" Zoho Invoice is intuitive and the UI & UX (User Interface and User Experience, respectively) makes invoicing easy for anyone without a finance background. Unlike tools like Tally where you have to feed a lot of information manually, Zoho Invoice has reduced invoicing and payment collection to just a click "

The Company

Prolore Digital is a digital marketing agency based in Bengaluru, India, delivering online marketing services for both local and global businesses. Harsha Jadhav, the founder of Prolore, anticipated the need and scope of digital marketing in India and started the business in 2011. At that time, Prolore was a team of six working in a home office in Bengaluru, aspiring to carve its niche in the digital marketing space. Fast forward 10 years, and it now offers a variety of digital marketing services including SEO, PPC campaigns, content writing, and social media marketing.

Khadija Shabbir is the CEO & Director at Prolore Digital, and has been spearheading Prolore’s major projects for over 8 years. Her small team of energetic minds has worked with brands like Wakefit and Zoomcar, helping them harness the power of digital marketing even while that industry was just getting started in India. They’ve been catching trends early on for a long time—the Prolore team has embraced remote work culture since 2012, way before it became the norm!

The challenge

Since its inception, Prolore has kept customer satisfaction at its core. Keeping its prices affordable without compromising the quality means Prolore had to keep its own overhead low. When Shabbir looked for an invoicing app for Prolore 11 years ago, she wanted a mature invoicing solution that could scale with their growth but was also cost-effective.

Another large challenge came in the form of tax laws in India. It has been four years since the rollout of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in India and businesses now have a clear understanding on how it works. But the transition to GST was a fundamental shift in how businesses levy taxes on the items, and Shabbir remembers their experience vividly. _{“I am not from an accounting or finance background. The transition of GST in 2017 meant we needed to know the different tax slabs available, the HSN and SAC code for our services, which tax rate should be applied to which item, and so on. It was a lot to consume,”} she said.

The solution

After a thorough evaluation, Shabbir chose Zoho Invoice because it ticked all the boxes. She particularly liked it for being a one-stop shop for all needs, just like their business._{“Zoho Invoice is our single source of truth for all our financial transactions. Whether it’s estimates, invoices, payments, or details of any customer we’ve dealt with since 2011—it’s just there for us anytime we need it,”} said Shabbir.

Shabbir is also a tech-savvy person by nature, and she has a keen eye for user experience and design in any app she uses. That’s one of the reasons she loves Zoho Invoice._{“Zoho Invoice is intuitive and the UI & UX (User Interface and User Experience, respectively) makes invoicing easy for anyone without a finance background. Unlike tools like Tally where you have to feed a lot of information manually, Zoho Invoice has reduced invoicing and payment collection to just a click,”} she said.

When GST rolled out in India, there was concern about how well their invoicing operations would handle the change. Luckily, Zoho Invoice takes care of these calculations automatically. _{“Zoho Invoice made it dead simple for us. Even now, we rest assured that any amendments in the GST law will be incorporated in Zoho Invoice,”} she said.

Benefits and ROI

Shabbir creates the digital marketing strategies for Prolore Digital. Whether it’s SEO or PPC campaigns, growth hacking, or anything marketing, she’s a natural. But she also takes care of their invoicing and payment collection, even without a finance or accounting background. _{“If we make any mistakes while creating an invoice, say, associate the wrong tax rate, Zoho Invoice shows a clear error message and explains what’s wrong and how to correct it. If not for Zoho Invoice, I’ll always have to be nervous if I’ve entered everything right,”} she said.

After an initial discussion with the customer, Shabbir or one of her team members quickly creates an estimate in Zoho Invoice, attaching any relevant documents. If the customer wants to negotiate the amount or needs additional services, Shabbir makes the edits on the estimate itself so that when the customer accepts the estimate, it’s exactly what they’ve agreed to and can be converted to an invoice automatically. In addition to invoicing, the Prolore team also uses Zoho Invoice for other stages of the quote-to-cash process, including requesting retainer payments, recording expenses, and sending payment reminders. _{“Besides Zoho Invoice, we don’t use any other tools for accounting or keeping tracking outstanding payments. We have our accountant as a user in our Zoho Invoice organization so that he can easily access the reports and file our GST returns without any hassle,”} Shabbir said.

Customer support and reliability have always been the cornerstones of Zoho Invoice, and Shabbir agrees: _{“Zoho Invoice has never let us down. Period. We love the software and I’d give a ¹⁰⁄10 to the customer support. I’d absolutely recommend it for any marketing agency looking for an invoicing solution.”}

Looking forward

Over the years, Prolore Digital has hired more people and is growing rapidly as a company. As they scale up, they are happy that they don’t have to search for another vendor to manage their different business functions. _{“We started our Zoho journey with Zoho Invoice. It has been over a decade and we have never looked back since. Now, as we scale up as an organization, we are looking to adopt more Zoho solutions, starting with Zoho People for HR operations,”} Shabbir said.