most SMBs, it probably isn't that great for project-based businesses, such as web designers, as it doesn’t provide time tracking or estimate tools.

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is a help desk platform and asset management tool that allows you manage your IT in an effective way. With it you can troubleshoot IT service requests faster in order to keep your company running at optimal pace. Its customizable and easy-to-implement software has more than 10,000 users worldwide and is available in 23 different languages. ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is web-based, easy to use, and offers multiple customizable features, such as contract management, purchasing, and knowledge management functionalities, as well as an ITIL-ready version. ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus can help you maintain a complete product catalog based on product type in order to keep up with all of the assets owned by your organization. It will generate purchase orders on demand then send them via email and keep track of outstanding POs & completed purchases. It also can provide reports of requesters and assets in various formats. Inventory Tracking A great feature of ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is inventory tracking, which is available for both Windows and Linux workstations. It can also keep up with your software licenses and let you know the number of over-utilized or under-utilized licenses across your organization. Flexible Tickets One of the most task-oriented time savers is the software’s flexible ticket management with multi-channel support. Its automated tool means your tickets are distributed among your team members based on their workload. Self-Service Coupled with its self-service portal that lets users efficiently find the information they need and its ability to add to an unlimited knowledge base, it’s the ideal tool for self-service help requests. The automated password reset tool is designed to keep the workflow moving without having to engage valuable manpower for small fixes. Multiple SLA and Support Options ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus even offers multiple service level agreements and mobile support with native iOS and Android apps to keep your service running at all times. ServiceDesk Plus lets you create SLAs and provide quality services in real time to your end users. It offers your users the ease of a web portal to submit their service requests and report any incidents. Even better, any emailed help requests can automatically be converted to tickets so that no request gets overlooked or ignored. Pricing ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus uses a freemium subscription pricing model, with a free 30 day trial available (no credit card required). ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus Standard Edition is free, with no restrictions. The next tier is ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus Professional Edition, which starts at $195 per year, and the top tier is ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus Enterprise Edition, which starts at $495 per year. Bottom Line Thanks to ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus you can access your help desk anytime, anywhere, using the ServiceDesk Plus iOS or Android app. Features such as agent-based scanning, which gives you access to any system from a remote network, and the auto-assign feature, which automatically distributes help tickets based on existing workloads, are only a couple of the many time saving tools, which this solution has to offer. With ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus you can integrate your company’s ticketing, asset tracking, purchasing, service catalog, contract management, and knowledge base into one low-cost, easy-to-use package.

Zoho Reports for Web Apps

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