#11 Zoho Books Digest

#11 Zoho Books Digest

Hello Readers,

We are back with the 11th edition of Zoho Books Digest. Here's what we have in store for the community this month.

Upcoming Events

Solutions Talk series with Zoho Books

Are you a business owner in the Middle East looking to streamline your entire Quote-to-Cash process? We've got you covered! Join us for our free solutions talk in partnership with Alnafitha IT, a Jeddah based IT services leader. We will be discussing some major accounting challenges in the IT services segment, industry-specific insights, and how to balance cost and growth using powerful financial platforms.

Date: 29 March 2022
Time: 12 PM AST

Feature Spotlight

Contextual Chat in Zoho Books

Have trouble coordinating and collaborating with your teammates on transactions? Contextual Chat in Zoho Books is here to help you! With contextual chats, you can initiate discussions with other users about transactions, contacts, items, bank accounts, or projects—all from Zoho Books. This feature is powered by Zoho Cliq, an app that makes collaboration and communication easy for teams.

With contextual chats, you can:
  • Discuss transactions and records with specific participants
  • Get instant notifications every time a user initiates a discussion over contextual chat
  • Share images and documents
  • Initiate audio and video calls with users of your Zoho Books organization
Check out our help document to learn how to set up contextual chat for your organization and collaborate seamlessly.

What's New

Upload Documents from Vendor and Client Portal

Before, customer and vendor related details could only be uploaded through the respective attachment sections in Zoho Books.

Now, you can directly upload and share documents via the vendor and client portal. The uploaded document will appear in the attachment section of the customer or vendor profile in Zoho Books.

To allow your customers and vendors to attach documents through the portal:
1. Log in to Zoho Books.
2. Go to Settings, then Preferences.
3. Select the checkbox next to 'Allow customer to edit their information in the portal.'

Note: Only the primary contact of a client or vendor will be able to upload documents from the Client or Vendor portal.




In case you missed it

This year, April 1st is a day of compliance. But don't worry, we've been updating Zoho Books so that it's ready to help you stay on top of any new mandates and regulations hassle-free.

Audit Trail and E-invoicing (India)

According to the notification issued by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, the deadline for companies to start using an accounting software with audit trails is April 1, 2022. The CBIC has also said that e-invoicing will now be mandatory for businesses with an annual turnover of INR 20 crore and above, starting from April 1, 2022.

Click to learn about how you can get Audit Trail and E-invoicing ready with Zoho Books.

MTD for VAT (UK)

From April 1, 2022, all VAT- registered businesses are required to file their VAT returns digitally through MTD, regardless of their turnover. Businesses are required to use HMRC-authorized and MTD-compatible software to keep digital records and file VAT returns.


Accounting reads

Let's face it, collecting payments from customers is one of the most tedious and time-consuming tasks for business owners. Our experts have your back with a detailed plan on how to recover overdue payments effectively and get your money back in your register.


Customer Stories

In this edition of Digest, we are thrilled to share the success story of Ramakrishna Math and Mission, which is a renowned, spiritual non-government organization that has been doing humanitarian and social service activities for more than a century. Here is what they have to say about their experience with Zoho Books:

"With the increase in non-profit tax laws and compliance regulations, organisations need to move towards user-friendly automated systems that can do all their accounting and tax-related tasks in just a few clicks. This will allow NGOs to focus and work towards their mission. If you are an NGO looking to manage your accounting operations, we believe Zoho Books will be a suitable option. It is an intuitive, tax-compliant, feature-packed solution that can seamlessly integrate with other Zoho Finance apps, and it has an excellent support team."

We're eager to hear and share more stories about businesses using Zoho Books. If you would like to share your story with us, let us know in the comments, and we'll get in touch with you!

P.S.: Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Turn on your notifications to stay up to date on what we're doing.

Until next time!

Cheers,
Diksha Uniyal
Customer Relations | Zoho Books

    Access your files securely from anywhere







                            Zoho Developer Community





                                                  Use cases

                                                  Make the most of Zoho Desk with the use cases.

                                                   
                                                    

                                                  eBooks

                                                  Download free eBooks and access a range of topics to get deeper insight on successfully using Zoho Desk.

                                                   
                                                    

                                                  Videos

                                                  Watch comprehensive videos on features and other important topics that will help you master Zoho Desk.

                                                   
                                                    

                                                  Webinar

                                                  Sign up for our webinars and learn the Zoho Desk basics, from customization to automation and more

                                                   
                                                    
                                                  • Desk Community Learning Series


                                                  • Meetups


                                                  • Ask the Experts


                                                  • Kbase


                                                  • Resources


                                                  • Glossary


                                                  • Desk Marketplace


                                                  • MVP Corner






                                                            Manage your brands on social media



                                                                  Zoho TeamInbox Resources



                                                                      Zoho CRM Plus Resources

                                                                        Zoho Books Resources


                                                                          Zoho Subscriptions Resources

                                                                            Zoho Projects Resources


                                                                              Zoho Sprints Resources


                                                                                Qntrl Resources


                                                                                  Zoho Creator Resources



                                                                                      Zoho CRM Resources

                                                                                      • CRM Community Learning Series

                                                                                        CRM Community Learning Series


                                                                                      • Kaizen

                                                                                        Kaizen

                                                                                      • Functions

                                                                                        Functions

                                                                                      • Meetups

                                                                                        Meetups

                                                                                      • Kbase

                                                                                        Kbase

                                                                                      • Resources

                                                                                        Resources

                                                                                      • Digest

                                                                                        Digest

                                                                                      • CRM Marketplace

                                                                                        CRM Marketplace

                                                                                      • MVP Corner

                                                                                        MVP Corner







                                                                                          Design. Discuss. Deliver.

                                                                                          Create visually engaging stories with Zoho Show.

                                                                                          Get Started Now


                                                                                            Zoho Show Resources


                                                                                              Zoho Writer Writer

                                                                                              Get Started. Write Away!

                                                                                              Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.

                                                                                                Zoho CRM コンテンツ






                                                                                                  Nederlandse Hulpbronnen


                                                                                                      ご検討中の方




                                                                                                            • Recent Topics

                                                                                                            • Zoho Commerce - Enable Company Name and Tax Number collection for B2B orders in Global Edition

                                                                                                              Please enable Company Name and Tax Details option on checkout settings in Zoho Commerce Global Edition. It is still important to collect Company Name and Tax Number for B2B sales in many countries. My business is based in Ireland (in the EU) and I have
                                                                                                            • ZohoSign and ZohoBooks Integration/Workflow

                                                                                                              Hello All, We utilize ZohoSign for signatures on tax eFiles. We utilize Dynamic KBA. Additionally, we use ZohoBooks for invoicing for these services. Is there a way to accomplish the following: Send a copy of the Tax Return, Invoice and eFiles in one
                                                                                                            • Manage monthly tasks with projectsf

                                                                                                              Hi All I run a finance and operations team where we need both teams to complete monthly tasks to ensure we hit our deadlines. Can Zoho projects be used for this. There many finance focused tools but we have Zoho one so want to explore Thanks Will
                                                                                                            • Zoho Suite is very slow

                                                                                                              Since today Zoho is incredibly slow over all applications! What's going on?
                                                                                                            • How can I track which zoho users are actively using Zoho CRM

                                                                                                              I have several licenses of Zoho CRM. We now need to add a new user. I could purchase a new license, but before I do, I would like to see if any of our existing users are not actively using the license assigned to them. How can I determine the activity
                                                                                                            • Is anyone else having trouble saving a custom image in their email signature, or is it just me?

                                                                                                              When I try to save the image I get an error that says "Operation Failed" I opened a support ticket two weeks ago and received a response that it would be debugged, but it still isn’t working
                                                                                                            • Combine and hide invoice lines

                                                                                                              In quickbooks we are able to create a invoice line that combines and hides invoices lines below. eg. Brochure design         $1000 (total of lines below, the client can see this line) Graphic Design           $600 (hidden but entered to reporting and
                                                                                                            • Option to Disable Knowledge Base Section in Feedback Widget Popup Hello Zoho Desk Team

                                                                                                              Hello Zoho Desk Team, How are you? We are actively using Zoho Desk and would like to make more use of the Feedback Widget. One of the ways we implement it is through the popup option. At the moment, the popup always displays the Knowledge Base section,
                                                                                                            • The Social Wall: August 2025

                                                                                                              Hello everyone, As summer ends, Zoho Social is gearing up for some exciting, bigger updates lined up for the months ahead. While those are in the works, we rolled out a few handy feature updates in August to keep your social media management running smoothly.
                                                                                                            • Transaction Locking with the dynamic date

                                                                                                              Is it possible to dynamically update dates on transaction locking. We want to lock transaction x days from today
                                                                                                            • Zoho Devops

                                                                                                              We have a Zoho one account which we have integrated with an SAS educational product, sold on a subscription model, using webhooks and API calls. We make some use of custom fields and cross module lookups and relationships. We utilize CRM, Books and billing
                                                                                                            • Fuel up your sales with the Zoho SalesIQ + Bigin integration

                                                                                                              Hi everyone! We’re happy to bring you the all-new Zoho SalesIQ + Bigin integration. With this, every prospect from your website instantly becomes a contact in Bigin, complete with transcripts and follow-up tasks, so you never lose a lead again. Let's
                                                                                                            • Introducing AI-powered Assessments & Zoho's native LLM, Zia

                                                                                                              We’ve shipped a cleaner, faster way to create assessments in Zoho Recruit. 🚀 Instead of manually building question banks or copying old templates, you can now generate ready-to-use assessments in just a few clicks, all tailored to the role you’re hiring
                                                                                                            • Ability to Reset Visitor Fields During an Active Chat Flow

                                                                                                              Hello Zoho SalesIQ Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to propose a feature enhancement to Zoho SalesIQ regarding the management of visitor fields within Zobot flows. Use Case: Our bot asks the visitor to provide information about a 3rd person
                                                                                                            • External ID in Zoho CRM

                                                                                                              Hello everyone! We know that Zoho CRM allows you to integrate third-party apps and manipulate data through APIs. While you integrate a third-party application, you may want to store the third-party reference IDs in Zoho CRM's records. To meet this need
                                                                                                            • Some emails are not being delivered

                                                                                                              I have this problem where some of my mail just seems to disappear. When I send it, it appears as sent with no mention of any problem, but my recipient never gets it, not even in the Spam folder. Same for receiving, I have a secondary e-mail address, and
                                                                                                            • New in Zoho Chat : Search for contacts, files, links & conversations with the all new powerful 'Smart Search' bar.

                                                                                                              With the newly revamped 'Smart Search' bar in Zoho Chat, we have made your search for contacts, chats, files and links super quick and easy using Search Quantifiers.   Search for a contact or specific conversations using quantifiers, such as, from: @user_name - to find chats or channel conversations received from a specific user. to: @user_name - to find chats or channel conversations sent to a specific user. in: #channel_name - to find a particular instance in a channel. in: #chat_name - to find
                                                                                                            • Template modifiactions

                                                                                                              Hello, I am struggling with the templates in ZOHO Books. Especially with the placement of some items, like company address, ship to, bill to etc.  For example: One item I like from template X (placement of ship to and bill to next to each other in the
                                                                                                            • Aggregating the First Value in the Group By of a dataset

                                                                                                              Hi I am trying to get the following Aggregate Formula to work in my chart, but cannot seem to get the right format. I have a series of data that I am running an include_groupby and want to SUM only a column in the first row of each group. So for example.
                                                                                                            • Admin Control Over Profile Picture Visibility in Zoho One

                                                                                                              Hello Zoho Team, We hope you are doing well. Currently, as per Zoho’s design, each user can manage the visibility of their profile picture from their own Zoho Accounts page: accounts.zoho.com → Personal Information → Profile Picture → Profile Picture
                                                                                                            • Track Zoho Campaign and Workflow sales impact

                                                                                                              I am attempting to measure the performance of our marketing workflows and campaigns by comparing the date each campaign was sent to a contact with the purchase date of the contact. For example, if Contact A was sent Email A on 9/1 and made a purchase
                                                                                                            • Tables for Europe Datacenter customers?

                                                                                                              It's been over a year now for the launch of Zoho Tables - and still not available für EU DC customers. When will it be available?
                                                                                                            • What is a line break code for zoho?

                                                                                                              Hi, I am archiving data by adding values from a single line field from one form to a multi-line field in another form. So I need a code/function that starts a new line on that multi-line field so it does not just keep adding it on the same line. Example, doing something like this means that it will be on a same line. archive.field1 = archive.field1 + input.Field1 I need a code so the input.Field1 can just start on the next line. Instead of "value 1, 2,3,4,5" It will be: "1 2 3 4 etc.".  something
                                                                                                            • Automatic Project Owner change

                                                                                                              Is there a way to change Project Owner automatically once a specific Milestone in a project is marked as completed. Different Teams are working on projects in our Org, they have their own Milestones to complete and so we transfer the project from team
                                                                                                            • Button to add product to cart

                                                                                                              Is there a way to have a button on a page, that when clicked, will add Qty 1 of a product to the cart?
                                                                                                            • Problem with Submit Button Design

                                                                                                              I have made a template to apply to my forms and under the button controls, I have it set to "standard" and yet it's still filling the container. This is super frustrating and looks weird. Why do we not have full control over button size? How can I fix
                                                                                                            • Zoho CRM- Authorize your Microsoft Teams account issue

                                                                                                              Hi, I tried to link Zoho CRM with Teams and I got the following message: Clicking "Authorize now" sent me to the following page, Microsoft tried to start a session but, after 3 seconds the page closed and nothing happened. I get the same message each
                                                                                                            • Passing the CRM

                                                                                                              Hi, I am hoping someone can help. I have a zoho form that has a CRM lookup field. I was hoping to send this to my publicly to clients via a text message and the form then attaches the signed form back to the custom module. This work absolutely fine when
                                                                                                            • Is there a way to associate an email in ZOHO Main to a Vendor record in ZOHO CRM

                                                                                                              My situation is as below, I have a vendor in ZOHO CRM lets say "Vend A" and an associated contact, "Cont A" If Cont A sends me an email using the email I've registered in the contact record the standard OOTB email sync will work. But the vendor has some
                                                                                                            • Bank charges are applied. Please select a bank account.

                                                                                                              Hello, I'm trying to add bank charges to a customer payment, but I get the error message "Bank charges are applied. Please select a bank account." I found this old thread, where it says that I need to "select a Bank account for the 'Deposit To' dropdown
                                                                                                            • Kaizen #207 - Answering your Questions | Advanced Queries using COQL API

                                                                                                              Hi everyone, and welcome to another Kaizen week! As part of Kaizen #200 milestone, many of you shared topics you would like us to cover, and we have been addressing them one by one over the past few weeks. Today, we are picking up one of those requests
                                                                                                            • Présentation de SecureForms dans Zoho Vault

                                                                                                              Soyons francs : demander à quelqu’un de transmettre un mot de passe ou des informations sensibles n’est jamais une tâche facile. On attend, on relance, parfois de nombreuses fois. Et quand l’information arrive, elle se retrouve souvent dispersée dans
                                                                                                            • Introducing Connected Records to bring business context to every aspect of your work in Zoho CRM for Everyone

                                                                                                              Hello Everyone, We are excited to unveil phase one of a powerful enhancement to CRM for Everyone - Connected Records, available only in CRM's Nextgen UI. With CRM for Everyone, businesses can onboard all customer-facing teams onto the CRM platform to
                                                                                                            • Granular Email Forwarding Controls in Zoho Mail (Admin Console and Zoho One)

                                                                                                              Hello Zoho Mail Team, How are you? At present, the Zoho Mail Admin Console allows administrators to configure email forwarding for an entire mailbox, forwarding all incoming emails to another address. This is helpful for delegation or backup purposes,
                                                                                                            • Sales order & purchase order item links for item details

                                                                                                              This is fantastic for checking lots of things, I use it a lot. It would be great to see it extended to invoices & bills On another note, may as well throw in my favourite whinge ..... Wish you guys would get the PO receive differences sorted urgently,
                                                                                                            • Custom Fonts in Zoho CRM Template Builder

                                                                                                              Hi, I am currently creating a new template for our quotes using the Zoho CRM template builder. However, I noticed that there is no option to add custom fonts to the template builder. It would greatly enhance the flexibility and branding capabilities if
                                                                                                            • Zoho Workdrive - Communication / Chat Bar

                                                                                                              Hi Team, Please consider adding an option to allow admins to turn on or off the Zoho Communication Bar. Example of what I mean by Communication Bar: It's such a pain sometimes when I'm in WorkDrive and I want to share a link to a file with a colleague
                                                                                                            • Introducing Profile Summary: Faster Candidate Insights with Zia

                                                                                                              We’re excited to launch Profile Summary, a powerful new feature in Zoho Recruit that transforms how you review candidate profiles. What used to take minutes of resume scanning can now be assessed in seconds—thanks to Zia. A Quick Example Say you’re hiring
                                                                                                            • Kaizen #190 - Queries in Custom Related Lists

                                                                                                              Hello everyone! Welcome back to another week of Kaizen! This week, we will discuss yet another interesting enhancement to Queries. As you all know, Queries allow you to dynamically retrieve data from CRM as well as third-party services directly within
                                                                                                            • Need the ability to have read only fields on a form.

                                                                                                              There needs to be functionality in Creator that allows a field on a form to be read only. Most screen building software applications have this capability. I know you can hide certain fields from specific users and that you can also make the whole form read only but that's not the functionality I need. I want to be able to create a form where certain fields are editable and other are for display purposes only (read only). For example if the form was displaying information on an item that the user
                                                                                                            • Next Page