Zoho Invoice is growing constantly as a product and we bring in updates every month to help you manage your business efficiently. Let's take a look at the new features and enhancements introduced in Zoho Invoice for the month of May.

Send messages with the SMS add-on (Indian Edition)

We have introduced the SMS add-on feature for our Indian customers. You can now send SMS messages to your customers regarding their payments (provided they have a valid mobile phone number). You can also configure when and to whom these messages should be sent. Read more about the SMS add-on in our blog or help document. 

To do this: Go to Settings > SMS Notifications > Buy Credits > Configure the SMS templates.

Set validation rules for estimates

Does your business have separate validation rules to be followed apart from the default ones present in Zoho Invoice? Such as restricting the discount applied? We have brought in validation rules for estimates. Using this, you can set certain restrictions for the values allowed for different fields in an estimate.

You can choose the field for which you want to set the restriction, select the required condition and customize the alert message that should be thrown when the validation is not met. Once you save the validation rule, you can view its detailed flow chart.

To do this: Go to Settings > Preferences > Estimates > Validation Rules > + New Validation Rule.

Pause the timer for logging time

Do you face interruptions when performing a task? Say for example a phone call? You can now pause the timer running for your project whenever you meet with any interruptions and resume logging time once you're back. Learn More.

Create transactions from the items list page

You can now create an estimate or invoice right from the items list page in Zoho Invoice. This will come in handy when you need to filter out items based on certain search criteria and create a transaction for them.

To do this: Go to the Items module > Select the item(s) for which you want to create a transaction > New Transaction > Select Estimate/Invoice.

Edit items within a transaction

Want to make a few last-minute changes to your item's details? You can now edit the details of an item right within a transaction. Once you have edited the details, you can either choose to update just the item details (without updating them in the transaction) by clicking Save, or update the item details along with the line item details by clicking Save & Update Line Item.

Added iDEAL payment through Stripe gateway

We have introduced the iDEAL payment mode for users having the Zoho Invoice -Stripe integration. Stripe users in the US and Europe regions can now accept iDEAL payments from customers in Netherlands. Moreover, you can choose the payment modes (supported by Stripe) to be shown in the Client Portal by enabling them in the Advanced Settings of the Stripe integration.

GoCardless payment gateway

The GoCardless payment gateway is now supported for organizations in Canada, New Zealand and Switzerland. Learn more about setting up GoCardless integration from our help document.

Template enhancements

• When selecting a font for the PDF templates, you can now view the languages supported by it.
  

      To view this:  Go to Settings > Templates > Select the required module > Click Edit on the template > Template Properties > PDF Font.

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• We now support Thai characters in the template PDFs. To use these characters in your PDF, you will have to select Maitree as the PDF Font when customizing the template.
  

      To do this: Go to Settings > Templates > Select the required module > Click Edit on the template > Template Properties > PDF Font > Select Maitree.  

That's not all, check out our what's new timeline and release notes for the other updates made this month. Try out these features and let us know your thoughts in the comments below. We'll be back next month with yet another set of updates.

Cheers,
Lavanya
The Zoho Invoice Team