Dr. Balakrishna Alva

Director - Pattra

I always wanted an online accounting software which is user friendly and I could use it from anywhere I want to. Zoho Books allows me to view my invoices, see how my inventory looks like and also add items and contacts from wherever I am. Everything right now looks perfect.

Company Name

Pattra

Industry

Home decor retail

Using Zoho Books since

August, 2016

Why Balakrishna loves Zoho Books

Easy interface
User friendly

Features Balakrishna likes the most

Invoicing

Pattra’s Quest: To make every day an Earth Day

Four years ago, Dr. Balakrishna Alva and his wife, Dr. Shairi Alva, wanted to start a business that would help the environment and society. "After a long time we found something that we can give back to the Earth and society," says Balakrishna. The idea they came up with was Pattra.

Now, Pattra (meaning 'leaf' in Sanskrit) is a leading home decor retailer that makes a difference to the planet by producing environmentally-friendly dinnerware.

The founders strongly believe in the proverb, "We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." Their areca palm leaf plates, bowls, and serving dishes are made entirely from dried fallen palm leaves and water.

Pattra dinnerware has a huge advantage over polystyrene , plastic, and paper plates: it's completely natural, compostable, non-toxic, odorless, and microwaveable.

With innovative designs that redefine recycling and reuse, Pattra dinnerware is ideal for parties, weddings, and get-togethers.

Over the years, they've collected 354,836 fallen leaves, sold 1,262,387 products, and made 25,403 customers happy all over India.

There's one more special thing about Pattra: because they strongly believe in women's empowerment, their production staff is entirely composed of women from underprivileged groups who often have a hard time finding jobs.

The Search for the Best

As their business grew rapidly through word of mouth, Balakrishna began looking for an accounting solution that would scale with their thriving business.

"Earlier I was using an offline basic invoicing software for generating invoices," says Balakrishna. "My friend suggested me Zoho Books as well as QuickBooks. I tried out both and found Zoho Books to be more user friendly with a much better interface than QuickBooks."

Pattra's Journey with Zoho Books

Balakrishna intially signed up for both Zoho Books and Zoho Inventory. He used both in order to see what would be better for his business. During his trial period, he also called up the Zoho Books support team to find out about the difference between the two products. He recalls, "The implementation process was very easy and I could understand pretty much everything by myself."

He also talks about his support experiences which were pretty good as they were readily taken up and answered to the point. Balakrishna also had a good experience with Zoho's support team, which gave him prompt, to-the-point answers to his questions.

Two of Balakrishna’s favorite aspects of Zoho Books are the efficient invoicing feature and the secure, convenient cloud access. Balakrishna says,

Balakrishna and Shairi have done their part by returning everything they borrow from the Earth. They encourage others to do the same: "If all of us are responsible and make an effort to decrease the carbon footprint, it will not only make the Earth a better place to live in but also secure it for our future generation."

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