DSL Telecom - Blog #Zoho Consultants

DSL Telecom is awarded Zoho Partner of the Year South Africa

Fri, 23 Dec 2022 08:32:08 +0200

We are thrilled to announce that DSL Telecom has been awarded with Zoho Partner of the Year - South Africa 2022 at the Zoho Partner Inspire Event that was held at Zoho's Offices in Cape Town. This title is only earned by businesses that deliver exceptional quality of service to their clients, are industry leaders and offer a unique approach to their service delivery.

Zoho Inspire is a event designed exclusively for Zoho Partners. It provides them with the necessary insights, training and resources that can help scale their business. This events provides a platform to acknowledge the work, commitment and passion of Zoho’s South African partners, who have helped their customers accelerate their digital transformation.

Thank you to our Zoho clients who give us the opportunity to do the work we love. The feedback and support from our clients has been phenomenal. We are incredibly honored to be awarded with this title and we will continue to rock the technology world with world class customer support and solutions in the coming year.

DSL Telecom's Directors posing with the Zoho Partner of the Year - South Africa 2022 Award. (left) Paul Wilson- Technical Director, (middle) Danielle Schreuder - Marketing Director, (right) Dean Schreuder - Managing Director.

Zoho Partner of the Year South Africa 2022 trophy and Certificate of Recognition.

DSL Telecom's Journey with Zoho

We've come a long way with Zoho - from 2013 till now to be exact. And throughout the years, our bond with Zoho has become unbreakable. Here you'll see some of our experiences with Zoho and their amazing workforce - from conferences and Zoholics to training sessions and meetups.

Zoho Cape Town meetup - 2018

Cape Town Zoho CRM Meetup - 2019

Zoholics User Conference - 2019

Cape Town CRM & SalesIQ Meetup - 2019

Cape Town Zoholics - 2021

Cape Town Zoholics - 2022

Cape Town Zoho CRM Meetup - 2019

Zoholics User Conference - 2019

Cape Town CRM & SalesIQ Meetup - 2019

Cape Town Zoholics - 2021

Cape Town Zoholics - 2022

The Top 5 Cloud Accounting Systems For South African Businesses

Mon, 17 Jan 2022 15:53:51 +0200

It's not easy to choose an accounting software application. There are a ton of choices out there and they're all clamoring to get your attention, but not all accounting software applications are created equal. Some excel in invoicing while coming up short on other key accounting features, while others include stellar reporting options but only offer basic accounting capability. So which one is right for you? We take a closer look at 5 of the most popular cloud accounting platforms for South African businesses. Read on and find out more.

1. FreshBooks

FreshBooks is a cloud-based accounting system designed exclusively for the self employed and for those in a service-based business such as a designer, a marketing agency, a plumber, an IT professional, a lawyer, an architect or a web professional. FreshBooks pride themselves in understanding that you went into business to serve your customers and not to learn accounting.

Key Features:

Reporting and statistics
Activity Dashboard
API
Third Party Integrations
Unlimited invoices
Expense tracking
Creation of estimates
Reporting tools

Affordability:

FreshBooks offers a free 30 day trial and 3 reasonably priced payment plans thereafter, starting at $6 per month for the Lite plan for 5 billable clients, then $10 per month for the Plus plan for 10 billable clients and finally $20 for the Premium plan which allows for unlimited clients.

Available Integrations:

Freshbooks currently integrates with more than 40 3rd-party applications with app categories such as CRM, Payroll, Project Management, Tax Help, Utilities, Time Tracking, Lead Tracking, Income Importer, E-Commerce, Job Board, Bookkeeping and more.

User Friendliness: The system is easy to set up and support is offered either telephonically or by asking a question on their website.

2. Sage

Sage is one of the best-known cloud accounting providers globally with decades of providing up-to-date, user-friendly accounting programs. Sage Business Cloud Accounting is a comprehensive software for freelancers and small businesses and is one of the most easy-to-use web-based platforms available on the market. Users can manage key accounting processes like managing items, supplies and customer accounts in one centralised hub.

Key Features:

Accounting access: invite your accountant as a user
Bank statement imports: a time saver for reconciliations
Dashboard: view the information you need to make decisions
Mobile applications: log on using your device from anywhere
Online: run your business from anywhere, anytime
Recurring invoices: automatically invoice customers
Report Designer: design your own formats and layouts
Reporting: various reporting options offered
Sales/purchases: managing your customers, suppliers and items
Support: get unlimited support and webinars
To do list: manage your to do's and reminders

Affordability:

Sage Business Cloud Accounting offers different pricing plans depending on your needs and a 30 day free trial for each of the packages. Pricing plans start at an affordable $10 per month for the Start plan which allows small businesses to quote, invoice and track payments. Then $25 per month for the Business Cloud Accounting plan which allows small to medium businesses perform more accounting functions excluding payroll for a maximum of five users. Finally, the Sage Business Cloud X3 plan incorporates all accounting, tax and payroll elements and is ideal for larger businesses with numerous employees at $41 per month.

Available Integrations:

Sage is a great standalone, as well as integrated product, although interoperability can vary based on which package you have. Here are just a few of the business systems that integrate with Sage Business Cloud Accounting: ServiceM8, Service Trade Commercial, Big Time and Billing, Itemize, Expensify, Expense Point, SalesSeek, PARIM, Commusoft, Synchroteam, Workato, Harmony PSA etc.

User Friendliness: In general, the Sage programs tend to be reasonably user-friendly. Upon set up, you can customise various elements, and set up tasks that you want to be automated. It is not heavy on extra features, as the tiered package structures offer these upgrades and extras. Support is offered telephonically, via email, live support and tickets.

3. QuickBooks

QuickBooks is an accounting software package developed and marketed by Intuit. First introduced in 1983, QuickBooks products are geared mainly toward small and medium-sized businesses and offer on-premises accounting applications as well as cloud-based versions that accept business payments, manage and pay bills, and payroll functions.

Key Features:

Bill management
Inventory
Reporting
A vast network of QuickBooks ProAdvisers which makes it easy to find a local bookkeeper
Multi-language invoicing
Recurring invoices: automatically invoice customers
Various attractive invoice templates
Contact management allows for very detailed customer information to be captured

Affordability:

QuickBooks offers a 30 day free trial for each of their packages. Pricing plans start at $25 per month for the Simple Start plan with 1 user. The Essentials plan is next at $50 per month for 3 users. Then Plus plan is $80 per month for 5 users and lastly, the Advanced plan is $180 per month for 25 users.

Available Integrations:

QuickBooks is highly flexible when it comes to interoperability. The program is compatible with over 600 apps and programs.

User Friendliness:

All packages come with mobile apps, tech support, customisable reports and secure cloud storage. QuickBooks is known for being pretty user-friendly, with a few small improvements that could be made to its layout and ease of finding certain features. Unlimited free support is offered telephonically or by asking a question on their website.

4 Zoho Books

Zoho Books is an online accounting software that manages your finances, automates business workflows and helps you work collectively across departments. It's a comprehensive smart accounting software solution designed for small businesses to better manage their finances and control their cash flow more efficiently. Since its introduction to the world in 2011, Zoho Books has become one of the top players in the accounting market. The huge number of satisfied clients around the globe is a tribute to how Zoho Books grows with its clients and their businesses.

Key Features:

Automated workflows
Bank reconciliation
Custom invoices
Expense tracking
Projects and timesheets
Recurring transactions
Sales approval

Affordability:

Zoho Books offers a 14 day free trial and three pricing plans as well as a free pricing plan for businesses with a turnover of < $50K / per annum. Thereafter, pricing plans start at $20 per month for the Standard Plan, $50 per month for the Professional plan and $70 per month for their Premium Plan.

Available Integrations:

Zoho Books integrates seamlessly with 40+ Zoho apps and a host of 3rd party apps including major online payment gateways such as Paypal, Stripe, Authorize.net, Forte, Worldpay, Braintree and 2 Checkout to name a few.

User Friendliness:

Zoho Books is extremely user-friendly with a clean design yet robust set of features that helps users generate actionable, data-based insights. As far as support is concerned, Zoho Books offers live telephone and chat support on all paid packages, while the free plan only includes email support. In addition, it also has the following resources: Zoho Help Database: A comprehensive help guide that includes basic navigation instructions, keyboard shortcuts, and step-by-step instructions in banking, contacts, invoices, client portal, expenses, and items. Zoho Video Tutorials/Webinar: In the help database, you’ll also find video tutorials and a webinar on using Zoho Books. You can also join the Zoho Books user community to ask or answer questions, register for an upcoming webinar, and review the Welcome Guide.

5 Xero

Xero is a cloud-based accounting software that is transforming the way businesses are managing their finances. It's a comparative newcomer to the market, having launched in 2006. That, however, hasn’t stopped it from racing to the top to join the ranks of leading accounting programs.

Key Features:

Pay bills
Claim expenses
Bank connections
Accept payments
Track projects
Bank reconciliation
Manage contacts
Capture data

Affordability:

Xero offers a 30 day free trial and three levels of cloud-based accounting. Pricing plans start at a fair $22 per month for the Starter Plan, which is quite limited, allowing you to send just 5 quotes and invoices and reconcile 20 bank transactions. The Standard Plan, $35 per month drops those limits and allows for unlimited basic accounting, while the Premium Plan at $47 per month includes the ability to handle multiple currencies.

Available Integrations:

The system is easily integrated with over 1000 3rd party apps.

User Friendliness:

Getting to grips with Xero can take some time, but once you’re familiar with it, it is simple to use. There is also easily accessible help functionality, making navigation and use easier.

Our top pick for South African businesses

After analysing all the above popular Cloud Accounting Software Platforms, it is clear that Zoho Books is the best suited one to South African businesses for many reasons, the top one being the free plan for businesses with revenue <1 Million ZAR per annum, amounting to massive cost savings to businesses.

The next reason we love Zoho Books and the entire Zoho Suite as a whole, is that the price is fixed in Rands, so you won't be caught out by nasty exchange rate fluctuations ever again. Click here to sign up for your free trial.

And talking about saving money, Zoho One gives you one integrated system to transform your business' disparate activities into a more connected and agile organisation. With Zoho One, Zoho has put together all the applications a company needs to acquire and serve its customers (marketing, sales and support apps); run its operations (finance, recruiting, and HR apps); and provide all the tools for its employees to work collaboratively and get their work done (office suite, mail, personal productivity, and collaboration apps). All these apps for only R450 per user per month.

What's more is that DSL Telecom is a Zoho Premium Partner in South Africa which means we have a team of skilled software specialists that can answer all your Zoho-related queries and guide you in the right direction, based on your business's software requirements. Reach out to one of our specialists today:

Speak to a DSL Telecom software specialist

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6 All-New Zoho CRM Features That You Should Know About

Tue, 02 Nov 2021 16:07:16 +0200

Zoho as a leading software provider, has always been well-renowned for their constant technological innovations to their new apps and improvements to their existing apps with frequent feature releases across their entire software suite. 2021 has been no exception.

Their latest releases come with multiple innovative ways to further examine your customer data, uncover even more interesting trends and more ways to evaluate team and individual performance, to name but a few.

Zoho CRM empowers a global network of over 150,000 businesses in over 180 countries. It helps businesses engage with customers, convert more leads, and grow their revenue by closing more deals

Here we showcase our favourite 6 just-launched Zoho CRM features:

Subscribe to CRM editions from the mobile ''in app purchases feature''

With the Zoho CRM mobile app, you can oversee your sales on the move.

Whether you're a sales rep making calls, a sales manager monitoring the sales pipeline, or a business owner nurturing your business, approach your workday efficiently with a state-of-the-art mobile CRM system.

Your mobile CRM app not only covers your CRM software requirements on the go but also helps boost mobile sales productivity with features like search, call, email, check-in, near-me, and notifications. With a highly fluid, interactive interface, offline access, and the ability to sync data across all your devices automatically, Zoho's mobile CRM is perfect for field sales.

You can now upgrade to the Standard, Professional and Enterprise editions from the app settings from your iOS mobile device. You can do so by following the steps demonstrated in the image below.

1. Go to your Zoho CRM app

2. Navigate to settings

3. Tap ''Upgrade''

Introducing Prediction Analytics from Zia

Zia can understand business metrics, analyse it and predict the possible outcome that can help in decision-making and preparing ones business for the future. To substantiate the prediction results, Zia shows the analytics that were taken into consideration to predict an outcome.

With Zoho's new prediction analytics feature from Zia, you can now understand the analytics that Zia took into consideration to predict an outcome and make informed decisions to change the Prediction configuration to achieve more accurate outcomes.

With Zia’s predictions, you never have to guess. Zia scores and sorts your records into different focus groups, so you know how to treat every record. Zia scores your records as a percentage, calculated using win-behavior, the related sales activities, the responsiveness of the lead or prospect, and the time invested. As these scores change, you also understand which sales activity has an impact on your prediction score.

Compare KPIs or targets in Zoho Motivator

Motivator for Zoho CRM inspires healthy, competitive sales by capturing the data from your CRM account to create a competitive environment for your sales team using sales activities. Motivate your team's sales performance via competition and gamification.

Evaluate team, individual, company or time-specific performance to know whether there is an increase or decrease in KPI performance or target parameters.

For example, the increase or decrease in trend can be viewed by comparing the previous month's or last day's data with that of the current month and present day respectively. Likewise, comparison can be drawn between the current and previous month's performance for a particular field.

Introducing Zone Analysis - a new Dashboard component

Zoho CRM has also introduced a new dashboard component called "Zone Analysis" to provide more detailed analytical insights of business data. Zone analysis distributes data into different zones which are created by taking the parameters in the X and Y axes into consideration. It makes understanding of data easier and make informed decisions.

Use Zone Analysis to understand the business data that requires more attention and those that are doing well with the help of comparative analysis between two parameters.

Zoho CRM offers many analytic tools that help users decode business data into simpler graphical forms that are easy to understand and can be shared with peers across the organisation. One of these tools is Zones, where data points are plotted on a graphical area to represent the most optimal to least optimal conditions in the form of zones.

In Zone Analysis, the darkest zone represents the best or the most optimal data point and the lightest zone indicates the least optimal data point.

Transform your CRM user experience using Canvas

Canvas is a no-code, drag-and-drop design studio built into Zoho CRM where you can create contextual, immersive experiences for your entire team.

Now you can redesign your CRM record detail page with this easy-to-use, drag-and-drop design studio that compliments your business, industry, culture and methods.

The Canvas detail page allows you customise the record detail page to your preference by letting you add background colour to each field, arrange them in a different order, use custom buttons instead of field names, use different font styles and a lot more. This view is available in all the modules, including the custom modules.

New metrics and charts in Webform Analytics

Web forms simplify the process of capturing visitors or users information from your website into your CRM system. They are designed to automate the importing of data from websites into Zoho CRM. Non-technical users find it easy to design and publish their own web forms.

Web forms are supported for Leads, Contacts, Cases and any other Custom CRM Modules that you have in your account.

Most of the time, organisations host multiple webpages that help them focus on a wider audience and generate more leads. It is also important to analyse the performance of each web form to understand if they are serving the desired purpose.

Web form analytics help you analyse the performance of the web forms by identifying how well the visitors interact with your web forms and what causes them to drop off.

The new metrics include:

The individual form analytics will display abandon rate in submissions and average time spent.
In the field-based analysis, metrics like: Time spent on fields, field correction rate, field drop rate and field filled order will be available.
Submission based on the device source will also be available

And there there you have it. DSL Telecom's top 6 Zoho CRM enhancements for 2021 so far. If you want to learn more about Zoho CRM and what it can do for your business, get in touch with one of our Zoho Specialists today and book your free Zoho CRM Software Demo.

Book Your Free Zoho CRM Demo

Announcement: DSL Telecom Is Now A Zoho Premium Partner And We're At Your Service

Wed, 24 Mar 2021 15:51:32 +0200

Since partnering with Software Development Giant, Zoho Corporation in 2012, we at DSL Telecom have stepped up the Zoho Partner Status tiers and this year, we're exhilarated to have been officially recognised as a Zoho Premium Partner - the first and currently the only Zoho Premium Partner in South Africa.

Only a handful of companies in the world can call themselves a Zoho Premium Partner, which is Zoho's top-tier recognition status. We’re one of those delighted few. As a Premium Partner, we don’t just leverage the Zoho tools to serve as your Zoho-vetted companion in the cloud, we also work with Zoho's consulting crew as often as we work with each other. You could even think of us as an extension of the Zoho consulting team.

So what does it mean to be a Zoho Premium Partner?

For Our Customers

Zoho Premium Consulting Partners enable customer success by identifying the right set of Zoho tools to address the unique needs of each business. We owe it to our customers to be the best. Our Zoho Premium Partner status is a badge of accomplishment that we proudly wear for our expertise in all things Zoho.

For DSL Telecom

Our Zoho Premium Partner status means that our Zoho sales and technical specialists gain access to extensive Zoho training programs and certifications. We also receive dedicated partner support and early access to new product features and releases.

For Zoho

Zoho’s Premium Partner badge is an accomplishment only provided to the top partners in quality, delivery, and complexity in delivering Zoho's solutions. We work with Zoho on a daily basis across all of their departments to ensure this badge is ours for the keeping.

If adopting Zoho's products is a dream for your company, but limited people-power and a tight budget have been holding you back, your best bet is to hire a Zoho Premium Partner like DSL Telecom.

From start to finish, we take care of your needs, and ensure a seamless, cost-effective solution that promises fast results. To learn more about working with DSL Telecom, book a free meeting.

Book Your Free Meeting Today 👇

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