The challenge
The company’s systems had grown up one at a time. Accounts were kept in Tally. Payroll ran on separate software. Employee expense reimbursements were processed manually, onboarding was manual, and leave was tracked in an Excel sheet. Every month, finance had to pull data together from all of these before it could close the books, and the close took three to four weeks.
What we did
- Process review first. We reviewed how accounting, payroll, onboarding, leave and reimbursements actually worked, and where data was re-keyed or approvals happened outside any system.
- Proposed processes, signed off. We designed the future processes with a delegation of authority (DoA) and a business requirements document (BRD) setting out the Zoho tools and workflows for each process. The client signed both off before any configuration started.
- Configured Zoho with approval levels. We set up Zoho Books, Zoho People, Zoho Payroll and Zoho Expense to the signed-off design, with approval levels following the DoA.
How the processes work now
| Area | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Accounting | Tally | Zoho Books, with a live bank feed |
| Onboarding | Manual | Onboarding in Zoho People |
| Employee data | Separate records for HR and payroll | The employee master in Zoho People flows to Zoho Payroll |
| Leave and attendance | Excel leave tracker | Attendance and leave in Zoho People flow to Zoho Payroll |
| Salary payment | Prepared outside the payroll system | Paid from Zoho Payroll directly to employees through bank integration |
| Payroll accounting | Entered into the books separately | Payroll entries flow directly to Zoho Books |
| Reimbursements | Processed manually | Claims processed in Zoho Expense as per the DoA, with entries flowing directly to Zoho Books |
| Project profitability | Not tracked in the books | Tracked project-wise in Zoho Books |
| GST and TDS | Compiled by hand from several sources | Data comes from reports in Zoho Books |
The outcome
- Month-end close cut from 3–4 weeks to 5–6 days.
- One flow of data from onboarding to payroll to the books, with no re-keying between systems.
- Every reimbursement and payroll run approved in the system, at the levels set in the DoA.
- Live bank feeds, so reconciliation happens through the month rather than at month-end.
- Project-wise profitability and the data for GST and TDS available from Zoho Books reports.
General information only, not legal, tax or software licensing advice. Zoho features, editions and prices change, so confirm the current position with Zoho or with our team before you commit. See our disclaimer.
