Brief Description
How Atha Group used Zoho Books and a custom Zoho Payment Approval System (ZPAS) to unify vendor payments across multiple group companies with multi-level approvals, audit logs, and secure multi-bank integration. The Group is into many businesses but Zoho is implemented or being used for CPC Manufacturing Plant & Renewable Energy and numerous other non-manufacturing entities.
Overview
Atha Group is a diversified, long-established enterprise with strong roots in mining and allied industries. The group operates across businesses such as iron ore mining, coal mining, sponge iron & billet manufacturing,pellet manufacturing, renewable energy and calcined petroleum coke.
As Atha Group expanded, its finance operations faced a critical need: to execute vendor payments for multiple group entities from a single, controlled platform while maintaining robust governance, approvals, and traceability.
Zoho Books, supported by Rapguru’s implementation expertise and a custom-built ZPAS portal, enabled the group to consolidate payment control and standardize compliance across companies.
Key Takeaways
- Multi-entity finance standardization using Zoho Books across ~40+ organizations (as per project scope shared).
- A single, secure payment layer for 30+ organizations now live through ZPAS.
- Multi-level approvals, audit logs, and secure bank API integrations enabling enterprise-grade governance.
- Reduced operational fragmentation and improved payment visibility and control.
Executive Summary
Atha Group is one of India’s long-standing players in mining and minerals with a history stretching back over six decades. The group’s corporate base is in Kolkata, with operational footprints across multiple locations and business verticals.
The official group profile highlights its expansion into iron ore and coal, steel and power, renewable energy, pellet manufacturing, and CPC.
As the group diversified and scaled, finance operations became increasingly complex across entities, banks, approval hierarchies, and audit requirements.
Problem Statement and Key Challenges
Despite having organized accounting processes, Atha Group faced a critical operational gap in the payment layer:
- Fragmented payment execution across group companies : Vendor payments were being initiated at entity levels, which increased manual coordination and risk.
- Lack of a single payment cockpit for the group : The finance leadership needed a consolidated view of payables and approvals.
- Multi-level approval requirements : Payments needed structured authorization flows with audit logs and traceability.
- Multi-bank orchestration : The group required a secure mechanism to connect and operate across major banking partners.
- Need to pull overdue bills along with attachments : Payment processing depended on contextual bill data and documentation from the accounting system.
Internal stakeholder quote :
“We required a group-wide payment mechanism that could enforce approvals, retain a complete audit trail, and integrate with multiple banks while staying aligned with our Zoho Books data.”
Evaluation of the Problem
Rapguru conducted a group-wide process assessment focused on:
- Accounts payable workflows across entities
- Existing approval structures and compliance expectations
- Bank-wise payment execution requirements
- Data availability and integrity within Zoho Books
- Feasibility of a centralized payment orchestration layer without disrupting each entity’s accounting autonomy
This evaluation confirmed that Zoho Books could serve as the unified source of truth for payables, while a purpose-built portal could act as the secure group-level payment engine.
Proposed Solution(s)
Rapguru proposed a two-layer architecture:
1. Core accounting standardization with Zoho Books
- Migration of ~40+ Atha Group organizations into Zoho Books (as per project details shared).
- Standardized vendor masters, bill workflows, and reporting across entities.
- Consolidated control over overdue bills and supporting documents.
2. A custom .NET-based ZPAS portal integrated with Zoho Books + Banks
To address the group’s unique payment governance needs, Rapguru architected and delivered the Zoho Payment Approval System (ZPAS) as a secure portal hosted on the group’s server environment.
ZPAS capabilities
- Pulls overdue bills + bill attachments from Zoho Books
- Routes payments through configurable multi-level approvals
- Maintains audit logs for compliance
- Enables multiple payment use cases:
- Bill payments
- Vendor advance payments
- Ad-hoc payments
Integrates with bank APIs:
- Axis Bank
- ICICI Bank
- Yes Bank
The existence of a dedicated Atha Group ZPAS login portal indicates operational deployment of this payment layer.
Partner quote:
“Zoho Books gave us a reliable, entity-wise accounting backbone. ZPAS allowed us to layer a group-level, policy-driven payment engine over it—ensuring approvals, audit ability, and multi-bank execution from one interface.”
Implementation
The implementation was executed in a phased approach to reduce risk and ensure adoption across entities:
1. Zoho Books migration & standardization
- Onboarded ~40+ organizations
- Structured chart of accounts alignment (where needed)
- Vendor and bill workflow harmonization
2. Portal design and build
- Built a secure.NET payment orchestration portal
- Designed approval workflows aligned with group policies
3. Zoho Books integration
- Automated fetch of overdue bills
- Attachment-level visibility for payment context
4. Bank API integration with enhanced security
- Connected with Axis, ICICI, and Yes Bank APIs
- Implemented multi-layer security controls to align with bank requirements
5. Controlled rollout
- Pilot with priority entities
- Gradual scaling to wider group adoption
Complexity highlights
- Multi-entity finance governance
- Multi-bank security compliance
- Real-time payable context synchronization
- High audit and authorization sensitivity
Results
The combined Zoho Books + ZPAS solution delivered measurable operational transformation:
- Centralized payment execution for 30+ organizations now using ZPAS as the single source of payment processing (as per project details shared).
- Improved governance through multi-level approvals and audit logs.
- Reduced dependency on manual coordination between entity finance teams.
- Faster, more reliable payment decisioning with direct access to overdue bills and attachments.
- Scalable architecture aligned with the group’s diversified growth in mining, manufacturing, and energy businesses.
“ZPAS has become our consolidated payment backbone. We now process payments for multiple group companies with stronger control, clearer accountability, and significantly better visibility.”
