SaaS firm Zoho offers free GST software for SMEs

India's largest Software as a Service (SaaS) firm Zoho has announced that it would offer its GST-compliant accounting solution, Zoho Books, for free to businesses with an annual turnover of less than Rs 1.5 crore. The eligible businesses will be given free access to the software when they sign up through the GST portal, it added.

Earlier this year, the GST council invited accounting software businesses to offer their software for free, in an effort to support small and medium enterprises. According to Zoho, it was one of the companies that was shortlisted for this initiative.

"We believe that technology should be democratised for businesses of all sizes. By partnering with GSTN and the government of India, we want to help companies take advantage of cutting-edge technology that helps them considerably improve their business and automate their GST and other compliance needs," said Zoho Corp founder and chief executive Sridhar Vembu.

Chennai-based Zoho said that its software, also available as an app for mobile phones, would help businesses leapfrog the downsides of desktop accounting software while helping them to streamline their accounting as well as giving instant access to data and improving their transparency in daily business operations.

Zoho Books was launched globally in 2011 and had released its GST-compliant version in India after the country decided to move to GST in 2017. Zoho Books comes with an array of features to help businesses streamline their accounting and stay compliant with the GST norms.

The software is a cloud-based product giving businesses the flexibility to work on the move, Zoho said. Businesses can generate GST-compliant invoices, improve cash flow with automated payment reminders, receive online payments, and work concurrently with their accountants, it added.

Zoho said that it also helps in direct integration with partner banks, which will ensure that businesses can raise loan requests, auto-reconcile fetched bank feeds, and make/accept payments using payment modes directly from the Zoho Books platform. Meanwhile, businesses moving goods within and outside a state can generate e-way bills as well, it added.

One of the country's first cloud and software product companies, Zoho has an ecosystem of more than 40 enterprise applications including sales, marketing, human resources, and finance.