Kaizen #9 - Handling Product Line Items in the Inventory Modules #API

Kaizen #9 - Handling Product Line Items in the Inventory Modules #API

Hello everyone!

Welcome back to another post in the Kaizen series!
This week, we will discuss handling product line items associated with the inventory modules—Quotes, Invoices, Purchase Orders, and Sales Orders.

What is a product line item?

On the Quote, Invoice, Purchase Order, Sales Order create or edit page, you add individual products in the Product Details section. This section also contains other details like the List Price, Quantity, Amount, Discount, and Tax. Every product and the corresponding details are called product line items.

In this post, we will discuss 
  1. Adding product line items while inserting a quote (through the Insert Records API)
  2. Updating a quote by adding another product line item (through the Update Specific Records API)

The JSON input is similar while adding/updating an invoice, purchase order, and sales order.

1. Adding Product Line Items to a Quote

While adding a product to a quote you can,
      a. Select a price book to associate with the product
      b. Specify a different list price for the product

1. a. Selecting a price book to associate with the product
To associate a price book with the product, you must pass the ID of that price book in the input.

What happens when you pass the Price Book's ID?
  • The discount on the product is automatically applied based on the range you specified in the price book.
  • The cumulative tax (specified for the product) is automatically calculated based on the amount (after the discount).
  • The List Price of the product specified in the associated price book is automatically taken for calculating the amount.

The sample input for Product_Details is as follows.

"Product_Details": [
    {
      "product": {
        "id": "3652397000000491147"
      },
      "quantity": 100,
      "product_description": "product_description",
      "book": "3652397000000616007"
    }
  ]

The following table gives information about each key in the Product_Details JSON Array.
Key
Data Type
Description
product
JSON Object
The ID of the product in the quote.
quantity
Number
The number of units of the product the quote is generated for. Accepts only positive integer values. The amount is calculated based on this number and the price for each unit.
book
String
The ID of the Price Book you have associated with the product.
product_description
String
Description of the product.

Here is a screenshot from the UI.


1.b. Specifying a different list price for the product
When the product does not have an associated price book or you want to give a different list price, you must specify the list price and the discount in the Product_Details array. 
Otherwise, the system enters the value for the discount as 0 and takes the list price you specified while creating that product.
The sample input for the Product_Details JSON array is as follows.
"Product_Details": [
    {
      "product": {
        "id": "3652397000000491147"
      },
      "quantity": 150,
      "product_description": "product_description",
      "Discount": 1000,
      "list_price": 1100,
      "line_tax": [
        {
          "percentage": 1,
          "name": "VAT"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]

The following table gives information about each key in the Product_Details JSON Array.

Key
Data Type
Description
Product
JSON Object
ID of the product the quote generated for.
quantity
Number
The number of units of the product the quote is generated for. Accepts only positive integer values.
Discount
Currency
The discount, in decimals, you want to apply for the product. Accepts up to 16 digits before the decimal, and up to 9 digits after the decimal. This limit may vary based on the value configured in 'Maximum digits allowed' in the properties pop-up of the field, in the UI.
product_description
String
Description of the product.
list_price
Currency
The list price of the product.
line_tax
JSON Array
Contains the percentage and the name of the tax associated with the product.
percentage
Percent
The percentage of tax applied on the product. Accepts only numeric values, up to 5 digits.
name
String
The name of the tax applied on the product.

As mentioned earlier, the Product Details section encompasses the taxes applied for each product and the aggregate tax applied to the Sub Total of the quote or any other inventory module.

You can specify the different taxes you want to apply for your products in the CRM UI.
You can add them under Setup > Customization > Modules and Fields > Products as shown in the below image.


You can use these configured values as inputs in the API.

Adding taxes to the product while creating/updating an inventory module
When you add a product to an inventory module, to apply the taxes to that product, you must specify the tax details in the line_tax JSON array inside Product_Details.

You must specify the percentage and the name of the tax associated with the product as JSON objects.
You cannot specify the amount as the system calculates it automatically based on the quantity.

Example:

"Product_Details": [
    {
      "product": {
        "id": "3652397000001363004"
      },
      "quantity": 100,
      "Discount": 20.1,
      "product_description": "product_description",
      "line_tax": [
        {
          "percentage": 10,
          "name": "Sales Tax"
        },
        {
          "percentage": 1,
          "name": "Vat"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]

Adding aggregate tax to the quote or other inventory modules
This is the tax that you want to apply to the Sub Total of the line items while generating the invoice, quote, sales order, or purchase order. The taxes you specify in the $line_tax key are added to the ones already applied to the product through the line_tax key.
The $line_tax key is present outside the Product_Details JSON array.

The structure for this JSON array is as follows.

"Product_Details": [
    {
      "product": {
        "id": "3652397000001363004"
      },
      "quantity": 100,
      "product_description": "product_description",
      "line_tax": [
        {
          "percentage": 10,
          "name": "Sales Tax"
        },
        {
          "percentage": 1,
          "name": "Vat"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "$line_tax": [
    {
      "percentage": 1.5,
      "name": "Common Tax",
      "id": "3652397000001376005"
    }
  ]

Key
Data type
Description
$line_tax
JSON Array
Contains the name, ID, and the percentage of the tax you want to apply to the quote.
percentage
Percent
The percentage of tax applied on the quote. Accepts only numeric values, up to 5 digits.
name
String
The name of the tax.
id
String
The unique ID of the tax.

Note
Make a GET request to "{{api-domain}}/crm/v2/org/taxes" to obtain the IDs of all the taxes for your organization.

The below image shows the data corresponding to the line_tax and $line_tax keys in the UI for a quote.


Points to note
  • For Product_Details
    When you have associated a price book with an inventory module, and you include the key and value for Discount inside Product_Details, this discount value overrides the discount calculated from the price book.
  • For line_tax
    You must specify the percentage of tax in every JSON object inside the line_tax array.

2. Updating a Quote by adding Product Line Items
You can associate multiple products to a quote.
While updating a quote, you can add/update/remove a line item.
Let us consider an example where you have five line items in a quote, and you want to remove two line items, and add a new one.
In this case, you must
  • Pass the IDs of the line items you want to retain as individual JSON objects.
  • Add the new line item with the required details as a new JSON object.
  • Do not include any details about the line item you want to remove. When you do not specify the ID of any line item, the system deletes it automatically.
A sample JSON structure for the above scenario is as follows.         

"Product_Details": [
    {
      "id": "3652397000001377174"
    },
    {
      "id": "3652397000001378168"
    },
    {
      "id": "3652397000001379172"
    },
    {
      "product": {
        "id": "3652397000001351002"
      },
      "quantity": 100,
      "book": "3652397000000616007"
    }
  ] 

To obtain the ID of the existing line item, make a GET request to fetch the Quote you want to update. The response contains the ID of the existing line item in the Product_Details array.

Note
  • You can add a maximum of 200 line items to an inventory module.

We hope you found this post useful. Please reach out to us if you have any questions, or let us know in the comment section.

Cheers!










    Access your files securely from anywhere









                          Zoho Developer Community




                                                • Desk Community Learning Series


                                                • Digest


                                                • Functions


                                                • Meetups


                                                • Kbase


                                                • Resources


                                                • Glossary


                                                • Desk Marketplace


                                                • MVP Corner


                                                • Word of the Day


                                                • Ask the Experts





                                                          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

                                                                                            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

                                                                                                          • Currency selector (based on variable) usage in comparsion

                                                                                                            Hi, I've developed a currency selector based on the following topic, and it's working well in pivot tables and charts: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/community/topic/how-can-i-allow-my-users-to-choose-a-currency-for-the-dashboard I also have a comparison
                                                                                                          • Customize Column in Projects - Default View for Template?

                                                                                                            Is there a way to have the columns you'd like to see added to a template? I want my customized columns to show up every single time I create a project from that template. It appears I can customize them in the template but when I create the project they do not transfer over.  Template: See below how the columns in order are : Task, Owner, Status, Assigned, Website URL, Blog H1..etc. When I create a project from that same template it comes out as: Task, Owner, Status, Tags, Start Date, End Date, etc
                                                                                                          • Ask the Experts 24: Analytics, data administration, and mobile experience with Zoho Desk

                                                                                                            Hello Everyone! Welcome back to the Ask the Experts(ATE) series! We were so focused on our Autumn 2025 release that we didn't host an ATE session last month. In this month's ATE, we'd like to expand our areas for discussion: we'd like to listen to your
                                                                                                          • Multi-Page Forms in Zoho Creator!

                                                                                                            Let’s make long applications easier to handle by dividing them into pages, adding a progress bar, and guiding users step by step through complex data entry. This would be a total game-changer for the user experience and could significantly boost completion
                                                                                                          • Email login error

                                                                                                            Login successfully but email page error
                                                                                                          • Shared Mailboxes Disappeared

                                                                                                            Zoho Mail users in our company haven't been able to see their Shared Mailboxes for the past few hours. I've checked with App and Web Access, but they can't access them. When I send emails to their addresses, I get no error messages. They're still visible
                                                                                                          • Remote Server is misconfigured

                                                                                                            Dear Team, I am unable to use email id as remote server is misconfigured. It would be really great if you could help on this and get this resolved. Thanks & Regard Rohit Gupta
                                                                                                          • why cant i access my email account. it keeps asking me for reverifiying my account by entering my password.

                                                                                                            I cant access my account. it keeps asking me for reverifcaton by entering my password. once its entered it asks for it over and over.
                                                                                                          • Free webinar alert on October 16 - Less Complexity, More Security: Workplace + Directory

                                                                                                            Hello Zoho Workplace Community! Security and productivity shouldn't be at odds—and with Zoho, they're not. Discover how Zoho Workplace + Directory delivers seamless collaboration with enterprise-grade security, all in one integrated ecosystem. Join our
                                                                                                          • Email Recall Feature In Zoho Mail Which Should Also Work For Outside Organisation Members

                                                                                                            Add a feature to recall or undo sending an email within a configurable short time window (e.g., 30 seconds to 2 minutes) after hitting send, similar to Gmail’s undo send. Currently the sent email can not be recall If the recipient is not from within your
                                                                                                          • Workdrive and ChatGPT Team Synced Connectors

                                                                                                            Hi, we want to be able to integrate Zoho Workdrive with OpenAI’s ChatGPT Team plan. Google Drive and OneDrive both offer this, zoho please catch up asap. We dont want to have to put our company files in google drive, we want to allow chatgpt Team edition
                                                                                                          • Alias Name (on items) use case in Zoho inventory

                                                                                                            Hey, Hope everyone is well. Wondering if anyone can shed some light on the use case of Alias Names on Products in Zoho Inventory? Cheers, Chris
                                                                                                          • Updating an Invoice Line Item's Discount Account via API Call / Deluge Custom Function

                                                                                                            I need help updating an invoice line item's discount account via API. Below is a screenshot of the line item field I am referring to. Now the field to the left of the highlighted field (discount account) is the sales income account. I am able to modify
                                                                                                          • Send e-mail with attachments

                                                                                                            Dear Zoho, How is that possible in Zoho Flow to send an e-mail with attachment?  Just a simple example: Zoho Flow checks my Zoho mails and if the conditions starts the trigger then I would like to send an email with the original email's attachment. Any idea? BR, Adam
                                                                                                          • How to I get checkboxes on a subform to update via deluge

                                                                                                            Hello, would someone be able to tell me what I'm doing wrong here? I am trying to take the contents of a Deals subform and add them to an invoice then update the checkbox on each row so that 'add to invoice' is unticked and 'invoiced' is ticked. The output
                                                                                                          • Your bot just got smarter: AI-Powered routing that reads between the lines

                                                                                                            What if your bot could tell the difference? Between a visitor who just needs a quick answer, someone actively comparing options, and a frustrated customer one click away from leaving? Most bots can't. They deliver the same response to everyone, missing
                                                                                                          • Urgent Security Feature Request – Add MFA to Zoho Projects Client Portal Hello Zoho Projects Team,

                                                                                                            Hello Zoho Projects Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to submit an urgent security enhancement request regarding the Zoho Projects Client Portal. At this time, as far as we are aware, there is no Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) available
                                                                                                          • Unified customer portal login

                                                                                                            As I'm a Zoho One subscriber I can provide my customers with portal access to many of the Zoho apps. However, the customer must have a separate login for each app, which may be difficult for them to manage and frustrating as all they understand is that
                                                                                                          • Zoho Projects - Task Owner filter at Project level

                                                                                                            Hi Projects Team, The feature requests I would like to raise is the ability to create a custom view at the project level for projects with tasks owned by a user or users. For example "Ashley's Projects" custom view might contain a list of project in which
                                                                                                          • Cadences

                                                                                                            I have just started using Cadences for follow-up up email pipeline. Is it just me or do you find the functionality very basic? For example, it will tell me (if I go looking for it) if someone has replied to a follow-up and been unenrolled; but it won't
                                                                                                          • Zoho Books-Accounting on the Go Series!

                                                                                                            Dear users, Continuing in the spirit of our 'Function Fridays' series, where we've been sharing custom function scripts to automate your back office operations, we're thrilled to introduce our latest initiative – the 'Zoho Books-Accounting on the Go Series'.
                                                                                                          • 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
                                                                                                          • Would be really awesome to have Created Time and Modified Time showing for custom functions list

                                                                                                            It would be SO HELPFUL to be able to sort custom functions by created time/ modified time. Also seeing a created by/ modified by with the little profile picture would be supremely helpful as well. Just really hard sometimes to find a function you were
                                                                                                          • What's New in Zoho Analytics - October 2025

                                                                                                            Hello Users! We're are back with a fresh set of updates and enhancements to make data analysis faster and more insightful. Take a quick look at what’s new and see how these updates can power up your reports and dashboards. Explore What's New! Extreme
                                                                                                          • Ticket Export Does Not Include Ticket Threads

                                                                                                            Dear Zoho Desk Support Team, I hope you’re doing well. I would like to report an issue regarding the ticket export functionality in Zoho Desk. Currently, when exporting tickets, the ticket threads or conversation history are not included — only the ticket
                                                                                                          • Payments made notification

                                                                                                            This is a really wonderful feature but we can only use it for about 50% of payments made & have to revert to sending statements which is a real chore. Credits applied to the bills paid in the notification aren't included & this causes great confusion in the accounts receivable departments. Please, please add this required feature asap ! .....
                                                                                                          • Ability to add VAT to Retainer Invoices

                                                                                                            Hello, I've had a telephone conversation a month ago with Dinesh on this topic and my request to allow for the addition of VAT on Retainer Invoices.  It's currently not possible to add VAT to Retainer Invoices and it was mutually agreed that there is absolutely no reason why there shouldn't be, especially as TAX LAW makes VAT mandatory on each invoice in Europe!   So basically, what i'm saying is that if you don't allow us to add VAT to Retainer Invoices, than the whole Retainer Invoices becomes
                                                                                                          • ZOHO DESK link with Power BI

                                                                                                            HI, I am using ZOHO Desk for last two years and now my client is asking to integrate ZOHO desk data to Power BI so that they can use Data for reporting. Kindly guide in details so that i can give access to ZOHO desk export data for more visibility.
                                                                                                          • Introducing AWS authentication for connections in Deluge

                                                                                                            Hello everyone, We're incredibly excited to announce the all-new AWS authentication for connections in Deluge! This highly anticipated feature simplifies connecting to Amazon Web Services, opening up a world of possibilities and allowing you to seamlessly
                                                                                                          • URLs being masked despite disabling tracking

                                                                                                            Hey, We had disabled click tracking from an email update we are sharing with our users. Despite this, the URL the end user is receiving is masked, and looks like "https://qksyl-cmpzourl.maillist-manage.net/click/1d8e72714515cda6/1d8e72714515ca70" instead
                                                                                                          • Zoho CRM - Calendar Cards View - Let Users Decide What Is Displayed On Calendar Entries

                                                                                                            Imagine planning your week of face-to-face meetings across three counties. You’re trying to group appointments by location to make the best use of your time, but Zoho CRM’s calendar doesn’t show where each meeting is happening. You’re left trying to remember
                                                                                                          • Set to Review for all

                                                                                                            We are testing the use of Writer as part of an internal review process for statement of work documents and have found that when the document is changed from Compose to Review by one person, that is not reflected for all others who view the document. Is
                                                                                                          • Dashboard Autorefesh

                                                                                                            Good day, I am a dashboard that displays the number of tickets based on "Product Name". This dashboard is displayed on a big TV for the team to monitor. Can the dashboard auto-refresh every few minutes to display the new values? Currently, we have closed
                                                                                                          • Deferred/ Unearned revenue

                                                                                                            Dear Zoho Team, Just in case you have missed out my query posted few days ago: We issue invoices relating to 12-month web hosting service. When we issue the invoice, we should record the entire amount of the invoice as DEFERRED/UNEARNED REVENUE (ie. $10
                                                                                                          • Report Hover Setting

                                                                                                            Would be great if we will able to show information to the user while hovering a record in a report.
                                                                                                          • Bigin Android app update: Zoho Books integration

                                                                                                            Hello everyone! We’re excited to introduce Zoho Books integration on the latest version(v1.8.5) Bigin Android app. Once the integration is completed in the web(bigin.zoho.com), the Zoho Books tab will be visible in detail View of Contacts, Companies,
                                                                                                          • Audit Log enhancements: Increased retention period, better user visibility, and more

                                                                                                            Hello everyone, The Audit Log brings in the following enhancements which improve the overall ability to manage data. Why did we make these updates? Extended Data Retention: Audit data can now be filtered and exported for a 60-day period, doubling the
                                                                                                          • Question Regarding Managing Sale Items in Zoho Books

                                                                                                            Good day, I was wondering about something. Right now, Zoho Books doesn’t seem to have a way to flag certain items as being on sale. For example, if I want a list of specific items to be on sale from October 1 to October 12, the user would have to export
                                                                                                          • [WEBINAR] Smooth year-end closure with Zoho Books (KENYA)

                                                                                                            Hello there, This webinar is for all Kenyan businesses looking to wrap up their financial year smoothly! Join our free session to learn how Zoho Books can simplify your year-end process. What to expect from this webinar: - All the latest updates in Zoho
                                                                                                          • System flaws and lack of response from Zoho

                                                                                                            I have had to go on here as no-one is replying to my emails regarding my problem (been 10 days and no email reply) and your chat facility online through your Zoho Books software opens and closes immediately, so not functioning properly. I actually called
                                                                                                          • Next Page