Aspara Technologies
Automation for Zoho finance

Your apps and Zoho Books, working as one.

Your billing software, bank, marketplaces, spreadsheets and older systems, connected to Zoho Books, Inventory and Expense. The repetitive work between them gets done for you, and your team approves it in a few clicks.

  • Nothing posts on its ownYour team approves every entry
  • Running costs from about ₹50 a monthPaid to the providers. Building it is quoted separately.
  • Built on ZohoMost work on a paid Zoho Books plan
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  • Billing / POS software
  • Bank statements
  • Amazon, Flipkart
  • Excel sheets
  • Older in-house apps
Zoho BooksInventory · Expense · CRM
  • Drafts to approve
  • Weekly checks
  • Monthly summary
One set of numbers, kept up to date without retyping.
A sample month

What this looks like at a mid-size distributor

A made-up business, typical of the clients we work with. Every automation below is something we can set up; the numbers are illustrations.
Business
Electrical goods distributor, Coimbatore
Turnover
About ₹12 crore a year
Accounts team
2 staff and an outside CA
Volumes a month
1,000 bank lines · 60 customer POs · 140 purchase bills
  1. Every night

    About 40 new bank lines get a suggested party and account. 34 are accepted as they are; 6 need a look. Bank lines ↓

  2. Day 3

    Two customer POs arrive by email and become draft sales orders in minutes. One price differs from the price list and is flagged. POs ↓

  3. Every Monday

    A short note to the owner and CA: 3 items to fix, including ₹1.2 lakh sitting in suspense. Weekly check ↓

  4. Day 12

    GSTR-2B compared with the purchase register: ₹38,200 of input credit at risk across 3 vendors, with emails drafted to each. GSTR-2B ↓

  5. Day 15

    22 overdue invoices, each with a reminder drafted to suit the customer. The team sends 18 and holds 4. Collections ↓

  6. Day 5, next month

    A one-page summary in plain words: sales up 6%, margin down 1.4 points because freight went up. Summary ↓

from ₹50
a month in running costs (₹50–250, see below)
~20 hours
of typing and checking saved
Day 5
monthly numbers, instead of day 15

Illustration only, not a client result. The ₹50–250 is the reading service alone, depending on the option chosen, allowing for retries and longer documents. Zoho Catalyst is ₹0 here only because this business stays inside the free monthly allowance. Not included: the Zoho Books plan you already pay for, and our charges for building and supporting the automations. What you pay for ↓

Where to start

Three kinds of automation

Many businesses start with the first kind. It needs no new software and costs nothing to run.
  • 01

    Quick wins inside Zoho Books

    Rules, approvals, reminders and checks that Zoho Books can already do, set up properly for how you work.

    Running cost: ₹0

  • 02

    Checks and drafts done for you

    A small program reads documents, matches records and prepares drafts in Zoho for your team to approve.

    Running cost: usually tens to hundreds of rupees a month

  • 03

    Your other apps, connected

    Billing software, marketplaces and older systems kept in step with Zoho Books, so nobody re-enters the same sale twice.

    Running cost: ₹0 within Catalyst's free allowance; from about ₹450 a month above it

Examples

Work we can take off your team's plate

Sample data throughout. Names, numbers and GSTINs are made up.

01 · Inside Zoho Books

Rules that stop mistakes before they're saved

Zoho Books can check entries as they're made and route bigger ones for approval. Most businesses never switch this on.

  • Businesses
  • CA firms

What someone tries to save

Invoice INV-2291Sakthi Electricals
GSTINblank
Line 2, 3HSN missing
Bill B-1187₹68,400 · Ganesh Cables
CustomerVel Traders · ₹4.1L due, limit ₹3L

What Zoho Books does

INV-2291BlockedAdd GSTIN and HSN before saving
B-1187Sent for approvalto owner, above ₹50,000
Vel TradersWarningover credit limit by ₹1.1L
RemindersScheduled3, 10 and 20 days after due

What gets checked

  • GSTIN and HSN present
  • Approval limits by amount
  • Customer credit limits

What to track

  • Entries corrected after filing
  • Days to collect

Running cost

₹0

Uses Zoho Books' own workflow rules. Some need a higher plan.

02 · Checks and drafts

Bank lines with a suggested party and account

UPI and NEFT narrations are hard to read. Each night, unmatched lines get a suggestion based on how you booked similar ones before.

  • Businesses
  • CA firms

Bank feed, unmatched

UPI/412907/SRI MURUGAN TRA/OKSBI −18,400
NEFT/HDFC/N2210/KRISHNA LOGIS −6,250
UPI/88123/ZOMATO/PAYTM −1,140
IMPS/P2A/VEL TRADERS +1,20,000

Suggested in Zoho Books

Sri Murugan TradersPays bill B-1172Bill match
Krishna LogisticsFreight inwardSeen before
Staff welfare?Food orderCheck
Vel TradersAgainst INV-2240, 2251Invoice match

What gets checked

  • Open bills and invoices for the amount
  • How this party was booked before
  • Anything unusual is left for review

What to track

  • Unmatched lines at month end
  • Days to finish bank reconciliation

Running cost a month

LinesStandard · Advanced
200under ₹6 · about ₹15
1,000₹3–30 · about ₹75
5,000₹15–150 · about ₹370

03 · Checks and drafts

GSTR-2B against your purchase register

Upload the month's 2B file. Every mismatch comes back with a reason and the credit at risk, and an email to the vendor is ready to send.

  • Businesses
  • CA firms

Inputs

GSTR-2B · September · 132 invoices
Zoho Books · purchase bills · 140
Period · 01-09 to 30-09

Mismatch report

VendorReasonITC
Ganesh CablesNot filed by vendor₹21,600
Arun SwitchgearAmount differs by ₹4,000₹720
Lakshmi AgenciesWrong GSTIN on bill₹15,880
Matched129

What gets checked

  • GSTIN, invoice number, date, amount
  • Bills booked in the wrong month
  • Vendors filing late again and again

What to track

  • Input credit at risk, in rupees
  • Hours spent on reconciliation

Running cost a month

MismatchesStandard · Advanced
10under ₹3 · about ₹7
50₹1–15 · about ₹35
200₹5–50 · about ₹130

04 · Checks and drafts

Customer purchase orders into draft sales orders

A customer emails a PO as a PDF or Excel file. It becomes a draft sales order with your item names and prices. Anything that doesn't match is flagged.

  • Businesses

PO from customer (their words)

LED panel 2x2 36W40 × 1,150
MCB 32A DP Legrand25 × 610
Wire 2.5 sqmm red 90m12 × 2,240

Draft sales order SO-0418

LP-36W-2240 × 1,180PO says 1,150
MCB-LG-32DP25 × 610OK
WR-25-RD-9012 × 2,240OK

What gets checked

  • Their item name to your item code
  • Price against the price list
  • Stock available for each line

What to track

  • Time from PO received to order entered
  • Order entry errors

Running cost a month

POsStandard · Advanced
50₹3–25 · about ₹65
300₹15–150 · about ₹390
1,500₹80–770 · about ₹1,950

05 · Checks and drafts

A weekly health check of your books

Every Monday, the owner and the CA get a short note on what needs fixing, the same checks as our Zoho Books health check, run every week.

  • Businesses
  • CA firms

Checked in Zoho Books

Suspense and uncategorised accounts
Negative stock · unapplied payments
Parties without GSTIN · entries in locked months
Duplicate bills · unusual amounts

Monday note

Week of 13 Oct: 3 things to fix. 1. ₹1.2 lakh in Suspense since 2 Oct (4 entries). 2. Negative stock: MCB-LG-32DP at −15. 3. Payment of ₹46,000 from Vel Traders not applied to any invoice.

Last week: 5 · fixed: 4

What gets checked

  • About 20 checks across ledgers, stock and GST
  • Thresholds set with you

What to track

  • Open issues, week to week
  • Days to fix each one

Running cost a month

under ₹8

Four runs a month, either option.

06 · Checks and drafts

Vendor statements checked against your ledger

A vendor sends their statement as a PDF. It's compared line by line with their ledger in Zoho Books, and only the differences come back.

  • Businesses
  • CA firms

Vendor's statement

Ganesh Cables · Apr–Sep · 38 lines
Closing balance as per vendor: ₹3,84,200

Differences

Bill GC/1294 · ₹42,100Not in your books
Payment 18-Aug · ₹60,000Not in vendor's
Debit note DN-07 · ₹3,400Vendor hasn't applied
Your balance₹2,78,700 · gap ₹1,05,500 explained

What gets checked

  • Bills, payments, debit and credit notes
  • Dates and amounts, with tolerance

What to track

  • Hours per vendor reconciliation
  • Vendors with open differences

Running cost a month

StatementsStandard · Advanced
10under ₹6 · about ₹15
50₹3–30 · about ₹75
200₹15–120 · about ₹300

07 · Checks and drafts

Payment reminders that read like a person wrote them

Each overdue invoice gets a reminder drafted to suit the customer: gentle for a regular payer, firmer for a repeat delay. Your team approves before anything is sent.

  • Businesses

From Zoho Books

Vel TradersINV-2198 · ₹84,00041 days late
HistoryUsually pays in 50 days; promised 10 Oct

Draft for approval · WhatsApp

Hello Mr. Velmurugan, a reminder about invoice INV-2198 for ₹84,000, due on 4 September. You mentioned payment by 10 October; could you let us know the new date? The invoice copy is attached. Thank you.

What gets checked

  • Payments received since the last reminder
  • Promises made and missed

What to track

  • Days sales outstanding (DSO)
  • Amount overdue over 60 days

Running cost a month

RemindersStandard · Advanced
50under ₹9 · about ₹20
300₹5–50 · about ₹130
1,500₹25–260 · about ₹650

08 · Checks and drafts

Your monthly numbers, explained in plain words

Once the month is closed, the owner gets one page: what changed and why, in rupees, not a stack of reports.

  • Businesses
  • CA firms

From Zoho Books

P&L September vs August
Balance sheet, receivables ageing
Sales by customer and item group

September summary

Sales ₹1.06 crore, up 6%. Gross margin 17.2%, down 1.4 points, mainly freight inward up ₹1.4 lakh after the switch to Krishna Logistics. Receivables over 60 days rose to ₹9.8 lakh; Vel Traders is ₹4.1 lakh of that. Cash at month end ₹22 lakh.

What gets checked

  • Changes over 5% are explained
  • Every figure ties back to Zoho Books

What to track

  • Days to deliver the month's numbers

Running cost a month

under ₹4

One run a month, either option.

Connecting your other apps
Businesses

Billing or POS software into Zoho Books

Each night, the day's sales, payment modes and GST from your billing software are posted to Zoho Books as one draft entry per store.

Store 2 · 14 Oct · 186 bills · ₹3,42,880
Cash 1,02,400 · UPI 1,88,300 · Card 52,180
→ Draft sales summary, GST split by rate

Running cost: ₹0 at small volumes, inside Catalyst's free allowance

Businesses

Marketplace payouts split properly

Each Amazon or Flipkart settlement is broken into sales, fees, returns, TCS and TDS, so your margin per channel is real.

Settlement 08-Oct · paid ₹1,41,260
Sales 1,92,400 · fees −31,870 · returns −14,900
TCS −1,630 · TDS −190 · ads −2,550

Running cost: ₹0 at small volumes, inside Catalyst's free allowance

Businesses

Reorder alerts from real consumption

From the last 90 days of sales and each supplier's usual lead time in Zoho Inventory: what to order this week.

SW-6A-1W modular switch · 9 days of stock · lead time 12 days
→ Order 400 now from the switch supplier

Running cost: ₹0 at small volumes, inside Catalyst's free allowance

Businesses

Cash for the next six weeks

Bank balance, money due in and bills due out, by week, so a shortfall shows up before it arrives.

Week 3 · in ₹14.2L · out ₹19.8L · short ₹5.6L
Biggest outflow: GST + 2 supplier bills on the 20th

Running cost: ₹0 at small volumes, inside Catalyst's free allowance

Also built to order

  • Margin per project or job
  • Invoices raised when work is marked complete
  • Old Tally years searchable next to Zoho Books
  • Contract renewal reminders
How it runs

Simple parts, and your team stays in charge

  1. Something happensA file arrives, a time of day, or an entry is saved
  2. A small programCollects the data and runs the checks
  3. Reading, if neededA document or narration is read and understood
  4. Draft in ZohoEntry, order, email or note
  5. Your team approvesAnd every change is logged

  • Inside Zoho Books

    Workflow rules, approvals and small custom functions inside Books itself.

    Best for: checks and reminders

  • Zoho Flow

    Ready-made connections between Zoho and common apps. Separate Zoho product with its own plans.

    Best for: simple "when this, do that"

  • Zoho Catalyst

    Zoho's platform for running custom programs. Where we build anything that needs real logic.

    Best for: reading, matching, syncing

Why we build on Zoho Catalyst

It sits next to your Zoho apps

Catalyst is Zoho's own platform for running custom programs. We write the program; Catalyst runs it on a schedule or when something happens, and keeps a small record of what was done. As an Official Zoho Partner, it's where we build first.

  • Same ecosystem. Your data and logins stay with Zoho, and connecting to Books, Inventory, CRM and WorkDrive is simpler.
  • Free to start, clear when you pay. A free allowance every month. Above it, pay for what you use, with a minimum of about ₹450 a month per project. Details below.
  • Runs on its own. Nightly jobs, triggers when a file arrives, and a log of each run.
  • Not locked in. The program is yours. It can move to another cloud if you ever need it to.
Being clear about cost

What you pay for, and to whom

An automation has two kinds of cost: a one-time cost to build it, and a monthly cost to run it. The small numbers on this page are running costs only.
CostPaid toHow it’s chargedTypical amount
Building and setting it upAsparaOne-time, quoted after we understand the workDepends on the size of the requirement. A single Zoho Books rule is a small job; connecting an older system is a project.
Support and changesAsparaMonthly or per change, can be part of AMCQuoted with the build
Reading service (when documents or narrations need reading)The provider you choose: Anthropic (Claude), Google (Gemini) or OpenAIPay per use, billed to your cardFrom about ₹50 a month at small volumes; ₹1,000–2,000+ for heavy document reading. Use the estimator below.
Zoho Catalyst (where the program runs)ZohoFree allowance, then pay as you go or a monthly plan₹0 to a few thousand a month. See the table below.
Your Zoho plansZohoYour existing subscriptionNot counted here. Some rules need Professional or above; Zoho Flow, if used, has its own plan.

Zoho Catalyst: when it's free, and when you start paying

Catalyst gives every account a free allowance that renews monthly. Above it, there are two ways to pay. Zoho prices Catalyst in US dollars; rupee figures are approximate at $1 = ₹88.

  • FREE

    Inside the free allowance

    Each month, per Catalyst account: 25,000 GB-seconds of program time, 5,000 new database records, 2 GB of database storage, 1,000 file uploads, 5 GB of file storage, 100 emails.

    Fits: one business with a few nightly jobs and up to a few thousand records a month, like the sample distributor above.

    ₹0 a month

  • PAY AS YOU GO

    Above the allowance

    You pay only for the part used beyond the allowance, at small unit rates. Once a project goes over, Zoho charges a minimum of $5 a month for it.

    Fits: higher volumes, such as 10,000+ bank lines or several stores syncing sales every night.

    From about ₹450 a month per project

  • MONTHLY PLAN

    Subscription

    A fixed monthly amount that's used up against your usage, with $5 extra included. Plans run from Basic ($25) and Standard ($50) up to Enterprise. Unused amounts don't carry forward.

    Fits: many automations in one account, or a CA firm running checks for many clients.

    From about ₹2,200 a month

One cost to watch: a screen that stays switched on all the time, such as a separate approval web page, uses Catalyst's always-on hosting (AppSail). Even a small one is about ₹2,000–2,500 a month beyond the free allowance. We usually avoid it by doing approvals inside Zoho Books itself.

Reading service: indicative provider prices

Providers charge by the amount of text read and written, counted in "tokens" (roughly ¾ of a word). A one-page bill or PO is about 3,000 tokens to read and 800 to write back. A bank line is about 150 and 50.

Provider and modelTierRead, per million tokensWrite, per million tokensOne-page document1,000 documents1,000 bank lines
Claude Haiku 5.5 · AnthropicStandard$0.10 · ₹9$0.50 · ₹44₹0.06₹60₹4
Claude Sonnet 5.5 · AnthropicAdvanced$2 · ₹176$10 · ₹880₹1.23₹1,250₹70
Claude Opus 5.5 · AnthropicAdvanced+$4 · ₹352$20 · ₹1,760₹2.46₹2,450₹140
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite · GoogleStandard$0.10 · ₹9$0.40 · ₹35₹0.05₹55₹3
Gemini 3.1 Pro · GoogleAdvanced$2 · ₹176$12 · ₹1,056₹1.37₹1,350₹80
GPT-5.4 nano · OpenAIStandard$0.20 · ₹18$1.25 · ₹110₹0.14₹140₹8
GPT-5.4 mini · OpenAIStandard$0.75 · ₹66$4.50 · ₹396₹0.51₹510₹30

Indicative list prices at the time of writing; providers change prices often, so actual rates may vary. List prices are in US dollars, before GST. Claude prices are from Anthropic's published rates; Google and OpenAI prices are from their published rates and will be re-checked when we quote. Scanned or multi-page documents, retries and longer instructions can raise the cost several times over, which is why the estimator shows ranges.

Running costs

Estimate the reading service

The part of the running cost that grows with volume. Pick an example and a volume. Add Zoho Catalyst from the table above, plus our build and support charges.

1,000 bank lines

About 150 words of text in and 50 out per line; lines sent in batches.

Standard: ₹3–30. Advanced: about ₹75.

Zoho's own tools

Autoscan, bank rules, Zia

Included

In your Zoho plan, with monthly limits. Good first step.

Standard

Claude Haiku · Gemini Flash-Lite · OpenAI nano, mini

₹3–30

Fast and cheap. Enough for most bank lines, reminders and summaries.

Advanced

Claude Sonnet · Gemini Pro

about ₹75

For messy scans and unusual formats. Costs more, reads better.

No AI, rules only

Fixed rules we write with you

₹0

Works for clean data. More lines left for your team.

Plus Zoho Catalyst: ₹0 inside the free allowance, from about ₹450 a month above it.Indicative prices, may vary · $1 ≈ ₹88

Ballpark only. These are rough, order-of-magnitude estimates. Actual cost depends on document size and quality, the provider and model, their prices on the day, and the exchange rate. These figures are running costs only, not the price of building anything. Building, setting up and supporting an automation is quoted separately, based on the size of the requirement.

How we work
  • Nothing posts without your team's approval
  • We ask before using AI on your data
  • Every change is logged
  • Your program and data stay yours
Questions

Before you ask

Do I need to change my Zoho plan?

Usually not. Rules inside Books need a paid plan, and a few need Professional or above. We tell you before we start if anything needs an upgrade.

Can this work with my old billing software?

If it can export a file or has an API, almost always yes. We have connected older in-house systems to Zoho Books in both directions.

What if it reads something wrongly?

Nothing posts on its own. Your team sees every draft first, and anything unclear is marked for a closer look.

Who pays the running cost?

The Catalyst and reading-service accounts are in your name, so you pay Zoho and the provider directly, by card. We set them up for you and show you where to see the bill.

Can my CA see it?

Yes. Notes and reports can go to your CA, and they keep their usual access to Zoho Books.

Where does my data go?

It stays in Zoho. When a document needs reading, only that document is sent to the provider you choose, and it's handled under India's data protection rules. We can limit it to Zoho's own tools if you prefer.

Tell us the task your team repeats every week

We'll tell you whether it can be automated, which kind it is, and roughly what it would cost to run.

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