PlanetSoho CRM (former SohoOS)

PlanetSoho is a comprehensive solution available for unified business management, and it’s absolutely free. It has an intuitive and fine-looking user interface with some unique features that you won’t find in most other CRMs.

If you don’t want to spend a dime on: managing your contacts, documents, estimates; tracking leads and billable hours; creating and sending invoices and purchase orders; and getting paid online, you won’t find a better option than PlanetSoho. There are also some premium features available at an extremely low price, which you can test-drive for full 30 days.

Quick facts

• Our Rating: 70/100 (OR 7/10.)
• Free Trial: Yes (for 30 days on premium features)
• Ideal for: Solopreneurs
• Training required: No
• User Limit: Yes (only 1)
• Lead capturing: Yes
• Mass import/export: No
• Email marketing campaigns: No

Browser used: Google Chrome (22.0.1229.94 m) with Windows 7 Ultimate
Product name: PlanetSoho
Contact: info@sohoos.com
32 Ben Yehuda St. El-Al Building, Tel-Aviv, Israel 63805
Tel: +972-(3)-525-7744

Getting started (5/5)

Signing up on PlanetSoho is as simple as pie, you’ll be managing your business in a matter of seconds. Either key in your business name, email, and password, or use your Facebook account to sign up for PlanetSoho with one click.

User Interface (19/20)

PlanetSoho interface primarily focuses on user-friendliness. From a unified contact system through inventory management to billing and accounts payable, everything is at your fingertips. We simply loved the innovation and ease of use it offers. Even a fifth grader can navigate it without much trouble.

Price (20/20)

As mentioned earlier, PlanetSoho is free of cost. There are, however, some premium features which you can enjoy for a price as low as $1.5/month per feature.

Customization (5/10)

Though the user interface can’t be customized, you can set your preferences for the following options according to your business needs:

• Set your currency
• Set your tax settings
• Change the Terms Of Service
• Set time increments for billable projects (Time Tracker)
• Add Leads Widget to your webpage, blog or social media sites. Leads captures, will automatically be added to PlanetSoho account
• Add your company logo
• Add product pictures
• Choose invoice themes from 12 different choices
• Create myPage with custom language, links, contact info
• Choose myPage themes from 8 choices

Integration with 3rd party apps (0/10)

Currently, you can’t integrate your SohoOS to any other app.

Mobile Support (3/5)

Though there isn’t a native mobile app, PlanetSoho interface is mobile friendly and can be accessed seamlessly on most smartphones.

Scalability (0/10)

PlanetSoho is designed for single users, and you cannot add team members to your account. You can, however, interact with your contacts and other business owners from within the software and direct communication with other SohoOS users is apparently coming soon.

Customer Support (10/10)

You get the best customer support on all levels: 24/7 free live chat, 24/7 email support and then there is premium telephone support where an expert will call you to help sort out your issues.

Back up & Security (8/10)

In addition to the company’s internal backups and efforts to keep your data secure, you can opt for the premium feature called Personalized Data Backup and every week a CSV file containing your data will be emailed to you. You can use this file as an extra layer of security to recover information you may have deleted mistakenly, or to analyze your data and track your progress.

Unified contact management

Thanks to the uncluttered interface, creating, editing and managing contacts, is just a breeze. You can perform each and every contact related task right from your PlanetSoho contact list. Different types of contacts (Client, Lead, Personal Contact or Vendor) are displayed on the left menu of homepage. You can easily scroll or search for a particular contact. Click the desired contact’s name and you’ll have all their details on your screen.

Invoices and Billing

This is PlanetSoho’s most powerful feature that helps you send your bills and receive payments via multiple payment options including PayPal and credit cards – and you don’t even need a premium/merchant account!

Inventory Management

It’s another interesting feature that sends you an alert as soon as you run low on any of your products, so you can order new products well in time. All you need to do is send your vendor a P.O. (purchase order). P.O. is pretty similar to an invoice but you send it to a vendor instead of a client, and you’ve to pay the amount.

Document Management

You can’t have everything in the form of contacts and tasks – there will be videos, audios, text files, and data in various other formats which are crucial for your business. The concise filing system of SohoOS offers 20 MB storage for free where you can store your important documents.

Social Business Community

Every business using PlanetSoho gets a free online webpage called myPage, with a unique url. You can add your important information and get listed with thousands of other businesses. There’s also a contact form at the bottom of the page, so for those who are interested in your business, finding and contacting you becomes even easier.

Anyone who contacts you via this form, is automatically added as a lead. Likewise, you can also find vendors and contacts in PlanetSoho’s business community.

The Command center

The newest, all-powerful feature released by PlanetSoho team is the Command Center. It is a Toolbar that keeps track of your business 24/7.

The basic idea behind this toolbar is taken from social media i.e. when any of your contacts takes an action (e.g. shows interest in your offer, views an estimate/invoice you sent, makes a payment etc.) a new notification will pop up on the tool bar. This means you don’t have to keep your CRM app window open all the time, waiting for things to happen.

Moreover, the toolbar allows you to create invoices, track leads, communicate with customers, add new contacts, get paid, and a lot more with a single click – it’s simply amazing!

My Home

It’s your dashboard where you can find all the basic features of the CRM. It allows you to access and add your contacts, create estimates, invoices and P.Os, documents, and track your time. There are also Notes And Recent Activities to let you keep an eye on your recent happenings.

New

Click this handy menu and you can quickly add new clients, leads, personal contacts, vendors, estimates, invoices, items and documents.

Estimates

Basically, it’s a sales quote. It’s a nonbinding document that has basic info about your product/service and its price. In addition to creating invoices, you can also email them directly from your PlanetSoho or convert them to PDF and save on your disk.

Invoices

It’s a commercial document you send to your clients indicating required payment.

Once you’ve completed your deal, all you need to do is access the invoices menu, enter the required details and send it directly from PlanetSoho dashboard. You can also convert your invoices to PDF format. If you want to make sure you get paid on time, don’t forget to check the Get Paid online checkbox and enter your PayPal email.

Items

This menu gives access to your inventory i.e. all the products you trade. From within this menu, you can create invoices and purchase orders, to get paid for a dispatched item or order a new item respectively.

P.O. (Purchase Orders)

P.O. is pretty similar to an invoice, except you send it when you’re buying instead of selling. To order supplies from a vendor, you’ve to issue purchase order and PlanetSoho will take care of the rest of the process.

Time Tracker

If your business is time-based, Time Tracker will be nothing less than a godsend. You can create timesheets for different projects, convert them into invoices and send to your clients.

SohoDir

SohoDir is a business directory where you can find thousands of small business, which can be your potential clients (or vendors). You can also list your own business here via myPage.

Features coming soon

A couple of notable features expected to be launched soon are Project Management and Customized Reports. Both these features will add a lot more value to PlanetSoho.

Project management will enable you to create projects, add start/end dates, allot a budget, and assign milestone as well as responsibilities. A customized project indicator will also be available to track the projects. Reports, the other intensely missed feature in SohoOS, will give you the power to view, analyze and compare the outcome of your business activities.

Another, and probably more interesting feature, is The Client Machine, which will automate your whole business process. All you’ll need to do is dictate PlanetSoho how many and what sort of leads you want, and it’ll do the rest from capturing real-time leads to making them your clients.

My Account

It’s a dropdown menu for setting your business and account preferences e.g. business name, telephone number, default currency, time tracker’s settings, leads widget, activating command center and a lot more.

Soho Shop – Premium features

Each premium feature costs $1.5 per month only.

Currency Converter: Automatically updates conversions rates, ideal for people who deal with clients paying in different currencies.

Premium Support: You’ll be offered a 24/7 personal telephone support, just give them your phone number and wait for their call.

Super-Sized Storage: Have a plethora of files and documents to store online? 20 MB is obviously not enough, Super-Sized Storage offers you up to 2GB space.

Personalized Backups: Is your data a matter of life and death for you? Personalized Backups give you more control over your data with automatic weekly backups sent directly to your email inbox.

White-Labeling: Usually this is a very costly option, but not with PlanetSoho. Remove PlanetSoho logo and links from all documents and emails to strengthen your bond with your clients.

Business Document Library: Whether you need MS Excel templates, financial templates, business letters, or additional documents, there’s no need to hire a pricey graphics designer since you have over 1,000 templates in dozens of categories?

PlanetSoho Bundles

If you want all the features, you can save up to $80 by purchasing a PlanetSoho bundle. You can choose $9.95/month, $24.95/3 months or 39.95/year.

Pros

• The most comprehensive free CRM solution
• Affordable premium features (including white labeling)
• Offers some powerful features e.g. social business community, command center toolbar, all-inclusive invoicing system, that are exclusive to PlanetSoho
• Powerful, user-friendly and robust user interface
• Unrivaled 24/7 live chat and customer support

Cons

• Only allows a single user
• You can’t import contacts (though this functionality will be added soon)
• Purely standalone application – doesn’t integrate with 3rd party systems
• Doesn’t offer customization
• No email marketing, autoresponders, calendar, reporting or task list

What it all boils down to…

For a free software, 7.0 out of 10 is not bad at all. (It would be higher if it catered for additional users). Depending on your particular business needs, it can be either an ideal CRM or a total disappointment. If you’re a single user, looking for a FREE contact management and invoicing system, PlanetSoho fits your bill perfectly. But if your business needs email marketing, UI customization or integration with several other apps, you better consider another option.