Hello users,

May seems to have gone by in the blink of an eye! And here we are again, excited to serve you a fresh set of features and enhancements in Zoho Books. Ready to savour some new updates?

Position Billing & Shipping Addresses in Invoices

Adjust the position of the billing and shipping addresses in your customers' invoices. This will be helpful when you are sending them a hard copy of the invoice and are trying to position the addresses correctly in the window of the envelope. You'll be able to move the addresses in the invoice to the right or to the bottom by 30mm. This feature is currently available for the Standard, Compact and Continental invoice templates.

To position the addresses: Go to Settings > Templates, select a template and click the Header section. Make sure the Bill To and Ship To fields are enabled in the Document Information section. Select Change Position and make the desired changes.

Send SMS for Payment Reminders to Your Customers

To do this: Go to Sales > Invoices and select an invoice for which you wish to send the payment reminder. Click More > Notify via SMS and select the notification for Payment Reminder. Verify the mobile number of the customer and click Send SMS.

Internal Approval for Timesheets

The Lookup Data Type

File your GSTR-9 (Indian edition)

The GSTR-9 in Zoho Books has been updated to:

• Fetch the auto-calculated summary from the GSTN 
  
• Consolidate the summary details with those in Zoho Books
  
• Push your return to the GST Portal and file your returns.
  

Here's a detailed guide on filing your GSTR-9 from Zoho Books. 

To view your GSTR-9: Go to GST Filing in the left sidebar. Click the Annual Returns tab on top of the page.

Reporting Tags Filter Moved to Advanced Filters

Filter your reports based on their reporting tags from the Advance Filters section in your reports. Learn more

To filter your reports: Go to Reports, select the desired report and click Customize Report. Select the desired reporting tag in Advanced Filters and click Run Report.

Multiple Item Fields to Overwrite Records During Import

While importing your items into Zoho Books, let's say you have duplicate records in Zoho Books and the import file. In such a case, you can choose to overwrite records in Zoho Books based on the values in their  Item Name, Item ID or the SKU fields.  For example, let's say you have a matching Item Name for one of the records in the import file and Zoho Books. In this case, you can overwrite the record in Zoho Books with the values in the import file.

To do this: Go to the Items module and select Items. Click the Hamburger icon and select Import Items. Upload the import file, select Overwrite under Duplicate Records and click Next. In the page that follows, select the fields to overwrite.

Add up to 1000 Items for Your Price Lists

Let's say you have 1000 items in your organization, and are trying to create a price list for them. In such a case, you can export your items as a CSV file, add custom rates for the items and import them back into Zoho Books as a price list. Earlier, the number of items for which you could perform this action was 500. Now, it has been increased to 1000.

To do this: Go to Items > Price Lists. Click + New Price List, export your items list and import them with the custom prices.

Associate Reporting Tags at Line-Item Level in Expenses

Associate reporting tags to your line items while creating bulk expenses in Zoho Books. These reporting tags can be associated with each line item and can be viewed in the Expense Details page.

To view and associate reporting tags: Go to Purchases > Expenses, create a new expense and click Itemize. Click the More icon next to the line item, select Associate Tags and select the reporting tag. After you've saved the expense, you can view the reporting tag(s) in the Expense Details page by clicking Associated Tags.

Include Invoice Details in the Credit Note Details Report

Customize the Credit Note Details report with their related invoice entities such as the invoice status, due date and the invoice number. With this, you can view all the credit notes with their associated invoice details.

To customize your report: Go to Reports, select Credit Note Details, click Customize Report and click Show/Hide Columns. Select the desired fields under the Invoice section and click Run Report.

The All-New Vendor Credit Details Report

View all your vendor credits in the Vendor Credit Details report in Zoho Books. Customize the report based on different fields of your vendor credits such as the name, email, phone number and other details of the vendor.

To do this: Go to Reports > Vendor Credit Details, and customize and run the report.

Email Insights

Track the emails sent to your customers for their Invoices, Estimates and Retainer Invoices. With Email Insights, you can view transactions that are emailed to the customers, transaction emails that have been opened by them and the transactions that have been opened and viewed through the emails.

To do this: Go to Settings > Emails > Email Insights. Select the option Track the emails sent to your customers. To view the transactions viewed by your clients, go to the respective module and filter the transactions based on the Client Viewed filter.

Accept/Decline an Estimate from the Public Estimate Link

Your customers can now accept or decline estimates that you shared with them directly through the public link. If your customer accepts an estimate which has a retainer invoice in it, the retainer invoice will be sent to their email.

To enable this feature: Go to Settings > Preferences > Estimates and mark the box Allow customers to accept or decline the estimates via the public link and save the changes.

Custom Fields for Chart of Accounts

Add custom fields for your Chart of Accounts. You can add custom fields for new accounts you create in Zoho Books, as well as to the existing accounts in the Chart of Accounts.

Edit Currency Name and Display the Amount in Words

Change the name of any currency in the currencies list. You can also choose to display the total amount in words in your templates in Zoho Books. The currency name will come into play when you choose to display the total amount in words.

To do this: Go to Settings > Currencies, click Edit next to the desired currency, change the Currency Name and save the details.

Link Projects and Customize Columns While Adding Bulk Expenses

Link projects to expenses that you add in bulk. You can also customize columns that you wish to view when adding expenses in bulk.

To view this change: Go to Purchases > Expenses and add a new expense. Click the Add Bulk Expenses tab and select Customize Columns in the top right corner of the page. Mark the box Projects and any other fields that you wish to display in the page.