Accounting, payroll, sales, HR, projects, inventory and cashflow — all from one tab, with a built-in AI advisor that knows your numbers. Built around Netcash, SARS and the major South African banks.
Dashboard
One platform, AI-enabled
Zealo’s AI is a mentor that actually knows your business, because it reads your own finance, payroll, projects and operations data. Ask it anything — “how’s cash flow this quarter?”, “are we leaving ETI on the table?”, “which projects are at risk?” — and get clear, practical guidance, not generic advice. Every answer respects each user’s role and permissions.
A sounding board for the big calls — pricing, hiring, where to invest next — weighed against your real numbers, not guesswork.
Cash flow, margins, overdue debtors and VAT201 readiness — explained in plain language, with what to do about them.
Payroll cost trends, ETI you may be missing, and the EMP201 / EMP501 / UIF deadlines coming up — before they catch you out.
Headcount and turnover, leave balances and liability, and who’s due a performance review — at a glance.
Which projects are slipping or over budget, the true cost of each, and where your team’s time is really going.
Your pipeline, top customers, what to follow up first, and which deals are going quiet.
One assistant, many hats — and it’s here to inform your decisions, not replace your accountant or advisors.
Switch it on and go. It runs in South Africa (Cape Town), so your data and the AI stay in SA. Every plan includes monthly AI credits — top up any time, with a usage meter so there are no surprises.
Prefer your own account? Connect Claude, ChatGPT or any MCP-compatible assistant to Zealo, or plug in your own Anthropic, OpenAI or AWS Bedrock key — unlimited, on your bill, your choice of model.
Role-aware & POPIA-minded: the AI only ever sees what the person asking is allowed to see — no salaries, banking or ID numbers unless you explicitly enable it.
The Zealo app
Everything you would ask Zealo at your desk, now in your pocket. Type it or just say it, and Zealo gets it done while you are on site, in traffic or between meetings.
Ask it things like
Point your camera at a slip. Zealo reads the amount, date, supplier and VAT, then puts it on your claim or keeps it for the company.
Leave requests and expense claims arrive as notifications. Approve them in one tap.
Apply for leave, see your balances and open your payslips, locked with Face ID or your fingerprint.
Everything you need
One login. One source of truth. Built for the way South African organisations actually run.
From sole traders to growing teams — quoting, invoicing, supplier payments, payroll, CRM and stock in one place.
NPOs and NGOs — manage staff and volunteers, track every rand, and produce the reports funders and boards expect.
Schools, clubs, co-ops and agencies. If you invoice, employ people and watch cashflow, Zealo fits.
Quote, invoice, get paid and pay suppliers — every document posts to a real double-entry ledger, so the books keep themselves.
Quotes → sales orders → invoices, emailed as branded PDFs. Recurring invoices, credit notes, multi-currency and payments — all VAT-ready.
A Pay now button on every invoice: customers pay by card or instant EFT and the payment is matched for you. 2.95% + R 1.40 by card, 2.2% by EFT, excl. VAT.
Pay creditors in bulk via Netcash. Build a batch, submit, track release — no spreadsheet exports, no recapturing.
Capture supplier bills, raise purchase orders, and receive or return stock with electronic GRNs/GRVs. Schedule payments into batches; recurring bills auto-create each month.
See your cash position weeks ahead, not months behind. Walk into accountant meetings prepared.
Income statement, balance sheet and ageing, sliced by branch, department or client. Week-on-week comparatives that account for four- and five-week months, and a depreciation schedule ready for SARS.
A management pack every month: income statement, balance sheet, cash, debtors and creditors, and key ratios, with your own commentary. Download it as PDF or Excel, or have it emailed to you each month.
Year-end financial statements built straight from your books: statement of financial position, income statement, changes in equity, cash flows, accounting policies and notes, with last year alongside. Your directors approve them in Zealo, and every signed set carries a QR code anyone can scan to check it.
One place for your people — payroll, HR, leave, time and performance, all running off the same employee records.
Employee records, teams, org chart, contracts. Self-service for staff to update their own details.
Apply for leave, approve from a single queue, track attendance and clock-ins. Built around SA leave types.
Log time per project, claim subsistence & travel against SARS-default rates, manager approval flow built in.
SA-compliant payslips — PAYE the SARS way (YTD averaging), UIF, SDL, ETI and tax credits — posting straight to the ledger. Year-end EMP501/IRP5 exports as an e@syFile-ready file; salary batches flow to Netcash.
Each employee sees their own profile, payslips, leave balance, timesheets, expense claims — no extra logins.
Live org chart from your employee + team data. No PowerPoint sketches that go stale the moment someone joins.
Set goals, run quarterly reviews and keep a record of how the team's tracking — all against the same employee data.
Plan budgeted positions and a hiring pipeline, then see planned headcount and salary cost against your actual active team — with the gaps to fill.
Win the work and run the delivery — CRM, projects, tasks, inventory and the tools that surround them.
Accounts, contacts, deals with stages and forecasts. Lightweight enough that sales actually keeps it current.
Active projects, who's working on what, and a true cost per project — labour, expenses, purchase orders and stock issued, all rolled into one report.
Plan and track work on a modern board or list. Drag tasks between stages, reorder them, set assignee, due date and priority inline, bulk-update many at once, attach files and comment — grouped by project so nothing slips.
Track items and stock levels across multiple locations, log stock movements, link items to suppliers, set Min/Max reorder levels with low-stock alerts, and organise with your own categories.
Know what you own — laptops, vehicles, equipment — what it cost, where it is, and who's holding it. Assign assets to employees or locations.
Connect to another Zealo company and exchange documents directly — a quote, order, invoice or credit note you send becomes the matching document on their side. No re-keying, no emailed PDFs.
For corporate funders & intermediaries: enrol beneficiary SMMEs, optionally fund their subscription, and see a consent-based, read-only impact dashboard — the Enterprise & Supplier Development evidence a B-BBEE programme needs. Beneficiaries choose what they share and can revoke anytime; sensitive data is never exposed.
Own rental property? Capture leases and Zealo bills the rent automatically each month (with escalation), while tenants, deposits and arrears stay on the same ledger as the rest of your business. Switch it on only if you let property — it stays out of the way otherwise.
Client rate cards, timesheets and weekly costing runs. Approved hours feed both your payslips and your client invoices.
Send a document for signature and track who's signed. Each signer gets their own secure link, adopts their signature, and you get a full audit trail — no third-party signing tool to pay for.
Connect your code repositories (GitHub, Bitbucket, GitLab and others) to estimate engineering hours from commits, surface contributor activity, and link work to projects. No timer apps, no chasing developers for timesheets.
The platform underneath — dashboards, banking, the ledger, SARS filing and the controls that keep it all safe.
Native iOS and Android apps are on the way, with push notifications for approvals, mentions and anything that needs you. Today you already choose email or in-app for every notification — native push lands with the apps.
Cash position, unpaid bills due this month, leave queue, opportunities — every module on one page.
A getting-started checklist walks new admins through company details, chart of accounts, team and first invoice.
Revenue, expenses and net profit for the period, money owed to you and money you owe, plus a month-by-month income-vs-expense trend and your worst overdue invoices and bills.
Connect a live bank feed and transactions flow in automatically — or import statements (CSV, OFX/QFX or QIF). Either way, reconcile in a click: Zealo suggests the matching invoice or bill and records the payment. Code a transaction once and save it as a rule, and every similar transaction is categorised automatically.
Real double-entry underneath — a chart of accounts, general ledger and trial balance. Invoices, bills and payments post themselves automatically; add manual journals when you need them.
Income statement, balance sheet, trial balance and general ledger — on your financial year, for the current or any prior period. Plus a VAT201 return mapped field-for-field to the SARS form — ready to file on eFiling for any period and saved with its filing reference — and debtors & creditors age analysis showing who owes you (and who you owe) and for how long.
Your VAT201 mapped field-for-field to the SARS form, and an e@syFile-ready EMP501/IRP5 file with ETI and tax directives built in. File on eFiling in minutes, then record the reference back in Zealo for a full submission audit trail. Direct system-to-system (ISV) filing is on the way.
Sync with your existing accounting software if you've already invested there — or use Zealo's own books and skip the second tool entirely.
A secure, token-authenticated API opens Zealo up to your own tools — and to AI assistants like Claude through an MCP connector, so you can read and update your Zealo data straight from your assistant. Every token is scoped to a single company.
Bring your full history across — customers, suppliers, items, chart of accounts, assets, bank transactions and invoices — plus employee year-to-date balances, so your first run and your IRP5/EMP501 certificates reconcile from day one.
Finance sees finance. HR sees HR. Employees see their own stuff. Permission model that actually scales with your org.
Personal and sensitive data — salaries, bank accounts, ID numbers and more — is encrypted at rest, unreadable even in the raw database. Strict per-role access keeps payroll and personal data out of the wrong hands.
Every create, change and deletion on your invoices, quotes, credit notes, bills, orders and customers is logged — who did what, when, and what changed. Built for auditors and compliance.
Bulk-load customers, inventory and products from a spreadsheet to get started fast. Every list exports straight to Excel or CSV when your accountant or auditor asks.
Run several organisations from a single account and switch between them in a click — ideal for groups, and for accountants servicing many clients.
Connect your bank once and transactions flow in automatically — categorised and ready to reconcile, no statement uploads. Investec connects directly through its own open-banking API; other South African banks connect via a secure open-banking partner. Prefer to upload instead? Statement import (CSV / OFX / QIF) is a couple of clicks.
From the founder
"We were done paying for a stack of accounting, payroll, CRM and project tools that didn't talk to each other. So we built Zealo — and we run HashData on it every day. It replaced all of them, and it's built for how we actually work."
Ashley Skippers
Founder, HashData — the team behind Zealo
In their words
Real businesses running on Zealo — in their own words.
Pricing
Start free, then move up as you need more. Every plan includes everything in the plans before it.
| All prices exclude VAT and are billed monthly. Cancel any time. | Basic Free Get started free | Starter R139 / mo Start free trial | Growth R399 / mo Start free trial | Most popular Business R599 / mo Start free trial | Pro R999 / mo Start free trial |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Send invoices, free | Bill customers and pay people | Everything in Starter, plus manage your people | Everything in Growth, plus run your books | Everything in Business, plus connect your systems | |
| Users and team | |||||
| Users | 1 | 1 | Up to 5 | Up to 10 | Up to 20 |
| Employees included | Not included | 1 | Up to 5 | Up to 10 | Up to 20 |
| Extra employees | Not included | R20 to R30 each | R20 to R30 each | R20 to R30 each | R20 to R30 each |
| Invoicing and getting paid | |||||
| Quotes and invoices | Included | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Get paid online by card and instant EFT | Included | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Supplier payments (Netcash) | Not included | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| E-signatures | Not included | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Accounting | |||||
| Customers and suppliers | Included | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Bills and supplier capture | Not included | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Live bank feeds and reconciliation | Not included | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Cashflow forecast | Not included | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| General ledger and VAT201 | Not included | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Trading partners (inter-company trading) | Not included | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Inventory management | Not included | Not included | Included | Included | Included |
| Customers and projects | |||||
| CRM with pipeline and opportunities | Included | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Projects and tasks | Included | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Property management | Included | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Project costing (time, stock, POs and expenses) | Not included | Not included | Not included | Included | Included |
| Payroll and HR | |||||
| Employee records and teams | Not included | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| SARS payroll: payslips, EMP201, UIF and IRP5s | Not included | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Employment Tax Incentive (ETI) | Not included | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Employee self-service | Not included | Not included | Included | Included | Included |
| Leave and attendance | Not included | Not included | Included | Included | Included |
| Timesheets and S&T claims | Not included | Not included | Included | Included | Included |
| Labour broking (TES) | Not included | Not included | Talk to us | Talk to us | Included |
| Reports and financial statements | |||||
| Trial balance, income statement and balance sheet | Not included | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Monthly management accounts pack | Not included | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Annual financial statements | Not included | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Signed financial statement sets Every signed set is free until 1 April 2027. | Not included | R500 per set | 1 a year included | 1 a year included | 1 a year included |
| Advanced reports | Not included | Not included | Not included | Not included | Included |
| AI (Ask Zealo) | |||||
| Ask Zealo AI assistant | R10 welcome credit | R14 credit a month | R40 credit a month | R60 credit a month | R100 credit a month |
| AI commentary on your statements | Not included | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Integrations (API and MCP) | |||||
| API and MCP connector | Not included | Not included | Add-on R120/mo | Add-on R120/mo | Included |
| Support and more | |||||
| Priority support | Not included | Not included | Not included | Not included | Included |
| ESD sponsored programmes | Not included | Not included | Talk to us | Talk to us | Included |
| Get started free | Start free trial | Start free trial | Start free trial | Start free trial |
All prices exclude VAT and are billed monthly. Cancel any time.
All prices excl. VAT. Pay monthly, cancel any time. API & MCP add-on R 120/month on Growth and Business. Included in Pro.
The rate is set by your total headcount and applies to each employee above the number your plan includes.
13 employees on Starter is R 439. Business at R 599 costs R 160 more and adds financial statements, inventory and project costing.
A Pay now button on every invoice. Customers pay by card or instant EFT, the money lands in your bank account and the invoice is marked paid.
Per payment, excl. VAT. No monthly fee, no set-up fee, nothing else.
For groups, franchises and larger teams. Unlimited users and employees, whitelabelling on your own domain, SSO/SAML sign-in, custom modules and integrations, and a dedicated success manager to tailor limits, onboarding and migration around how you actually work.
This plan is only for accounting and bookkeeping firms that keep the books for other businesses. Running your own business? Pick one of the plans above.
Run every client's books from one login. Your clients are data sets you keep books for, not users — so they are priced per client, and the rate falls as your book grows.
Clients from R109 per month
Client payroll: R20 per employee per month, every band. Your own firm's employees are billed at the standard employee rates.
Get started
Start free on Basic, or try any paid plan free for 14 days. Bigger team or custom needs? Talk to us and we'll tailor a plan for you.