Key Highlights:

  • In December, Zoho launched enterprise billing and spend management applications to address fragmented finance operations
  • Platform unifies travel, expense, payroll, procurement, and accounts payable under single system
  • AI embedded as foundational infrastructure across finance suite, not standalone feature
  • Supports 15 country-specific editions with automated tax compliance and e-invoicing capabilities
  • Deep banking integrations provide 15-20 touchpoints across ERP functions
  • Beta customers include enterprises processing 20+ million invoices annually

The Integration Imperative

Enterprise finance operations have long struggled with a fundamental problem: disconnected systems that create data silos and require extensive manual integration work. That, and the complexity involved all the way around, is the challenge Zoho’s enterprise billing and spend management applications, launched in mid-December, were designed to address.

A few weeks ago, I was joined by Siva Iswaran, Zoho’s Global Head of Finance and Operations, on the Experience Matters podcast to discuss this fragmentation and how it represents the biggest challenge facing modern finance teams and to take a deep dive into the Zoho enterprise billing and spend management applications designed to address this. 

The biggest challenge, according to Iswaran, is that the solutions we have today in the market are not completely integrated. There are a lot of solutions, but they solve some fairly specific problems. As a whole, however, there is no integrated suite of products. 

This lack of integration forces organizations to juggle multiple vendors while attempting to stitch together comprehensive financial operations — from billing and collections to spend management and compliance. The result? Data trapped in silos that becomes increasingly difficult to analyze, especially as AI capabilities require well-integrated systems of record.

Watch the full episode of my conversation with Zoho’s Siva Iswaran here Experience Matters here:

Zoho’s Three-Pillar Finance Vision

Zoho’s approach to modern enterprise finance rests on three integrated pillars: ERP/business software, fintech/financial services, and banking integrations. This comprehensive vision is part of Zoho’s trademark when it comes to solving business problems and distinguishes Zoho from competitors who typically excel in only one area.

The company’s finance suite encompasses approximately 12 products spanning the entire financial lifecycle. On the billing side, Zoho addresses everything from product catalog creation and customer lifecycle management to CPQ, revenue management, and analytics. The platform supports flexible pricing models that can adapt to different markets, currencies, and regulatory requirements, which are essential for global operations.

“We have 15 country-specific editions today, right from the United States to Canada to Mexico, to countries in the GCC area, India, various countries in Africa, and editions for Germany, UK,” Iswaran noted. “In these countries, we take care of compliance requirements. We look at the law, we understand the law, and we implement them in the product so customers can focus on their business.”

Unified Spend Management

While billing addresses money flowing into the business, Zoho Spend tackles the equally critical challenge of controlling money flowing out. The platform consolidates travel management, expense reporting, payroll, accounts payable automation, and procurement into a single system.

The platform’s corporate card offering enables administrators to enforce spending controls at the source, before expenses occur rather than during post-mortem analysis. Combined with AI-powered fraud detection that can identify patterns and cluster related transactions, this proactive approach represents a significant advancement over traditional expense management systems.

AI as Foundation, Not Feature

Perhaps most notably, Zoho embeds AI throughout its finance suite as foundational infrastructure rather than bolted-on features. The company uses AI across four primary categories: automation, insights generation, anomaly detection and fraud prevention, and reconciliation/audits.

“We don’t look at AI as a feature and show it through the throat of the customer,” emphasized Iswaran. “We look at AI as infrastructure, just like your data centers. It’s infrastructure which all products can use and get benefits and pass these benefits to the customer.”

Practical applications include natural language interactions with Zia (Zoho’s AI assistant) for creating invoices or generating reports, automatic summarization of financial data, and even helping employees understand their payslips without contacting HR. The latter capability resonates particularly with Gen Z employees who often prefer interacting with AI over human colleagues for routine questions.

Global Traction and Future Outlook

Zoho has built significant momentum across global markets, with particularly strong traction in the Americas, Middle East, African regions, and India. The company’s experience implementing e-invoicing compliance across multiple countries, from Latin America to India, positions it well as European nations adopt similar requirements.

Before official launches, Zoho works closely with beta customers, sometimes onboarding thousands of users to refine products based on real-world feedback. This collaborative approach ensures products can handle enterprise scale, including customers processing millions of transactions during peak seasonal periods.

As finance operations grow increasingly complex and AI-powered, Zoho’s integrated approach, combining deep product capabilities, extensive compliance support, and embedded intelligence, offers enterprises a compelling alternative to managing multiple disparate systems. For finance teams seeking to focus on strategic work rather than system integration, this unified platform represents a significant step forward.

Having just spent last week with the team at Zoho, I’ve got some other exciting highlights, customer feedback, and a look at what’s ahead, for the company and its customers. I’ll be sharing that later this week, so stay tuned. 

 

This article was originally published on LinkedIn.

 

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