Anand Ethiraj
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Consulting and IT Services
2017
Applied Syntax is an IT consulting firm based out of Hyderabad. Started in the year 2017, Applied Syntax consults businesses on technology implementation, builds custom solutions, and automates business processes.
From understanding the client business process, to identifying the problem, to figuring out the possible solution, to implementing and educating the new implemented system to their clients' employees, consultants work requires a significant amount of time dedicated to matching the clients' needs and wants.
Along with his 20 employees, Mr. Inder, co-founder of Applied Syntax, does the above on a day-to-day basis, providing the best possible consulting they can to their clients from industries including e-commerce, fin-tech, and media. Adept in technologies such as Python, MySQL, PHP and more, the team sits through with clients from idea brainstorming to implementation and support.
When Applied Syntax was founded in 2017, they initially handled their invoicing using spreadsheets. With the business' rapid growth and an influx of customers, Mr. Inder found spreadsheets could only help him to a certain extent. "My time was under-utilised. The amount of time that I spent on paying my vendors, performing bank reconciliation, and salary payments were huge. The new GST system announcement was the point that triggered me to look for a solution that will help me handle billing and accounting with ease and keeping me compliant with this whole new GST system," he said.
Having used Zoho Mail, Mr. Inder was aware that Zoho offered an accounting solution, Zoho Books, as part of its product portfolio. After a week of learning, implementing, and communication with the Zoho Books support team, Applied Syntax implemented Zoho Books to streamline their billing and accounting process.
Zoho Books made life easier for Mr. Inder, helping him make timely business decisions with the help of real-time reports. "The reports module is the best module. I am able to see the overview of the business in a single report. Additionally, I am able to generate Profit&Loss statements at any given moment and with reporting tags, I can create custom reports and can easily share it with my partners on the go," said Mr. Inder.
By keeping tabs on the business performance in real time, Mr. Inder and his partners are able to make the right decisions and even forecast business revenue and performance.
As the business grew, Mr. Inder remained very conscious about not drowning in manual work. To make sure he utilizes his time in the most productive manner, he looked for opportunities where he could automate most of the manual process.
With connected banking in Zoho Books, he was able to reduce the time spent on two of their most time-consuming tasks: bank reconciliation and salary disbursement. "Zoho Books-ICICI Bank integration eases my workload. The automatic bank reconciliation and direct deposit of salaries saves a lot of my productive hours," said Mr.Inder.
With the new GST regime changing the business landscape, staying compliant is paramount. Using Zoho Books, Mr. Inder can now manage his business tax filing without much effort. "All the taxes are automatically computed by Zoho Books and I can just generate the report and directly push the returns to GSTN portal," he said.
As the team and business grew, the auditing process needed to be more vigilant. "We brought in our accountant to audit our books. Zoho Books being a cloud solution, we were able to add him as an user and he could just login remotely and audit our books and inform us on the status," Mr. Inder said.
Apart from managing his bookkeeping, Mr. Inder uses Zoho Payroll to handle his employees payroll processing. "Zoho Payroll is intuitive. I found it simple and easy to use. The direct deposit feature is the one that has been beneficial for me," Mr. Inder said. With Zoho CRM in its initial implementation stage, he is looking forward to integrating Zoho Books and Zoho CRM soon to unify his back office and front office seamlessly.
Mr. Inder is now a self-proclaimed ardent supporter of Zoho Books. "Zoho Books meets all my expectations. I am comfortable with the product interface and it has all the essential features that I require to run my business seamlessly. Features like connected banking are beneficial for growing businesses such as ours and I am happy with Zoho Books," he said. By automating most manual work, Mr. Inder now looks to utilize his time efficiently and is focusing on the next phase of his growing business.