The Challenge

Zoho Inventory gave Ramona Optics a clear view of what was in stock and what was already committed, but it could not answer the question that mattered most for a manufacturer: what do we need to order for the builds coming next? Each instrument is assembled from many components, and working out requirements meant exporting data, comparing it against planned production and bills of materials, and running the math by hand in Excel. As production grew, the process became tedious, time-consuming, and dependent on one person keeping several spreadsheets in sync.

On the finance side, inventory valuation figures did not always line up between reports, and costs such as shipping and tariffs needed a consistent treatment so they would flow into inventory correctly. Ramona Optics recognized it needed a partner who understood both the operational and accounting sides of Zoho Inventory, someone who could build on the data already in the system rather than replace it.

“We needed an automated solution that could use our existing Zoho Inventory data, compare it against planned production and bills of materials, and calculate what needed to be ordered for future builds.” – Gail Joseph-Cabrera, Program Operations Manager, Ramona Optics

Why It Mattered

For a company producing precision imaging systems, a single missing component can stall an entire build, delay a customer shipment, and push revenue into a later period. Ordering too much carries its own cost, tying up cash in parts that sit on shelves. When purchasing decisions depend on manual spreadsheet math, every build carries the risk of both, and the planning burden grows with every new product and every additional unit on the schedule.

Accuracy also mattered beyond the warehouse. Inventory is one of the largest assets on a manufacturer’s balance sheet, and landed costs such as freight and tariffs directly affect the true cost of every unit sold. Without a reliable valuation and a consistent way to capture those costs, month-end close slows down, margins become harder to trust, and a lean team spends its time reconciling numbers instead of supporting growth.

The Zenatta Solution

Zenatta worked closely with Ramona Optics across Zoho Inventory and Zoho Analytics to design a purchasing workflow and reporting layer that match how the company actually plans production, using the data it already had.

• Composite PO Builder for Production Planning: A custom widget inside Zoho Inventory lets the team select one or more composite items, enter the number of units to build, and instantly see the component requirements calculated from each bill of materials. Shared components across multiple products are combined automatically, and a composite breakdown shows exactly where each requirement comes from.
• True Availability Calculations: Purchase quantities account for stock on hand, stock already committed to other orders, and quantities already sitting on open or draft purchase orders. The builder recommends only what genuinely needs to be ordered, which prevents both shortages and duplicate purchasing.
• Vendor-Consolidated Draft Purchase Orders: Required items are grouped by preferred vendor, previewed with warehouse selection and PO references, and turned into draft purchase orders with one PO per vendor. Bulk data retrieval keeps the tool fast and API-efficient, and usability refinements such as a frozen header row make large component lists easy to review.
• Landed Cost Safeguard on Bills: A background widget on every new bill in Zoho Inventory prompts the user to confirm before saving a bill without a landed cost line. Freight, shipping, and tariff costs are captured deliberately and allocated to inventory, rather than slipping through as adjustments.
• Rebuilt Inventory Valuation Reporting: Zoho Analytics inventory valuation now calculates from transaction-level data, refreshes daily through a scheduled sync, reflects backdated entries automatically, and supports any as-of date. The new reporting was validated against Zoho’s native Inventory Valuation Summary and ties out exactly.
• Accounting-Ready Monthly Reporting: Monthly reports were consolidated in Zoho Analytics to reflect FIFO cost basis values and structured in the specific format Ramona Optics’ accounting team requires, with clear guidance on categorizing shipping and tariff costs going forward.

“The team helped create a dashboard that uses our existing Zoho Inventory data to calculate exactly what we need to order based on the number of units we plan to build. … This has made a huge difference for me because I no longer need to work across multiple spreadsheets or look in different places. I now have all the information I need in one system.” – Gail Joseph-Cabrera, Program Operations Manager, Ramona Optics

Results

Ramona Optics now plans production and purchasing from a single source of truth inside Zoho, with finance reporting it can trust. Not every win is a headline metric; the biggest change is that one operations manager no longer carries the planning burden across disconnected spreadsheets, and the accounting team receives numbers that reconcile without extra work.

• Spreadsheet-free production planning through a Zoho Inventory widget that calculates component needs from planned builds
• Faster, more accurate purchasing with draft purchase orders generated automatically and consolidated by vendor
• Fewer ordering errors via availability calculations that include committed stock and quantities already on order
• Reliable inventory valuation with Zoho Analytics reporting that reconciles to Zoho’s native valuation to the penny
• Cleaner cost of goods through landed cost checks on every new bill and consistent treatment of shipping and tariffs
• Ongoing, responsive support as Ramona Optics continues to refine the system with Zenatta

“100%. It has been an absolute joy and pleasure working with the Zenatta team. They were incredibly receptive to my feedback, took the time to understand our specific needs, and worked closely with me to develop solutions that genuinely improved our processes. They have also remained responsive and supportive whenever I have questions. I would confidently recommend Zenatta to any colleague or peer looking to improve and automate their Zoho systems.”

– Gail Joseph-Cabrera, Program Operations Manager, Ramona Optics