Inventory and orders
Zoho Inventory: the complete independent guide
Zoho Inventory tracks what you have in stock, what you have sold and what you need to reorder, across warehouses and sales channels. This guide explains what it does, how its plans are counted, how to set it up and how to keep the stock on screen equal to the stock on the shelf.
- Best for
- Wholesalers, distributors and online sellers with one to a few warehouses
- Plans
- Free, Standard, Premium, Plus, Enterprise. Names vary by country
- Billing
- Per organization, by orders, users and warehouses
- Free plan
- Yes, for a small number of orders per month
- Works with
- Zoho Books, Zoho CRM, online stores, marketplaces and shipping carriers
What it is
Zoho Inventory manages the life of a product from purchase to delivery. You record items with their stock, buy them through purchase orders, sell them through sales orders, then pick, pack and ship. At each step the stock figure changes by itself.
It connects the places where you sell. Orders from an online store or a marketplace arrive in the same list as orders taken by your sales team, and the stock shown on each channel is updated from one figure, which avoids selling what you no longer have.
It shares its foundations with Zoho Books: the same items, customers and suppliers. Used together, an order shipped in Inventory becomes an invoice and a cost of goods sold in Books without a second entry. The higher plans of Zoho Books include much of Inventory, which is worth knowing before buying both.
Who it fits
A good fit when
- You buy and resell products and your stock lives in a spreadsheet that is always slightly wrong.
- You sell on several channels and oversell because stock is not shared.
- You have more than one warehouse or storage location.
- You need serial numbers, batches or expiry dates on what you sell.
Look elsewhere when
- You manufacture with multi-level bills of materials, routings and production scheduling. Zoho Inventory handles simple assemblies, not a production floor.
- You run a large warehouse that needs advanced bin management and wave picking.
- You sell services only. Zoho Books or Invoice is enough.
What it does well
- Items, variants and bundles
- Items with variants such as size and colour, price lists, and composite items that assemble or bundle several components into one sellable product.
- Sales orders to shipment
- Confirm the order, generate the picklist, pack, print the label through a connected carrier and send the tracking number to the customer.
- Purchasing and reordering
- Reorder points warn you before a stockout, purchase orders go to suppliers, and received quantities update stock and landed cost.
- Warehouses and transfers
- Stock by warehouse, transfer orders between locations and adjustments after a count.
- Serial, batch and barcode
- Track units by serial number or batch with expiry dates, and scan barcodes to receive, pick and count.
- Sales channels
- Connect online stores and marketplaces so that orders flow in and stock levels flow out automatically.
Editions and pricing explained
Zoho Inventory is priced per organization. Plans differ by the number of orders per month, users and warehouses, and by advanced features. Check Zoho's price list for the current limits in your country.
| Edition | Made for | What it adds |
|---|---|---|
| Free | A very small seller starting out | A small number of orders per month, one user, one location and the basic order cycle. |
| Standard | Small sellers with steady volume | More orders and users, a second location, sales channel connections and shipping integrations. |
| Premium | Growing distributors | Serial and batch tracking, customization and automation, and more orders, users and locations. |
| Plus | Growing distributors | Higher limits on orders, users and locations. |
| Enterprise | High-volume operations | The highest limits, plus Zoho Analytics for advanced reporting. |
Count your orders in your busiest month, not your average month, and compare with what the higher plans of Zoho Books already include. Zoho Inventory is also part of Zoho One.
How to set it up properly
Clean the item list
One item per thing you stock, with a unique code (SKU), a unit of measure and a clear name. Duplicated or vague items are the root of most stock errors.
Count before you start
Do a physical count and enter opening stock and cost per item and per warehouse on your start date. Starting from a spreadsheet figure imports its errors.
Decide how Books and Inventory share work
Items, customers and suppliers are common. Decide who creates what and where invoices are raised, then connect the two.
Connect channels one at a time
Map each online product to the right item before turning on stock sync. Test with a few products, since a wrong mapping can publish a wrong stock level instantly.
Make every movement go through the system
Receipts, shipments, transfers, returns and write-offs are all recorded when they happen. Schedule cycle counts to catch drift early.
Rather have a specialist do it? Talk to TECHMA
Common problems and how to fix them
Stock on screen does not match the shelf
Movements made without a record: samples, breakage, returns put back on the shelf. Give each case a transaction, and count a few items every week rather than everything once a year.
Overselling on a marketplace
Sync delays or a wrong product mapping. Check the mapping, keep a safety stock on fast sellers and avoid editing stock directly in the store.
Margins look wrong
Costs entered without freight and duties, or bills not matched to receipts. Record landed costs and bill every receipt.
You hit the monthly order limit
Plans cap orders per month. Watch the count as your season approaches and upgrade before the peak, not during it.
Adding AI
Zoho Inventory offers reorder suggestions and reports that show slow and fast movers, and its data can feed Zoho Analytics for forecasting.
An assistant such as Claude or ChatGPT connected through Zoho's API adds a conversational layer: what will run out in the next three weeks at the current pace, which items have not sold in ninety days, or a draft purchase order for a supplier based on reorder points. A person should confirm before any order is sent.
Questions people ask
Do we need Zoho Inventory if we have Zoho Books?
Not always. Zoho Books includes basic stock tracking, and its higher plans include advanced inventory features. Zoho Inventory on its own makes sense when the warehouse team needs it without accounting access, or when you do not use Books.
Does Zoho Inventory handle manufacturing?
It handles simple assemblies and bundles through composite items. Multi-level production with routings and scheduling needs a manufacturing system.
Can it connect to our online store?
Yes. Zoho Inventory connects to the main e-commerce platforms and marketplaces, and its API covers the others.
Is Zoho Inventory included in Zoho One?
Yes, for one organization, with limits on orders and warehouses.
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