Unlocking New Horizons: A Year in Review

Unlocking New Horizons: A Year in Review



As we bid farewell to 2024, let's celebrate and revisit the key highlights of the year. From adding a new edition to cross-platform enhancements, here’s a roundup of all the feature updates designed to simplify accounting, optimize financial management, and fuel growth. 



Zoho Books brings you a comprehensive set of new features and updates designed to streamline your financial management. 

Fixed Asset Management 

Zoho Books allows you to monitor your fixed assets, automatically calculate depreciation, and manage their sale or write-off when they are fully depreciated or reach the end of their useful life. 

Progress Invoicing 

With progress invoicing, you can create and manage invoices for long-term projects by billing clients in stages rather than in a single payment.

Invoice Management System [India Edition]

The IMS allows you to review the transactions filed by your suppliers in their GSTR-1, GSTR-1A, or IFF. You can choose to accept, reject, or mark the transactions as pending to accurately claim Input Tax Credit (ITC).

TDS Payments [India Edition] 

You can now easily view all your TDS liabilities, and record challan under the TDS module.

GST TDS [India Edition] 

GST TDS allows you to deduct a portion of payments to suppliers, which is then remitted to the tax authorities.

Early Payment Discount [Global, Germany, & UK Editions]

You can offer discounts to customers who pay their invoices before the due date.

Payment Retention

With this feature, you can set a retention percentage for your invoices, automatically withhold a portion of payments, and track retained amounts easily. Once contract terms are fulfilled, you can release or adjust the retained payments with just a few clicks.

Note: This feature is not available for the India and Kenya editions of Zoho Books.

XML Import or Export [Germany Edition] 

You can import e-invoices in XRechnung and ZUGFeRD formats to ensure compliance with the EN 16931 standard. Additionally, invoices can be exported via email in either PDF or XML format.

XML Manager [Mexico Edition] 

You can now directly fetch and import e-invoices in XML format from the SAT Portal to Zoho Books and add them as transactions.

E-Invoicing via PEPPOL [Germany Edition] 

With Zoho Books, you can create, send, and receive e-invoices via the PEPPOL network.

CIS Filing [UK Edition] 

Zoho Books allows you to file your monthly returns directly with HMRC and record the payments.

BACS payments [UK Edition]

You can now generate and export BACS files for your bills. This feature allows businesses to pay multiple vendors directly via BACS without manual entry.

Profit Margin Scheme [UAE & Saudi Arabia Editions] 

The Profit Margin Scheme allows businesses to calculate VAT only on the profit margin, not the full sale price. It applies to businesses selling second-hand goods, used cars, or certain retail items. 

Push E-Invoices to ZATCA’s Fatoora Platform [Saudi Arabia Edition]

Zoho Books enables businesses in Saudi Arabia to effortlessly comply with the new e-invoicing regulations by pushing e-invoices to ZATCA’s Fatoora platform.

Combined Tax Returns [Canada Edition]

Businesses can now generate combined GST/HST-QST returns, in addition to federal GST/HST returns and provincial tax returns such as British Columbia PST, QST, Manitoba RST, and Saskatchewan PST returns.

Smart BillPay [India, Canada & US Editions] 

The BillPay feature simplifies and streamlines the entire accounts payable process by automating everything from vendor onboarding to setting up approval workflows. It makes paying vendors more efficient and hassle-free.

File T4A & T5018 Slips [Canada Edition] 

Easily generate and file your T4A & T5018 slips directly to CRA with Zoho Books.

Revenue Recognition [US, Canada, Mexico, UAE & Saudi Arabia Editions] 

Revenue recognition ensures that businesses report their revenue accurately, reflecting when it is earned rather than when the payment is made.

Manage 1099 & W9 [US Edition] 

With Zoho Books, you can easily collect W-9 forms from contractors, send 1099-NEC and 1099-MISC forms at year-end, and file them directly with the IRS, ensuring full compliance with IRS regulations. 

Retainer Invoices [Mexico Edition]

We now support the Retainer Invoices module. You can now easily stamp and submit e-invoices to the SAT portal as well as cancel them directly from within Zoho Books.

E-Accounting [Mexico Edition]

You can submit the Chart of Accounts, Trial Balance, and Journal reports in XML format to meet SAT regulatory requirements. The Account Group Code field has been added to the Accountant and Banking modules, which helps you add the unique identifier provided by SAT and categorize account types.






Charge a Late Fee to Your Customers [US &Global Editions]

A late fee is an extra charge for overdue invoices. You can charge a percentage of your customer's invoice total or a fixed amount and choose to exclude loyal customers.

Apply Tax to Your Purchase Transactions [US Edition]

You can now apply use tax and other applicable taxes to your purchase transactions and track them using the Tax Paid Expense account.

Assign a Company ID to your Customers and Vendors [Global Edition] 

We’ve introduced the Company ID field on the Customers and Vendors creation page to enter your company’s unique identification number.

Apply Transaction Posting Date to Your Transactions [Global, US & Canada Editions] 

The Transaction Posting Date is the date when journal entries for transactions like invoices, bills, payments, receipts, credit notes, and vendor credits are recorded. 



Manage Tax Exemptions and Out-of-Scope Transactions [UK Edition] 

We have introduced the Tax Exemption and Out of Scope options to manage transactions that are either exempt from tax or fall outside the scope of VAT.

Apply TDS Surcharge and Cess to Your Bills [India Edition]

You can now create and apply TDS surcharge and cess to your bills. A surcharge is an additional tax applied to the existing tax, while cess is a tax imposed by the government for a specific purpose.

Apply Tax on Shipping Charge [US Edition] 

You can now associate tax or tax exemption with shipping charges, and the tax will be tracked in the Tax Payable liability account.



Associate TDS at Line-item Level [India Edition] 

You can now associate TDS at the line-item level. We have also introduced Direct Taxes under Settings, where you can select the TDS preference.

Minimized View for Web Tabs

This feature lets you access web tabs from anywhere within the app. In the minimized view, you can navigate between modules while keeping web tabs compact. 

Multi-criteria Workflow 

With this feature, you can now define multiple criteria and associate actions with a single workflow rule.



Alipay Payment Method 

You can now collect payments in CNY globally with Alipay as the payment method. You can also receive payments in various other currencies based on your Stripe account's location.

Klarna Payment Method 

Klarna offers the option to pay immediately, later, or in installments. Even if your customers choose installments or pay later options, Stripe transfers the full payment amount to the recipient right away.





Create Purchase Receives for Service Items

You can create a Purchase Receive for service items and verify if all your services have been fulfilled.

Set Opening Stock for Multiple Warehouses

You can set opening stock for multiple warehouses across different branches when creating or editing item groups with multiple products.

Select Items by Category in Bulk

You can now filter and select items from one or more specific categories when adding items in bulk to sales and purchase transactions.



Form 1099 Vendor Payment Report [US Edition]

Form 1099 is a report used to track payments made to non-employees like freelancers and vendors.

TDS Receivables Summary Report [India Edition]

You can view the total TDS deductions made on invoices, bills of supply, customer debit notes, and credit notes with this report.

Zoho Marketplace Extensions

Must-Have Zoho Books Extensions for 2024: The Best in Every Category!







Introducing the new South Africa edition of Zoho Books. This edition allows you to send and receive VAT-compliant transactions at SARS-approved rates, generate VAT201 and VAT Audit reports for returns, mark items as capital assets, and set standard rates for items and tax treatments for customers and vendors. 




iOS

  • We've redesigned the app with a sleek design and simplified interactions, making your accounting experience smoother than ever! 
  • You can now connect your bank account using Plaid. [US & Canada Editions]
  • Personalize transaction PDFs by customizing color themes, adding bank details, and including your signature for a professional touch.
  • We support adding reporting tags to transactions, customers, and items.
  • You can correct and make adjustments to an invoice that is in the Sent status. [Germany Edition]
  • You can now auto-generate customer or vendor numbers when creating customers or vendors.

Android

  • Collect a percentage of the invoice amount or a fixed fee as a late charge when the payment is not made by the due date.
  • You can now cancel or make corrections to sent invoices.
  • We have launched the new South Africa Edition.
  • You can now manually create bank accounts or automatically sync accounts with Zoho Books using Plaid and Yodlee. [US & Canada Editions]
  • Provide discounts to customers who pay their invoices a certain number of days before the due date.

Windows

  • We have now supported the Documents module.
  • You can split and make payments on your invoices.
  • You can now select French and Hindi as your language at the organization level in the app.
  • We have launched the new South Africa and Germany editions.
  • Configure your sender email preferences under settings.
  • You can now format text (bold, italics) within the comments section.


  • We conducted over 50 online webinars in 6 regional languages such as Marathi, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada, covering a wide range of topics and highlighting key features to help users navigate and make the most of Zoho Books.
  • We organized 21 community meetups across 21 cities in India, where users learned about the new updates and features of Zoho Books, along with useful tips and tricks for better usage.





Rochelle Spence

Business Manager, Communications Consulting Group

For nearly a decade, Zoho Books has been an integral part of our business. The integration with our CRM has greatly streamlined our financial processes, providing us with enhanced visibility and efficiency. The customizable features, especially late fee invoicing, have significantly improved our bookkeeping. Zoho Books has truly made managing our finances easier and more effective. 

Naveedh V.V

Make Your Own Perfume

Running a business requires smart accounts management. Zoho Books simplifies everything from invoicing to inventory in one easy, cloud-based platform. Access your data anytime, anywhere!




As we close out this year, we hope you've enjoyed the updates that have enhanced your accounting experience. Thank you for being a part of our journey, and here's to reaching new heights in the year ahead. 




    • Recent Topics

    • Actual vs Minimum

      Hi all, I am sure I am not the only one having this need. We are implementing billing on a 30-minute increment, with a minimum of 30 minutes per ticket. My question is, is there a way to create a formula or function to track both the minimum bill vs the
    • Multiple header in the quote table???

      Hello, Is it possible in Zoho CRM to add multiple headers or sections within the Quote product table, so that when the quote is printed it shows separate sections (for example “Products” and “Services”)? To clarify, I’m asking because: This does not appear
    • One Support Email Managed By Multiple Departments

      Hello,  We use one support email (support@company.com). Incoming emails come to the "Support Department" and based on what the customer is asking, we route that ticket to different departments (billing, technical support, etc.). When users in these different
    • RSC Connectivity Linkedin Recruiter RPS

      It seems there's a bit of a push from Linkedin Talent Solutions to keep integrations moving. My Account Manager confirmed that Zoho Recruit is a Certified Linkedin Linkedin Partner but does not have RSC as of yet., (we knew that :-) She encouraged me
    • Error AS101 when adding new email alias

      Hi, I am trying to add apple@(mydomain).com The error AS101 is shown while I try to add the alias.
    • New UI in Zoho One CRM

      Hello, Just switched to the new UI for Zoho One CRM, do not like it, especially the search functions. What are the steps to backstep to the previous UI? UPDATE: I found it.
    • ZOHO.CRM.UI.Record.open not working properly

      I have a Zoho CRM Widget and in it I have a block where it will open the blocks Meeting like below block.addEventListener("click", () => { ZOHO.CRM.UI.Record.open({ Entity: "Events", RecordID: meeting.id }).catch(err => { console.error("Open record failed:",
    • Python - code studio

      Hi, I see the code studio is "coming soon". We have some files that will require some more complex transformation, is this feature far off? It appears to have been released in Zoho Analytics already
    • 🚀 WorkDrive 6.0 (Phase 1): Empowering Teams with Content Intelligence, Automation, Accessibility, and Control

      Hello, everyone! WorkDrive continues to evolve from a robust file management solution into an intelligent, secure, and connected content collaboration platform for modern businesses. Our goal remains unchanged: to simplify teamwork, strengthen data security,
    • Introducing Workqueue: your all-in-one view to manage daily work

      Hello all, We’re excited to introduce a major productivity boost to your CRM experience: Workqueue, a dynamic, all-in-one workspace that brings every important sales activity, approval, and follow-up right to your fingertips. What is Workqueue? Sales
    • Department Overview by Modified Time

      We are trying to create visuals to show the work our agents do in Zoho Desk. Using Zoho Analytics how can we create a Department Overview per modified time and not ticket created time? In order for us to get an accurate view of the work our agents are
    • Zoho Commerce

      Hi, I have zoho one and use Zoho Books. I am very interested in Zoho Commerce , especially with how all is integrated but have a question. I do not want my store to show prices for customers that are not log in. Is there a way to hide the prices if not
    • Support Custom Background in Zoho Cliq Video Calls and Meetings

      Hello Zoho Cliq Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to request an enhancement to the video background capabilities in Zoho Cliq, specifically the ability to upload and use custom backgrounds. Current Limitation At present, Zoho Cliq allows
    • Upload own Background Image and set Camera to 16:9

      Hi, in all known online meeting tools, I can set up a background image reflecting our corporate design. This doesn't work in Cliq. Additionally, Cliq detects our cameras as 4:3, showing black bars on the right and left sides during the meeting. Where
    • ISO 27001 Compliance

      What are people doing to ensure ISO 27001 compliance for their Zoho environments? It would make sense for Log360 Cloud to integrate natively with the Zoho suite, but that is not the case. It requires a gateway cluster, which is not an option for a fully
    • Zoho People - Retrieve the Leave Details - get("LeaveCount")

      Hi, Zoho People I need to collect all of an employee's leave requests for the calendar year and check how many half-days they have taken. If I run the script on the query he just modified, I can retrieve the information related to that query and use the
    • Export blueprint as a high-resolution PDF or image file

      This would be a good feature for organizations that want to share the blueprint process with their employees but don't want them to have access to the blueprint in the system settings. At the moment all that users can do is screenshot the blueprint or
    • Importing into Multiselect Picklist

      Hi, We just completed a trade show and one of the bits of information we collect is tool style. The application supplied by the show set this up as individual questions. For example, if the customer used Thick Turret and Trumpf style but not Thin Turret,
    • What's new in Zoho Sheet: Simplify data entry and collaboration

      Hello, Zoho Sheet community! Last year, our team was focused on research and development so we could deliver updates that enhance your spreadsheet experience. This year, we’re excited to deliver those enhancements—but we'll be rolling them out incrementally
    • Zoho CRM for Everyone's NextGen UI Gets an Upgrade

      Hello Everyone We've made improvements to Zoho CRM for Everyone's Nextgen UI. These changes are the result of valuable feedback from you where we’ve focused on improving usability, providing wider screen space, and making navigation smoother so everything
    • Marketer's Space: New to Campaigns? Some common early mistakes that might occur

      Hello Marketers, Welcome back to another post in Marketer's Space. If you're just getting started with Zoho Campaigns, things can feel exciting and slightly confusing at the same time. You're not alone. Most early frustrations come from setup gaps rather
    • This user is not allowed to add in Zoho. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details

      Hello, Just signed up to ZOHO on a friend's recommendation. Got the TXT part (verified my domain), but whenever I try to add ANY user, I get the error: This user is not allowed to add in Zoho. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details I have emailed as well and writing here as well because when I searched, I saw many people faced the same issue and instead of email, they got a faster response here. My domain is: raisingreaderspk . com Hope this can be resolved.  Thank you
    • New 2026 Application Themes

      Love the new themes - shame you can't get a little more granular with the colours, ie 3 different colours so one for the dropdown menu background. Also, I did have our logo above the application name but it appears you can't change logo placement position
    • Workflow Rule - Field Updates: Ability to use Placeholders

      It will be great if you can use placeholder tags to update fields. For example if we want to update a custom field with the client name we can use ${CONTACT.CONTACT_FIRSTNAME}${CONTACT.CONTACT_LASTNAME}, etc
    • Need a Universal Search Option in Zohobooks

      Hello Zoho, Need a Universal Search Option in Zohobooks to search across all transactions in our books of accounts. Please do the needful Thanks
    • Implement Date-Time-Based Triggers in Zoho Desk

      Dear Zoho Desk Support Team, We are writing to request a new feature that would allow for the creation of workflows triggered by specific date-time conditions. Currently, Zoho Desk does not provide native support for date-time-based triggers, limiting
    • Why is my Lookup field not being set through Desk's API?

      Hello, I'm having trouble setting a custom field when creating a Ticket in Zoho Desk. The endpoint I'm consulting is "https://desk.zoho.com/api/v1/tickets" and even though my payload has the right format, with a "cf" key dedicated to all custom fields,
    • How exactly does "Reply assistance" work in Zoho Desk? What context is sent to the LLM?

      Hi, Im trying to better understand the technical behavior of the feature "Reply assistance" in Zoho Desk, and I couldn’t find detailed information in the current documentation. Specifically, I have questions about what data is actually being sent to the
    • Deletion Workflows

      Hello, Unless I missed it, we can't create deletion workflows. My usecase is to auto-delete junk leads. We have field called lead status, and an agent qualify all our new leads. When it's a junk lead she chose the correspondant value in the picklist. My goal is that the system delete them automatically. Is that possible? Planed ?
    • URGENTImpossible to book an appointement

      J'essaie plusieurs fois mais aucun créneau n''est disponible Message d'erreur lorsque j'essaie de sélectionner une date
    • Sendpulse SMTP/IMAP Issues

      It’s possible Zoho made some changes on their side. Sometimes, even if your regular password works, Zoho requires an app-specific password for external apps like SendPulse to connect via IMAP. You can create this in Zoho’s security settings and use it
    • Insane mail security

      I cannot access my email... anywhere. For some reason the password for the Mail app on my Mac is being rejected, it worked yesterday but now it doesn't? Ok let's try the web interface. I can access my general Zoho login with the password but if I want
    • UI issue with Organize Tabs

      When looking at the organize Tabs window (bellow) you can see that some tabs are grayed out. there is also a "Add Module/Web Tab" button. When looking at this screen it's clear that the grayed out tabs can not be removed from the portal user's screen
    • Task list flag Internal/External for all phases

      Phases are commonly used in projects to note milestones in the progression of a project, while task lists can be used to group different types of tasks together. It makes sense to be able to define a task list as either internal or external however the
    • HAVING PROBLEM WITH SENDING EMAIL

      Hi all, I'm unable to receive emails on info@germanforgirls.eu. I'm getting an error code 550. 5.1.1. invalid email recipients. Moreso, I would like info@germanforgirls.eu to be the default "send from" email and not solomon@germanforgirls.eu. Kindly see
    • Sharing my portal URL with clients outside the project

      Hi I need help making my project public for anyone to check on my task. I'm a freelance artist and I use trello to keep track on my client's projects however I wanted to do an upgrade. Went on here and so far I'm loving it. However, I'm having an issue sharing my url to those to see progress. They said they needed an account to access my project. How do I fix this? Without them needing an account.
    • Different Task Layouts for Subtasks

      I was wondering how it would be possible for a subtask to have a different task layout to the parent task.
    • Subscription went to default (@zoho.com) address instead for custom domain

      Hello! So I bought a lite sub to test things out, wanting to use my own domain. However, after passing through all the verification steps (completed now), it seems that the sub I bought was assigned to the default email that I already had with Zoho and
    • Canvas templates and font-family

      i dont understant why its always the smallest things that waste all of my time! why in some videos i see they have tamplates in the Canvas editor and i cant seem to fint it? and why oih why cant i cange the font? i just want simple Arial! help meeeeeeeeee
    • Re: Ca.gory groups and not all email addresses being added to a group emails

      Hi, I have added emails under 'Contacts' into categories but when sending a group email and putting the category name in not all email addresses go onto the email. I have refreshed the page, deleted and redone the info etc with no luck. I only found out
    • Next Page