In 2012, an experienced freediving instructor and an MBA graduate joined forces to start Freediving Planet, one of the first freediving schools in Asia. While they pursued their passion for training students and discovering the underwater world, we took care of their inventory management and accounting needs.

About the founders

The one thing that truly binds Jean-Pol (JP) and Suzanne (Suzy) together is their unparalleled love for adventure. JP has more than 25 years of experience in freediving. Before moving to the Philippines, he freedived in different parts of Europe. Being one of the first AIDA instructor trainers in Asia and having travelled across the globe, he is often refered to as "The Godfather" by his colleagues.

Suzy had a different start. After completing her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutics and Biotechnology, she armed herself with an MBA to hone her business skills. To get closer to the ocean's inhabitants, she became a certified scuba diver in 2010. In addition to being a freediving master instructor, she is also a part of Ocean conservation project.

Creating Waves

Freediving Planet offers diving courses ranging from beginner to instructor level. Their courses are certified by AIDA, an international association established to set safety standards for freediving, and PADI a leading training agency for scuba diving since 1966. In addition to the regular course levels, Freediving Planet offers courses designed for total novices and 'Mermaid' courses for those who fancy exploring the ocean with a mermaid tail. But they're not finished adding offerings yet; they have big plans to expand the scope of their business in the near future.

What do they love about Zoho Inventory?

• Easy and user-friendly inventory management application
• Seamless integration with Zoho Books for accounting
• Efficient order tracking and time-saving data management

Moving away from spreadsheets

"We knew that to be more efficient and save time, we had to go for an official programme that could help to organize the customers, organize the stock and invoices, and also keep track of all the accounting. Zoho met all the requirements."

Freediving Planet used to manage all of their data using multiple spreadsheets. They were using one spreadsheet to track cash, one for stock, and another to manage bank accounts. In order to record one transaction, they had to open multiple spreadsheets and update the information in each one. Because the spreadsheets were designed with the help of macros, it was difficult to look at them and understand what was happening.

Finding Zoho Inventory

"When Suzy was looking for a program, Zoho was the one that was able to track inventory, track cash flow with the help of Zoho Books, invoice the customers and manage orders with our vendors."

Suzy and JP started researching online to find the right software for managing their inventory. It didn't take them much time to discover Zoho.

Sailing towards calm water

The main pain-point for the Freediving Planet team was, updating their data in multiple spreadsheets and then trying to understand how it all came together. This would not only took a lot of time, but invariably delayed their business decisions. And if they accidentally missed an entry in one of their spreadsheets, their entire reporting system would go haywire, and finding the error usually proved to be a lengthy task.

Zoho Inventory made things easy by not only helping them organizing the data, but also updating it in each of the relevant places once the transaction was recorded. This helped them to focus more on their business and customers instead of their record-keeping.

What's ahead for Freediving Planet?

Going forward, JP and Suzy plan to expand the catalogue of products in their e-shop. With a streamlined inventory system, they can offer more Freediving Planet merchandise for sale without adding to their workload.

"After so much research we found that Zoho was the best. It works very well for us and the customer support is outstanding! We're very happy."