As I am the early adopter of Google Apps for Business and using this great Google suite not only from my home but also running my business, I always like new add ons for the Apps. Another great add-on is the ZOHO CRM. This is a great tool when you are running a small business and it gives you exactly what you need to track down all your business cycle activities, sales, customers, leads .. as any CRM system out there but for fraction of the price. ZOHO CRM is improving as the customer base is growing and interest is there as well. Installation of ZOHO CRM is very if not extremelly easy.
1. Go to Google Apps market place and locate the ZOHO CRM page (link is here)
2. Click on ADD this to your Google Apps
3. Enter your Domain for your Google Apps and follow up few instructions to add it into your suite
4. Enable it for use with Google Apps and start using the software
ZOHO CRM provides you with a real CRM software with a complete customer relationship lifecycle management solution for managing organization-wide Sales & Marketing in a single business system. Also you will be able with Google Apps and ZOHO CRM:
- Sync mail between Zoho CRM and Google Apps
- Import contacts from Google Apps
- Attach files from Google Docs
- Exports Events to Google Calendar
- Embed Gadgets into Google Sites
- Access ZOHO CRM gadgets
Among the latest addition to features of ZOHO CRM is support of accounting software such as Intuit QuickBooks. ZOHO has released this new features in December 2010 and now is fully supporting thanks to Intuit QuickBooks Web Connector full integration.
Here is the list of available features:
- Synchronize contacts and vendors between ZOHO CRM and Quickbooks
- Import/Export contacts, vendors, invoices, sales orders, product & quotes to/from ZOHO CRM
- Resolve conflicts while synchronizing data
- Setup filed mapping for Standard & Custom fields
- View history of data transfer
All you will need is just download the Quickbooks Web Connector offered FREE from the Intuit website – link is here. Once the connector is downloaded and installed, you will need add Zoho CRM Application to the QuickBooks Web Connector in order to make connection and establish trust.
There are also 3 type so Data Transfer:
- IMPORT [ QuickBooks to ZOHO CRM]
- EXPORT [ZOHO CRM to QuickBooks ]
- SYNCHRINIZE [ ZOHO CRM <=> QuickBooks ] – with this option you can also setup Data Priority for sync, and the Data Transfer can be fully automated in real time or every few minutes (depends how you setup) and as well as you can do this every time you are using it – manually.
ZOHO CRM is a FREE up to 3 users. If you need more users or more features the license cost is $12/month/users. Also there are different versions and this QuickBooks integration comes with license fee as well. It cost $25/month per organization. ZOHO CRM is supporting integration with QuickBooks 2008 up to today latest version 2011 and from the Startup to Premium on-premises installation. Over all this is great addition and the growing improvement will I am sure help many small business owners to operate their business better with this great tool. Give a try!
Knowledge Base can be found at this LINK