Zoho launches AI-driven spend & enterprise billing tools

Zoho has expanded its finance software line-up with a new spend management product and an enterprise version of its billing platform in Canada.

The company has launched Zoho Spend, which consolidates procurement, accounts payable automation, corporate travel, and employee expense management into a single system. It has also introduced Zoho Billing Enterprise Edition, which is aimed at businesses with complex pricing and revenue models.

Both products sit within Zoho's broader Finance and Operations Platform. The company has also rolled out new artificial intelligence functions across the suite, using its in-house Zia large language model.

Finance teams in larger organisations increasingly run separate tools for procurement, travel booking, expense claims and invoicing. Vendors see an opportunity as those firms seek more integrated systems and more insight into cash flow and future revenue.

Chandrashekar LSP, Zoho Canada's Managing Director, said the firm has focused on data privacy in how it deploys AI in its financial products.

"When it comes to AI and data privacy, there is no greater concern than the safety of a customer's financial information," said LSP. "The AI tools introduced today across Zoho's extensive Finance and Operations Platform serve as the perfect user assistant: providing deep insights and forecasting into company finances, flagging inconsistencies, and automating repetitive tasks-all within Zoho's own Zia LLM to ensure that a customer's data is never at risk."

Unified spend

Zoho describes Spend as an all-in-one platform for managing procurement, accounts payable, corporate travel and employee expenses. The product uses a single dashboard that gives finance teams a combined view of these activities. The company positions this as a way for leaders to monitor budgets, reinforce governance and reduce uncontrolled spending.

According to Zoho, many companies handle procurement, travel and expenses in separate tools. This can limit visibility of total spend and make approvals and budget tracking harder for managers. The firm said this fragmentation can also create compliance issues and unmanaged costs.

Spend's procurement module covers the source-to-pay process. It digitises vendor onboarding and supports workflows for requests for quotation, purchase requisitions, purchase orders and bills in one place. The system generates vendor and category-level analyses to inform negotiations and procurement planning.

The accounts payable component uses optical character recognition to capture bills, supporting two-way and three-way matching and includes approval flows for single or batch payments. It also automates reconciliation.

The travel element of Zoho Spend is built around a self-booking tool. Users can search, compare and book flights from a global inventory that includes more than 30 direct airline connections and corporate fares. Bookings follow company travel policies that administrators can define in the system.

Expense management functions automate the expense claim process from receipt capture through to reimbursement. The software applies company expense policies, per diem rules, tax treatments and mileage regulations during approval and reporting.

Enterprise billing

Zoho's Billing Enterprise Edition targets firms that use multiple billing and pricing approaches. It supports standard invoicing, project-based billing, subscriptions and usage-based charging. The company said this is designed for organisations that want to adapt monetisation models as they introduce new products or services.

The platform automates collection workflows in an effort to reduce days' sales outstanding and prompt faster payments. It covers customer subscription journeys from trial and conversion through plan changes and retention, and includes tools for managing upgrades and downgrades.

The feature follows IFRS 15 and ASC 606 accounting standards and triggers automated recognition events. Finance teams can use this for the month-end close and for monitoring recognised versus deferred revenue.

Role-based dashboards and reporting give different teams filtered access to billing and revenue data. This includes operational reports and higher-level metrics on billing performance.