Building extensions #1: Creating and testing extensions for Zoho Finance Suite applications

Building extensions #1: Creating and testing extensions for Zoho Finance Suite applications

Hello developers!

We're excited to announce a new series called "Building extensions" to assist developers in creating efficient extensions for Zoho Finance Suite products. We'll support and guide you through the process of creating an extension and using the features offered in the developer portal.

What are extensions?

Extensions are installable plugins or add-ons that help enhance the existing functionality of your Zoho product or seamlessly integrate and interact with third-party applications for data transmission.

How can you build extensions?

Zoho offers a developer platform called Zoho Developer that allows you to build different types of applications. Sigma is a platform offered within Zoho Developer that is specifically designed for creating extensions for various Zoho products. Throughout this series, we'll look at how to create and develop extensions for the Zoho Finance Suite applications using Sigma.

Get to know all about extensions and building them further in detail.

Sigma extension support

The Zoho Finance Suite consists of seven applications: Zoho Books, Zoho Inventory, Zoho Expense, Zoho Invoice, Zoho Billing, Zoho Checkout, and Zoho Payroll. Currently, the Sigma platform supports creating and building extensions for these five Zoho Finance applications:
  • Zoho Books
  • Zoho Inventory
  • Zoho Expense
  • Zoho Invoice
  • Zoho Billing
Creating an extension
  • Log in or sign up at developer.zoho.com.
  • Go to Sigma and access your workspace.
  • Once you enter your workspace, you'll be taken to the Extensions section in Sigma.
  • Click the New Extension button to start building an extension.                                                                                     
  • Enter a name and description for the extension and choose the service you want to build the extension for. As mentioned earlier, Sigma offers support for Zoho Books, Zoho Invoice, Zoho Inventory, Zoho Billing, and Zoho Expense.                                                                                          
  • For our demo, let's choose the service as Zoho Books. Accept the terms and conditions, and then click Create.                                                                                          
  • The extension is successfully created. You can click the Extension Details icon to see an overview of the extension.                                                                                          
The extension details page shows the general details of the extension, such as creation date, creation time, and version, and allows you to associate developers with the extension.
  • Click the Edit Extension icon to start developing the extension.                                                                                  
  • The Zoho Books Developer Portal opens with the options and native features available to customize, curate, and develop your extension.                                                                
Zoho Books Developer Portal sections

The developer portal has four different sections to help customize and build your extension.

Learn: This section lists the native Zoho Books capabilities that can be used to create and develop extensions. Clicking the Set up Now button next to each feature will take you to the feature's development setup page.
                                                                                           

Build: This is the development setup section, which includes customization, automation, and components like connections, widgets, schedules, webhooks, and signals. You can customize your extension preferences, establish connections to integrate with other applications, and design custom interfaces to enhance user experience.
                                                                                          

Configure: This section assists with handling your extension's required configurations, whether they are generic settings or customizations required from the user. You can add global fields, which can be incorporated as either variables that store static data or through custom widgets that retrieve user inputs. You can also define functionalities that happen during installation and uninstallation.
                                                                                          

Publish: Once the extension has been built and configured, you can use this section to publish it for either private or public use. In both cases, the Zoho Books team will review the extension; for public extensions listed on Zoho Marketplace, the Zoho Marketplace approval team will also review them. You can share your privately published extension with other users using the Shared List option.
                                                                                          

We will explore more about each of these sections and their features in upcoming posts.

Testing an extension

The Zoho Books Developer Portal offers a dedicated testing environment for each extension, allowing you to test and validate it before publishing.

As a developer, you can use the Test Your Extension option in the top right corner of the portal to access your extension's sandbox environment.
                                                                  

This will redirect you to the sandbox testing environment for the extension you're developing, which is similar to Zoho Books and contains relevant modules to test with.
                                                                  

You can populate necessary data and test your extension functionality. Once everything is validated, you can go ahead and publish your extension for private or public use.

For support or questions related to Zoho Finance Suite extension development, you can email developer@zohofinance.com.

We hope you found this guide useful. Keep following this space for more information!

Next>>

    • Recent Topics

    • Portal For Different Apps

      I found some older threads on this but didn't see anything very recent. I'm new to Zoho One so forgive me if my terminology is off a bit. I was hoping set up a single point of entry into Zoho One. So, many of the apps could be found in one single place

    • Calls undetected

      Zoho Voice records indicate my last call ended at 6:00 PM. All incoming and outgoing calls occurred between 6:00 PM and 7:00 PM.

    • Send Zoho Forms Link using Zoho CRM Email Templates

      I have set up Zoho Forms and CRM integration to pre-populate data from Zoho CRM to Zoho Forms. The setup is working fine. I have also created an email template in the Zoho CRM deals module to send Zoho forms links. So when I send an email using that template

    • Ask the Experts 25: Experience the full spectrum of Zoho Desk’s autumn and spring releases for 2025

      Hello Everyone, We’re on the 25th episode of our ATE series! It's a true milestone in our live community interactions! It’s been an amazing journey since we started in October 2018. Zoho Desk has come a long way, evolving with the support of a wonderful

    • Zoho Projects - Project Details on the Project Menu

      Hi Project's team, I've helped may businesses setup and use Zoho Project and one thing I see time and time again is confusion on where to find the Project Details information. I would be much more intuitive if Project Details was on the menu before Dashboard.

    • Introducing WhatsApp integration in Bigin

      Greetings! In today's business landscape, messaging apps play a significant role in customer operations. Customers can engage with businesses, seek support, ask questions, receive personalized recommendations, read reviews, and even make purchases—all

    • Creator HTML page refresh

      Hi, I have added around 5 different html snippets in single creator page. I understand, I can refresh the entire page from page script using Navigational URLs https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/creator/developer-guide/others/url-patterns/articles/navigational-urls

    • Zoho CRM Portal Field Level Permission Issue

      Hi Support Team, I am using the Zoho CRM Portal and configuring field-level editing permissions. However, we are unable to restrict portal users from editing certain fields. We have created a portal and provided View and Edit (Shared Only) access for

    • Zia Conversation Summary: Context at a glance for every customer interaction

      Hello everyone! Every customer conversation tells a story—but in CRM, that story is rarely in one place. A sales rep moving between multiple leads has to reopen long email threads, check call remarks, and revisit meeting notes just to remember what was

    • Zoho Projects - Show Task List as dropdown field on Task records

      Hi Project's Team, I noticed today that there is no field on a task record related to the task list it belongs to. A dropdown would be helpful for quickly moving tasks between lists while in a task. I know that you can go to "Other Actions" and choose

    • Zoho CRM Portal User Timeline History Unavailable

      Hi Support Team, We have noticed a feature limitation in the Zoho CRM portal. We created a portal for our vendors to edit records directly, but when vendors make updates, the Modified Time and Date fields are not being updated. Additionally, these updates

    • Zoho Desk - Custom Module Related List Columns on Tickets

      I have a custom module in Zoho Desk called Asana Tasks, each task has a lookup to a Ticket. On the Ticket I want to see the columns of the Asana Tasks in the related list . Is there a way to do this? Right now it just has the name of the record and I

    • New in Smart Prompt: Record Assistant for contextual assistance, and support for new AI models

      Smart Prompt helps teams stay informed and move faster by providing relevant suggestions where work happens in CRM. With this update, Smart Prompt becomes more adaptable to your organization’s AI preferences. You can now choose which Large Language Model

    • Changing the Default Search Criteria for Finding Duplicates

      Hey everyone, is it possible to adjust the default search criteria for finding and merging duplicate records? Right now, CRM uses some (in my opinion nonsensical) fields as search criteria for duplicate records which do nothing except dilute the results.

    • My followed tickets extension is not working under the All departments view

      Hi. I've installed the My followed tickets extension. However, when I try to open the extension under the all departments view, I get the following message: 'Sorry, this extension is not supported in the All Departments view.' How can I solve this p

    • Ticket Time Entry to Timesheet

      The title just about sums it up. I have searched here and not found anything relevant, but If I overlooked, then please set me straight.  We have staff that do nothing but close tickets in desk all day long. These tickets represent their timesheet. Is there a way to have this information sync or for a tech to go into their timesheet themselves and sync it with their tickets of the same timeframe?? We waste a ton of time doing timesheets and the old "Clock in/Clock out" isnt detailed enough for us!!

    • Calls undetected.

      The call is not showing on the call log.

    • Calls undetected

      Zoho is not reading calls made.

    • Related Lists filter

      I have Contacts showing in our Accounts module. I customized the Contacts module with an Employment Status field, with the following picklist options: "Primary Contact", "Secondary Contact", "Active Staff(not a main contact)", and "No longer employed".

    • Multi-currency and Products

      One of the main reasons I have gone down the Zoho route is because I need multi-currency support.  However, I find that products can only be priced in the home currency, We sell to the US and UK.  However, we maintain different price lists for each. 

    • Archiving Contacts

      How do I archive a list of contacts, or individual contacts?

    • How to add to Subforms via Zapier with Zoho Writer?

      I have the following layout for a Zoho Writer Document. As you can see there is a repeating subform taking in "Items". I am trying to make a Zapier integration with it, and I can see there is 1 field saying: "Items", but it does not specify how I'm supposed

    • Zoho Books | Product updates | November 2025

      Hello users, We’ve rolled out new features and enhancements in Zoho Books. From translating email notification templates to the new transaction locking restrictions, explore the updates designed to enhance your bookkeeping experience. Making Tax Digital

    • Missing information data Zoho inventory

      there some missing data in Zoho inventory connection. pick list stock counts bin location we have requested it via mail and the support team doesn’t gove feedback. has anyone achieve to get these info or to ask other ya les

    • Calendar Events Issues

      Not able to view scheduled events on my calendar

    • Extensions 101 webinar series: Build, integrate, and monetize with extensions

      Attention developers! Are you ready to take your extension development skills to the next level? We're excited to bring back the Extensions 101 webinar series with an expanded lineup of Zoho products and an introduction to more platform features. Last

    • Custom Related List Inside Zoho Books

      Hello, We can create the Related list inside the zoho books by the deluge code, I am sharing the reference code Please have a look may be it will help you. //..........Get Org Details organizationID = organization.get("organization_id"); Recordid = cm_g_a_data.get("module_record_id");

    • Where are recordings stored?

      I have hosted a couple of test meeting, used the "record" button to start and stop the recording but I am unable to find where are those recordings saved?  Can anybody help? Thanks

    • Zoho Desk's integration with Microsoft PowerBI delivers advanced analytics insights

      Hello everyone, Gaining advanced insights through reports and dashboards is one of the critical requirements of every business. In addition to key metrics tracked in Zoho Desk, such as agent performance, SLA adherence, and ticket lifecycle, businesses

    • Create static subforms in Zoho CRM: streamline data entry with pre-defined values

      Last modified on (9 July, 2025): This feature was available in early access and is currently being rolled out to customers in phases. Currently available for users in the the AU, CA, and SA DCs. It will be enabled for the remaining DCs in the next couple

    • IMAP error message in Zoho mail

      I cannot send emails today. Everything fine for years until today. Get a message: "You are yet to enable IMAP for your account. Please contact your administrator". Does anyone know how to correct this?

    • Enhancements to Zoho Map integration tasks

      Hello everyone, We're excited to announce enhancements to the Zoho Map integration tasks in Deluge, which will boost its performance. This post will walk you through the upcoming changes, explain why we're making them, and detail the steps you need to

    • IMAP stopped working today

      Hello! I've been a paid customer for more than 10 years, IMAP was always working fine. But today this is the error I've got on my iPhone: I've tried toggling the IMAP for my account (Mail -> Settings -> Mail accounts) off and on again, but that did not

    • Duplicating report but custom layout does not

      Dear Zoho Creator, I need to duplicate a report into 10 copies, but unfortunately the custom layout (detail view) doesn’t copy along with it. I tried exporting and importing the custom layout, but the field mappings are incorrect. I believe everyone are

    • Are custom portals accessible on the Zoho learn smartphone app?

      In other words, can users external to my organisation, once signed up, use the app in the same way as internal users? Thanks

    • When will Zoho Learn be able to support SCORM files on the mobile app?

      When I click the SCORM content, I just get a message saying it's not possible yet. Yet implies that it will be coming soon. All I'm asking for is a realistic timeline so I know whether or not to invest my time in using it. If it will be soon, then I will

    • Zoho Books/Inventory - Update Marketplace Sales Order via API

      Hi everyone, Does anyone know if there is a way to update Sales Orders created from a marketplace intigration (Shopify in this case) via API? I'm trying to cover a scenario where an order is changed on the Shopify end and the changes must be reflected

    • Conditional Layouts On Multi Select Field

      How we can use Conditional Layouts On Multi Select Field field? Please help.

    • Multiple columns in a form

      I am evaluating Zoho Creator. However, I am seeing almost no layout control on a form.  Just a basic 1 or 2 column format that is then imposed on the entire form.  That's not going to work for many, many real world cases. We need multiple columns per line, and we need each line/section to occupy a single column or be able to span the columns.   Someone please tell me that I'm missing something and the capability is actually there.  

    • Global search

      Hi! I think it would be great to have a global search that would give you results from all records of a database, no only for a single field of a single form as we have now. Thanks!

    • Next Page