A big, fat “Yes.” As a proud Zoho Partner, United Parts of Chicago exclusively runs on Zoho. We follow the principle of “walking the talk.” While we’re not required to rely solely on Zoho, nor are we bound by any agreements to avoid other software, we choose this path for a reason.

By fully leveraging Zoho, we engage in the same experience as our customers, which allows us to effectively communicate our needs, report any bugs, and share customer feedback directly with the Zoho development teams. If you’re walking your customers’ shoes daily, you automatically provide better service for your clientele.

There are a few specific areas where Zoho doesn’t provide solutions; in such cases, we turn to other excellent software options.

In 2014, we didn’t place much importance on branding. Our brand name was the result of a casual brainstorming session, aiming to convey unity and collaboration (“United”), local identity (Deerfield being a northern suburb of Chicago, making us “somewhere in Chicago” for those outside the Greater Chicago area), and a nod to the various parts of Chicagoland, not mechanical parts. We’ve stuck with it ever since and like it the way it is.

Successful Zoho implementation involves several key factors:

• engaging in a thorough discovery phase to align expectations
• understanding the complexity of business processes
• working with experienced Zoho consultants
• signing appropriate contracts
• clearly defining your goals and objectives
• considering the Agile methodology to remain adaptable throughout the process.
• Viewing IT work as a critical investment rather than a low-cost option

“It depends.” If you are an employer and want to hire an in-house employee to oversee your Zoho platform, combining the administration duties, support, and light or even heavy customization, aim somewhere between $60,000-$120,000/month (we’re talking about the U.S. job market as it is in 2024). We do not recommend using these numbers as a baseline in the client-provider relationship model because using the hourly rate in software implementation projects isn’t the best practice (here’s why).

At United Parts of Chicago, we currently (December 2024) use the fixed-cost approach for the implementation projects and a $150/hour rate for the ad hoc consulting and training sessions.

Zoho One provides enterprise-level versions without plan limitations for services and applications. Various add-ons can be purchased separately if needed.

Zoho One offers “Enterprise Level” applications.

Zoho One does not cover all Zoho applications. Here is a partial list of exclusions:

• Zoho Workerly
• Zoho Catalyst
• Zoho Classes
• Zoho Voice
• RouteIQ
• Zoho ZeptoMail

Additionally, it does not include: applications from ManageEngine, Site24x7, Qntrl, and TrainerCentral brands, paid Zoho Marketplace extensions (the extensions can be bought separately and integrated with Zoho One applications).

Zoho itself calls it the operating system for business, and that definition is correct. On a technical side, Zoho One is a cloud subscription that covers most Zoho applications, such as Zoho CRM, Zoho Books, Zoho Inventory, and many others, in a single subscription with centralized user and license management. All the Zoho applications included in Zoho One are provided with the Enterprise functionality tier. You can get a free Zoho One trial or ask us to run a demo for you.

Zoho One provides over 40 sophisticated business applications designed to boost sales, manage marketing, handle accounting, facilitate communication with teams and clients, and more. The umbrella subscription encompasses web-based, mobile, and desktop application versions, along with browser extensions and additional features. To explore all the included apps, check out Zoho One Applications page. You can open a trial Zoho One account right now, and we’ll take care of the rest.

A Zoho Partner is a business or individual that collaborates with Zoho to offer its products and services to customers. There are three tiers for the Zoho Consulting Partner: Authorized, Advanced, and Premium. We (United Parts of Chicago, LLC) is an Advanced Partner. As of 2024, we’re the only Partner in this tier in Illinois among nine fellow Partners.

Yes. Our team can help migrate your separate apps to Zoho One and no data will be lost. Please contact us for assistance.

Yes, exporting your data from Zoho One is straightforward. Each application within Zoho One supports exporting data into standard formats. This feature ensures you can easily manage and transfer your business data when needed.

Deploying more than 40 apps at once can be overwhelming. Moreover, as a Zoho Partner, we’ve never seen a business use all the Zoho One apps.

Our advice is to deploy Zoho One gradually, focusing on the most critical business processes. Start with the apps you need immediately, and once they’re running smoothly, move on to the next phase. Ask us if you need any help with Zoho One implementation.

Yes. If an application has an API (Application Program Interface), it can be integrated with any Zoho application that also has an API. Moreover, we have Zoho Flow, an integration platform that has connectors to many apps out of the box.

Zoho One boasts more integrations than any other software suite in the market. Although not all the integrations are available immediately, many apps are already connected, and we’re continuously adding more. Generally, manual integration isn’t necessary; however, some companies might need to activate certain integrations manually. If you need a specific integration, please contact us at any time. We’re keen to understand your needs and prioritize our integration efforts accordingly.

The majority of Zoho One applications are available in over 10 languages, including, but not limited to, English, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish. However, specific availability can vary by application, so it’s best to check each app’s language support details.

Yes, you can invite external users to your organization in Zoho Cliq by adding them as external collaborators. This allows them to participate in specific chats or channels without being a part of your internal organization. To enable this, you’ll need to adjust the external collaboration settings in your Zoho Cliq admin panel.

Yes, you can create a team channel with multiple teams in Zoho Cliq. Multi-team channels facilitate communication and collaboration across different teams within the organization. If you belong to multiple teams, you can select which teams to include when creating the channel. These channels can support up to four teams.

Prepare a CSV file with Name, Email, and Team details. In the Admin Panel, go to Users & Profiles > Teams and click Import Teams. Upload the file, resolve any invalid entries, and click Proceed to complete the import. Taz will notify you once it’s done.

You sure can. You’re welcome to download Zoho Cliq app for Windows directly from Zoho or from the Microsoft store. Enterprise IT admins who want to deploy Zoho Cliq for multiple Windows machines in the organization can use the MSI installers.

Being an Advanced Zoho Partner, we have plenty of experience with Zoho Inventory; one of our case studies is a large (over 10,000 products in stock) wholesale business in Pennsylvania. Please consider the list below as a reference only; we can do more, if needed (let’s talk).

As for today (December, 2024) Zoho Inventory supports the following features:

Stock Management

• Creating and tracking the inventory (stock flow) of Items and Item Groups.
• Grouping items together.
• Composite Items – Kitting/Bundling of items.
• Serial Number Tracking – for tracking individual units of an item.
• Batch Tracking – to track items based on batch numbers and expiry date.
• Item prices customization by creating price lists and assigning them to customers, sales orders and invoices.
• FIFO cost lot tracking, stock reports, sales, purchase and activity logs.
• Bin location management

Customer and vendor management

• Recording customer and vendor information for communication, monitoring and transaction.
• Custom email templates
• Smart interactive dashboard for a 30,000 ft view of your business

Order Management

• Associate your taxes and tax groups to items and transactions.
• Create sales orders, raise invoices, get paid instantly by integrating to a payment gateway, print package slips and generate shipment labels.
• Manage reorders, create purchase orders, record deliveries to your warehouse using purchase receives and raise bills to keep abreast of vendor payments.

Integrations

• Integrate with popular e-commerce platforms and monitor your stock flow across multiple sales channels.
• Establish an integration with reliable shipping carriers to take care of your shipments from within the app. We support more than 30 carriers at the moment.
• Secure your money by integrating with time tested online payment gateways.
• Seamlessly integrate with our accounting platform – Zoho Books.
• Bring in your network of customers and suppliers from Zoho CRM.
• Track Shipments and be notified on the whereabouts of your shipment.

Customization

• Tailor your organization in Zoho Inventory by configuring your preferences.
• Add custom fields to your orders, invoices, bills and payment receipts.

TL;DR: Not yet, but Zoho is working on it. Long answer: currently, Zoho is gathering information, studying different scenarios, and analyzing frequent and related workflows to incorporate the manufacturing processes into Zoho Inventory. So, if you wish to contribute, please drop us a line about your business manufacturing requirements or directly to Zoho at support@zohoinventory.com.

As a workaround, you can utilize the bundling function within the composite items feature to represent basic assemblies that do not require a BOM (Bbill of Materials). With bundling, you can create kits comprised of the raw materials and labor cost involved in producing the finished goods.

Absolutely, it’s not as straightforward as it may seem. There are numerous WordPress plugins and extensions available in the Zoho Marketplace that can facilitate such integration. For instance:

• WooZo Inventory plug-in by RoadMap Studios
• Zoho Books & Inventory Integration plugin by WooCommerce/WPSwings

However, most of them are written with the paradigm that your WooCommerce performs the sales transactions and the customers pay for your goods through WooCommerce’s integrated payment gateways. This is all good for B2C but rarely works for B2B. Most wholesale businesses, omnichannel distributors, and other more or less complex businesses require custom Zoho Inventory / WooCommerce integration. Regardless of your business model, using these plugins requires a good understanding of the data structure on both ends, Zoho Inventory and WooCommerce.

As a Zoho Advanced Partner, we serve one of the biggest Zoho Inventory platform customers, and they work solely on our custom Zoho Inventory / WooCommerce integration. We can help your business, too.