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Author : Michael Bruer

Zoho CRM vs. NetSuite

Zoho CRM vs. NetSuite: The Ultimate ERP Showdown (Part 1)

Published on: November 3, 2018Category: Certified Zoho Consultants, Zoho Creator, Zoho CRM, Zoho FeaturesLast Updated: May 8, 2024 Comments: 0

Zoho vs. NetSuite: Choosing the Right Business Software

zoho vs netsuite

Businesses of all sizes and industries operate efficiently with the help of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. From closing deals to managing budgets to juggling the schedules of multiple field technicians, these magical pieces of software help CEOs everywhere rest easy with invaluable automations. However, how do you decide which CRM is right for you? Choosing a CRM that works best for your business is no easy task; but, we aim to ease your concerns, answer your questions, and illustrate the pros and cons of two different software packages in this comparison article. Read on to discover the details of Zoho CRM vs. NetSuite: how they are similar, how they are different, and they affect the bottom line for your company.The difference is that when you combine Zoho with our Zoho ERP the result is better than NetSuite because our solution incorporates a full end to end business engine into a single Zoho app suite.

Overview:

Zoho:

  • Zoho stands out for its affordability and versatility, offering a diverse range of applications, from CRM to finance.
  • It caters primarily to small to medium-sized businesses, providing them with cost-effective solutions.
  • Additionally, Zoho boasts a user-friendly interface and customizable features.

NetSuite:

  • NetSuite, on the other hand, is a comprehensive, cloud-based ERP solution designed to cater to larger enterprises.
  • Renowned for its scalability and robust financial management capabilities, NetSuite is a preferred choice for corporations.
  • NetSuite offers a plethora of modules, including ERP, CRM, and e-commerce, making it a one-stop solution for enterprises.

Features Comparison:

  1. Pricing:
  • Zoho typically offers more budget-friendly pricing options, making it accessible to startups and small businesses.
  • In contrast, NetSuite is known for its higher price point, which is more suitable for larger enterprises.
  1. Scalability:
  • Zoho allows for scalability as your business expands, although it may have limitations when it comes to accommodating the needs of large enterprises.
  • NetSuite, on the other hand, is highly scalable and can seamlessly adapt to the growth of your organization.
  1. Integration:
  • Zoho offers integration with a wide range of third-party applications, providing you with unmatched flexibility.
  • In contrast, NetSuite boasts native integration capabilities, significantly reducing the dependence on third-party integrations.
  1. Customization:
  • Both platforms provide customization options; however, Zoho is renowned for its user-friendly customization features.
  • In contrast, NetSuite offers extensive customization capabilities but may require a higher level of technical expertise.
  1. Support and Training:
  • Zoho ensures adequate customer support and offers various training resources to facilitate your software adoption journey.
  • NetSuite, on the other hand, excels in providing robust customer support and comprehensive training, which is essential for complex deployments.

Zoho vs NetSuite CRM Usability

A program’s ease of use significantly influences customer opinion of that software. This is so because a clunky UI can be incredibly frustrating and ultimately destroy buy-in for that software. Unfortunately, many NetSuite users have voiced their displeasure with the UI, commenting on it feeling outdated and depressing. You can read their thoughts on Oracle NetSuite, both good and bad here. Other complaints from NetSuite customers reference the subpar search function,  noting how difficult it is to find things and how the CRM is not intuitive. Last but not least, NetSuite has built a reputation for not integrating well with other systems.

By contrast, Zoho CRM is known for having a user friendly interface and marries all of its applications very well. Plus, if Zoho customers encounter any issues, we at ZBrains are here to help. Our team aims to please, as evidenced by our collection of useful integrations:

Winner: Zoho CRM

Ultimately, the frequency of user complaints about NetSuite gives Zoho the edge here.

zoho vs netsuite

Overall Value of the CRM

When discussing the overall value of Zoho vs NetSuite, it’s important to note that NetSuite carries the Oracle name. This distinction, in turn, makes the software more expensive. Although on the surface the applications within both CRMs appear to be the same, one can purchase Zoho for considerably less.

Also noteworthy in this category are the complaints of NetSuite users, who grumble about the CRM out of the box. Multiple users mentioned the hassle of having to buy more add-ins just to get the essentials of the software to function properly. This folds into an often overlooked cost, the implied cost. We will go into implied cost in more detail in a future article, but in essence, NetSuite support plans post launch are likely very expensive, requiring a NetSuite (Oracle) resource that is pricier in the long term.

Explained further, NetSuite is an ERP solution that has all the big-box player financial tools out of the box, as well as several integrations. On the other hand, Zoho out of the box does not have full ERP functionality, but it can be augmented quickly and cost effectively when combined with our Zoho ERP. The difference is that when you combine Zoho with our Zoho ERP the result is better than NetSuite because our solution incorporates a full end to end business engine into a single Zoho app suite.

Winner: Zoho CRM

Zoho tops NetSuite in this category, in particular because of the required add-ons you need for NetSuite in conjunction with the implied costs of future support.

This is part one of a two-part series.  Click here for more analysis in part two.

Team members gather to discuss the benefits of job costing

Maximizing Profits: How Job Costing Solutions and Zoho ERP Can Help

Published on: October 27, 2018Category: Job Costing, Success Stories, Zoho CRM, Zoho ERPLast Updated: July 1, 2024 Comments: 0

Zoho ERP with ZBrains Job Costing Extension: Advantages

zoho erp job costing

Job costing is a phenomenal way for businesses owners to stay on top of their finances and ensure they are on budget across all projects. The ZBrains Zoho Job Costing App, built by our Zoho Creator experts, offers businesses of varying industries a pathway towards greater financial management and allocation of resources. When performed correctly, job costing ensures employees are being utilized smartly. Traditionally, job costing is associated with manufacturing and construction companies. However,  service companies (law firms, accounting businesses, and private investment companies) also have a lot to gain from this application. Plus, medical services businesses, film studios, and retail companies likewise can utilize job costing to great effect.

Streamline Workflow: Quotes, Proposals, and Planning Made Easy

Companies often rely on multiple software platforms to track expensesThe Advantages of Using Zoho ERP with the ZBrains Job Costing Extension and coordinate their budget planning.  The beauty of our job costing app is having all your data conveniently housed in one place. Want to adjust a proposal to include more line items within a single deal? Done. Looking to monitor the work load for multiple employees? You got it. This application takes all expenses into account, including labor, materials, and employee wages, to give you an accurate picture of your business as a whole. Planning for the future is easier with Zoho Job Costing as a result, because you can see the true cost of every job. For a great job costing example, see this job costing example.

Organize your Team and their Individual Workflows

[caption id="attachment_3417" align="alignright" width="500"]zoho erp job costing workflow Photo Credit: Stand With Main Street[/caption]

Any great manager can speak to the difficulty of monitoring multiple team members at once, and this app significantly eases that process. See where your efforts are pointed, and re-assign team members as needed. Perhaps you have a go-to worker for smaller, short window projects and another ace in the hole for complex, longer term projects — the job costing module lets you track their progress and add to their plates as you see fit. Another aspect to consider is the speed of a worker compared to another. This job costing app enables you to assign a junior employee to a lower priority project and a senior specialist to a project that needs to be completed as quickly as possible.

Optimize your Business Strategy

As with any great tool, the way you use it determines how much value you extract from it. So it is with the job costing module: when used to its full potential business owners can see how their resources are being utilized. For example, maybe there is an uptick in jobs requiring stone, or a decline in jobs requiring lumber. With the job costing module you can take stock of your resources and adjust as needed. This makes life easier for you and your employees and helps you avoid resource shortages and surpluses alike. Job costing is but one element, one spoke in the wheel that is Zoho ERP Software, which helps your business sync with inventory, order management, and financial data.

zoho erp job costing integration

Zoho integration: The ultimate advantage

Above all else, the reason you’ll want to consider the Zoho Job Costing tool we’ve developed is its deep integration with Zoho CRM.  By using our Zoho integration and allowing the two systems to communicate, you’ll be opening your employees’ eyes to a much easier method of calculating job costs.  Integration allows for data to be synced between systems at the very least, eliminating double-entry.  And, at most, you could even access the Zoho Creator Job Costing module from inside the CRM, for a truly unified user experience.

If you have questions about this Job Costing module, another Zoho Creator app in our arsenal, or anything related to CRM or Zoho customization, we’re happy to lend you an ear.  Contact us today and a certified Zoho consultant will get back to you as quickly as possible.

Exterior of Cross Campus Downtown Los Angeles location

Zoho Community Meetup at Cross Campus DTLA

Published on: September 28, 2018Category: Certified Zoho Consultants, ZBrains Events, Zoho Books, Zoho Campaigns, Zoho Creator, Zoho CRM, Zoho ProjectsLast Updated: March 16, 2023 Comments: 0

Zoho Community Meetup at Cross Campus DTLA

At 1PM on Wednesday, October 3rd, ZBrains will host our next Zoho Community Meetup in the heart of downtown Los Angeles Cross Campus:

800 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90017

Come learn how ZBrains provides solutions to the most common Zoho CRM challenges. This event is FREE and open to the public!

Community Meetup Agenda

Join ZBrains as we help you better understand the Zoho CRM, journeying through the following topics:

Zoho Projects

  • Plan, track, and ensure positive collaboration among your employees. Projects allows for better time management and resource utilization.

Zoho Creator

  • Whether you need complex processes automation or just less tedious work on your plate, Zoho Creator lets you craft a custom app that fits your business.

Zoho Campaigns

  • Building a strong customer base is made that much easier with smart email marketing campaigns, and Zoho Campaigns helps you do that and then some.

POP and IMAP for Better Email Management

  • Achieve a greater understanding of POP and IMAP, and how Zoho integrates with them through various email clients.

SalesInbox to Prioritize your Emails

  • The email client built exclusively for salespeople to bring the most valuable emails to the forefront.

MS Outlook plugin to manage emails, contacts, and events

  • Collaboration is key, which is why this plugin pulls from your emails, tasks, and calendar for one convenient data hub.

Layouts for dynamic customization

  • Custom layouts allow you to tailor your CRM for your business, including the fields that are relevant for your industry.

Subforms to associate multiple line items to a primary sale

  • Custom-create subforms to add accessories to a primary product, or add contact details to accounts, among other uses.

API version 2 for enhanced integration capabilities

  • Released in February 2018, this updated API includes better call methods, output responses, and more!

Zoho CRM Integrations

  • Zoho Projects
  • Zoho Creator
  • Zoho Books
people working at a desk

Effortlessly Manage and Track Time with Zoho Desk Time Tracking

Published on: September 24, 2018Category: Zoho CRM, Zoho DeskLast Updated: August 16, 2023 Comments: 0

What exactly is Zoho Desk Timer?

When working on tasks or tickets in Zoho Desk, a web-based help desk software, think of the Zoho Desk Timer as your personal stopwatch or timer.

1. Tracking Time Automatically:

Consider having a timekeeper who starts the timer when you open a ticket in Zoho Desk and stops it when you finish an activity, such as writing a reply or posting a comment. It keeps track of the time spent on each task without requiring you to start or stop the timer manually.

2. Manual Time Recording:

Consider having complete control over the timing, much like an actual stopwatch. Manual time tracking requires you to start and stop the timer while you work on tickets or tasks in Zoho Desk. It allows you to track time based on your preferences and pause/resume when necessary.

3. Efficiency and simplicity:

The Zoho Desk Timer tries to make time tracking easier. It has a simple interface that allows you to effortlessly start, pause, resume, or reset the timer. It makes it easier to track your productivity by correctly quantifying the time spent on each ticket or job.

4. Billing Time Tracking:

Zoho Desk Timer, like a professional service provider that charges by the hour, allows you to add billable time entries to tickets. You can establish predetermined fees to make it easier to calculate and bill clients based on time spent.

Understanding these sub-components allows you to grasp how the Zoho Desk Timer functions as a time management tool, whether it’s automatically tracking time as you execute actions or allowing you to manually control and record your work hours. It streamlines the process and keeps you organized, whether you’re tracking time for personal productivity or billing.

Track Time Automatically or Manually with the Zoho Desk Timer

A recent upgrade to Zoho Desk has made this web-based help desk software even more valuable. Zoho Desk Time Tracking is the newest feature, allowing you to track time spent on tickets and add billable time entries based on predefined costs. The ease and efficiency of this new component is instantly identifiable — it’s such a no-brainer that you may wonder how Zoho Desk ever existed without it! We’ve spelled out the details of this streamlined process below:

The timer is a stopwatch on the top of the page that tracks the amount of time spent working on a ticket or task. Press pause and start to pause and resume the timer as needed. When you click pause, the accumulated time is held for you. You can restart the timer to pick up where you left off, or you can apply the accumulated time to your timesheet. There is also a refresh button to reset the timer, allowing you to start the timer over.

zoho desk time tracking

  • Timer displays accumulated time in the HH:MM:SS format, starting at the one-second mark
  • Timers can be run on multiple tickets simultaneously

Zoho Desk Time Tracking for Tasks

Simplicity is the name of the game, which is why tracking time for tasks is very similar to tickets. The chief difference? An administrator could restrict you from running the timer on multiple tasks at once. When this happens, a pop-up on the upper right area of the screen prompts you to submit the time spent on the current task before beginning the timer on the new one.

Zoho Desk Time Tracking for Tasks

Clicking “Yes” in the above box will submit the timer for the accumulated time for the current task and start the timer on the new task.

How to Track Active Timers

Although you could run the timer on multiple tickets and tasks, it’s useless if you don’t remember to stop and submit their time. When you have lots of work on your plate, paying extra attention to a timer is the last thing you want to do. That’s why Zoho Desk includes My Active Timers, a view that lists all of your active timers in the department. (Because let’s face it, multitasking is no longer just a mark of efficiency, it’s a way of life.)

zoho desk time tracking

To view your active timers:

1. Log into Zoho Desk
2. Check the Pending Activities icon zoho desk time tracking

3. A new window slides open on the right hand side of the screen

4. Click the My Active Timers iconzoho desk time tracking at the top of the window.

Your active timers along and their accumulated time are listed here. You can pause, stop or reset the timer corresponding to a ticket or a task from here.

Automatic Time Tracking for Tickets

In automatic tracking, the timer starts every time a ticket is opened in your browser and stops when an action is completed. The actions to be tracked are set up at the department level by your administrator. For example, sending a reply, drafting a response, leaving a comment, etc. If no action is completed the timer does not record an entry. Also, while you can pause, resume, and reset time on an automatic timer, you cannot stop or submit your time since it gets added once you complete an action on a ticket.

*The timer is visible only if your administrator has enabled your ability to view the timer under settings. Otherwise your time will be submitted in the background.*

Reviewing Time in Zoho Desk

If you started the timer one hour ago, but at some point you took a 15 minute break, you must discard this time before submitting it. That’s why Zoho Desk allows you to review and edit your time spent on a ticket. A pop-up window appears with the choice to submit or ignore the spent time. You have 10 seconds to review the time before it gets auto-submitted.

Reviewing Time in Zoho Desk

For example in the image above, you have 10 seconds from when the window appears to submit the accumulated time. Failure to do so will automatically submit the displayed time. However, if you need more than 10 seconds for review, click on the tracked time to remove the countdown and remain on the window.

*This review window is visible only if your administrator has enabled your ability to edit your time spent on tickets.*

**You cannot review or edit the time spent in manual Zoho Desk time tracking mode.**

The Significance of Time Tracking

Time management is fundamental to achieving business success in the modern world. Whether you’re a burgeoning startup or a well-established enterprise, understanding how time is allocated to tasks, projects, and customer interactions is imperative. Time tracking furnishes insightful data that informs decision-making, resource allocation, and process enhancement. With Zoho Desk Time Tracking, real-time visibility is at your fingertips, enabling the identification of bottlenecks and optimization of workflows.

Streamlined Task Management

Zoho Desk Time Tracking integrates seamlessly with your existing task management system, offering a holistic view of tasks, their statuses, and time allocation. This integration obviates the need for manual data entry, minimizing errors and saving valuable time. Whether tasks are assigned to your team, or you’re working on individual projects, Zoho Desk’s intuitive interface simplifies time logging against specific tasks. This ensures an accurate record of time distribution across diverse activities.

Boosting Productivity

A productive workforce is the bedrock of any successful business. Zoho Desk Time Tracking empowers your team to remain focused and efficient through real-time tracking and insights. As team members log their time, supervisors can monitor progress, identify roadblocks, and provide timely assistance. Furthermore, Zoho Desk’s reporting and analytics capabilities offer actionable individual and team performance insights. This data-driven approach allows you to celebrate accomplishments, address challenges, and implement strategies for enhanced productivity.

Effortless Customer Support

Exemplary customer support necessitates swift responses and efficient issue resolution. Zoho Desk Time Tracking revolutionizes this aspect. With its integrated time tracking features, your customer support agents can log the time spent on each customer interaction – from responding to inquiries to resolving intricate problems. This data aids in measuring the efficiency of your support team and also assists in setting realistic customer expectations. Analyzing time spent on different types of tickets allows you to optimize support processes, ensuring every customer receives stellar assistance.

Precise Billing and Invoicing

Precise time tracking is non-negotiable for businesses billing clients based on worked hours. Zoho Desk Time Tracking simplifies the billing process by providing accurate records of billable hours. This reduces disputes and enhances transparency with clients. Integrating time-tracking data with your invoicing system expedites invoice generation with precision. This streamlined approach saves time and cultivates a professional and trustworthy image of your business in the eyes of clients.

Flexibility in Remote Work

The modern work landscape is evolving, with remote work becoming increasingly prevalent. Zoho Desk Time Tracking accommodates this shift by offering remote access to the platform. Whether your team works from the office, home, or anywhere worldwide, they can effortlessly log their time and remain connected. This flexibility supports a remote workforce and ensures accurate time tracking, irrespective of geographical location.

Informed Decision Making

Informed decisions serve as the cornerstone of successful business operations. Zoho Desk Time Tracking equips you with the data needed for strategic choices. The platform’s reporting features offer insights into time allocation trends, team performance, and project timelines. By analyzing this data, you can make informed decisions regarding resource allocation, project prioritization, and process refinement. With Zoho Desk’s analytics, you can continually enhance your strategies for superior outcomes.

Conclusion

Effective time management is a critical asset in achieving business excellence. Zoho Desk Time Tracking presents a comprehensive solution for effortlessly managing and tracking time, enabling you to optimize productivity, enhance customer support, and make informed decisions. As businesses strive to maintain competitiveness and provide exceptional services, Zoho Desk’s time-tracking features emerge as a dependable ally on this journey. Embrace the capabilities of Zoho Desk Time Tracking and propel your business toward enhanced efficiency and success.

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