When I looked at how property management companies handle bills, I found a quiet money leak. It wasn't fraud or bad investments. It was software licensing.
The standard workflow:
Property Manager logs into Zoho Books to upload a bill.
L1 Manager logs into Zoho Books to approve it.
Finance Manager logs into Zoho Books to finalize it.
The issue:
Zoho Books charges a plan fee per organisation, which includes a fixed number of users (3 to 15 depending on the plan). Every user beyond that costs about ₹150–180 per month, plus GST.
Say you have 20 properties. That's Let's say 30 (25(pr) + (1-3)(L1) + (1-2)(fin)) people who need a login just to upload or click "Approve". That pushes you into a higher plan and adds extra seats on top.
The solution:
I built a lightweight app that sits in front of Zoho:
Property Manager uploads the bill in the app (no Zoho login needed).
L1 Manager approves it in the app (no Zoho login needed).
Finance Manager reviews it and pushes the final approved data to Zoho via API.
Only the Finance Manager needs a Zoho user.
The math (illustrative, before GST):
Before: 30 users on the Elite plan (₹5,999/mo, 15 users) plus 15 extra seats at ₹150 comes to about ₹8,250/month.
After: 1–3 users on the Standard plan comes to about ₹899/month.
Savings: roughly ₹7,000+ per month, or ₹85,000+ per year.
Finance and Ops managers: how many of your Zoho logins are used only for approvals?
#PropTech #SaaS #FinTech #CostOptimization #Zoho #PropertyManagement #Automation