Zoho Unveils New Finance Tools to Streamline UAE Enterprise Operations

Zoho has rolled out two new finance tools for the UAE market, and they’re clearly trying to tackle some of the headaches big enterprises often deal with behind the scenes. The company introduced Zoho Billing Enterprise Edition, built for complex revenue models, alongside Zoho Spend, which brings payroll, procurement, travel and expense management into one place. For anyone running a fast‑growing operation, especially in the Emirates’ increasingly digital economy, this sort of consolidation can be a real lifesaver — or at least save a bit of a faff.

Hyther Nizam, Zoho’s president for the MEA region, said the launches fit into the firm’s broader approach of staying globally connected while tailoring services to local needs. He pointed out the pressure on finance leaders across the UAE to move away from scattered systems and get real‑time visibility across their organisations. Prashant Ganti, who oversees global product strategy for Zoho’s finance and operations unit, echoed this thinking, saying the new tools aim to turn billing into a “revenue engine” and spend management into a source of savings for businesses across the country.

I remember a small founder meetup Arageek helped support a couple of years back, where one CFO joked that juggling billing and procurement tools felt like keeping plates spinning in a sandstorm. Hearing that always stuck with me, and frankly, I reckon many teams still feel the same pain today. So Zoho’s attempt to house everything under one roof might just hit the spot.

Zoho Billing Enterprise Edition is designed to give companies more flexibility in how they charge customers — whether through subscriptions, usage-based pricing or more traditional models. It supports 15 country-specific editions, including compliance with UAE VAT rules, and it automates everything from revenue recognition under IFRS 15 and ASC 606 to customer lifecycle management. The idea is to help businesses accelerate month-end closing, experiment with pricing, and maintain clear visibility over revenue. And believe it or not, large enterprises do wrestle with this daily; unpredictable pricing, contract changes and manual reconciliations can make even the most seasoned finance teams feel a bit overwhelmed.

Zoho Spend, on the flip side, is all about bringing together procurement, payroll, accounts payable, travel and employee expenses. Many companies in the UAE still rely on disconnected systems for these tasks, which means managers struggle to match budgets with actual spending, while employees often get lost in long approval chains. The new platform offers a consolidated dashboard, digital vendor onboarding, automated bill capture through OCR, and support for batch payments with built‑in compliance workflows.

Payroll will soon be part of the package too, with support for WPS requirements, gratuity rules, and pension contributions depending on nationality. As someone who’s followed several UAE startups wrestling with payroll compliance at scale, I can say this is spot on. Anything that reduces manual calculations tends to leave finance teams chuffed to bits — well… most of the time.

Corporate travel and expense reporting also get attention, with policy‑controlled booking options and automated reimbursement processing. For organisations trying to curb maverick spending (we’ve all seen it happen…), these controls can make a noticeable difference.

Both Zoho Billing Enterprise Edition and Zoho Spend are available now, though the payroll module within Zoho Spend will arrive a little later. For enterprises eyeing more streamlined operations, this could be a timely move — even if adopting new systems can be a bit daunting, or as one founder once told me, “definately the hardest part of scaling”.

All in all, it’s another sign of how quickly finance tech is evolving in the region, and perhaps a nudge for businesses still relying on spreadsheets to rethink their approach.

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