I have been trying to use the two features of Bills and Expenses in Zoho Books. To be honest, this feature seems to have a few loopholes and just adds confusions while recording purchases. Neither Bill nor Expense creation seems to be complete and hence I am unable to use just one of them using Zoho books. 

Below are the restrictions which are bothering me:

1) A bill allows TDS deduction while an expense doesn't.

2) While we can track payments for a bill, we can't do the same for an expense.

3) An expense allows using items (Goods) on the fly without saving while a bill forces us to create items before using them.

Below are a few use-cases which are causing restrictions:

1) Case 1: I use courier services for my business and need to deduct TDS while making payments. So it has to be a bill and not an expense.

2) Case 2: I buy different groceries, stationary etc. for my business. The product bought changes every time and it's not possible to keep creating items for these products. So I need to create an expense as the bill would force me to create items.

3) Case 3: I buy a printer for my business. I made 50% advance and paid the rest when the product arrived. While I was recording purchases in case 2 as expenses, I would have to record this one as a bill as I need to record and track payment made. The problem with creating a bill here is that I would have to create an item which I won't use in the future.

Zoho says that anything paid for upfront should be an expense and everything else should be a bill. But for that to work, you need to allow TDS deductions and payment tracking for expenses. Also, you need to allow using items (Goods) without creating them in Bills.

If that's not possible, Let us create bills for everything to make life simpler. For that, the only need is that we are not forced to create new items every time and let us use these items on the fly just like for expenses.

Please suggest.

Thanks

Vaibhav