Zoho Books - Zoho CRM INTEGRATION. FULL OF LIMITATIONS = RENDERED USELESS.

Zoho Books - Zoho CRM INTEGRATION. FULL OF LIMITATIONS = RENDERED USELESS.

A word of caution for anyone thinking of trying the integration. This might save you loads of time. 

SHAME this  isn't clarified in the guidance notes. 

THE MAIN PROBLEM AREAS THAT RENDER THE ZOHO BOOKS - ZOHO CRM INTEGRATION LARGELY USELESS:

1. The GUI of Inventory Modules (from ZohoBooks) are significantly archaic in comparison to the ones in the CRM + with lots of limitations. Limited fields and field types.

2. Record View Page: NO record details view. Once you create an estimate (for example) then you can only view it as a template. What about other fields you may want to exclude from template?? The only way to see it is to edit the record. Ditto in SO's or Invoices. 

3. Emails: If you create a template and send an email using the button in Zoho Books (Save & Send Email), these emails DO NOT show up in a list view, as they would if you sent from a record in the CRM. Resulting in loss of time because you need to look in different places to figure if an Estimate was actually sent. No IMAP integration of emails like in CRM. 

4. ZERO sales enablement: Before you create an invoice, you need to Quote. And the Estimate module in Books being limited in functionality (no tasks, no reminders etc) is a deal breaker in the first place. 

5. NO custom Lookup fields in ZohoBooks: Before you create a quote, a potential is created (to reflect in your sales pipeline) and then comes the quote. There is no way to associate an Estimate in ZohoBooks to a Potential in Zoho CRM. They are all associated with the Contacts - so what if you've multiple potentials for a contact?? Several clicks and navigation through multiple records to get to the potential for which you're quoting. 
PS: In creator you can add ZCRM lookup fields very easily, not sure why that can't be done in Books. 

6. Convoluted nomenclature:
Contacts in CRM is a Contact Person AND in Books it can either be Contact, Account or Vendor. 
Accounts in CRM is a Company AND in Books it is called a Contact.
Vendors in CRM is filed under Contacts in Books in a list view. 

7. Each Customer Account is "tied" to a currency. Meaning, you cannot transact with the customer in different currency other than what is set when the Customer Account record was created. So if a Customer Account record was created with USD then if you want to quote them in GBP - you need to create a duplicate Contact/Customer Account with GBP as currency. This is dumb! Because it renders the "Statement of account" feature useless. 

8. NO WAY to have Parent Account associated with Accounts to circumvent the issue in point 7 OR just in case you're dealing with different branch offices of a Customer and also a head office / parent company. Forget about a SOA for a customer's group of companies. 

9. Delivery Note and Packing slip are just printed using the Invoice record details. So an invoice needs to be created before you can create a Delivery Note or Packing Slip. 
WHATIF your customers are on credit terms of say "Invoice on Delivery" and "Due 30 days from invoice" 
IT messes up the Invoice Date and Due date in your accounts. 
 
10. No option to track status of a Delivery Note / Packing List individually because they're just templates printed using Invoice. 

11. Commercial Invoice: An important one for customs which declares value of the goods being shipped. This is MISSING altogether. Ofcourse you can create a module in creator to do this but when you have 10's of line items its inefficient at best to type it all up because DELUGE doesn't copy subform table in between records.
i.e. If you convert a Sales Order to Invoice - your line items are copied. However if you have a custom module Inventory in creator you cannot link it to ZohoCRM record (say a Quote) and then fetch all the line items into creator module record. As a result - the only option is to do the donkey work and type it all again. 

12. NO Multiple Organisation Setup: XERO has it. SAGE has this. QUICKBOOKS has this. If you're an enterprise, you likely have multiple companies/legal entities in different geo regions. Eg: Zoho USA, ZOHO India or Zoho China etc. 
And it is not essential you keep your billing or accountancy centralised for various reasons such as tax, regulatory or forex rates implication. I don't think the Book product team is even aware of these crucial imperatives that justify the need for Multiple Org Setup when it comes to accounting for Enterprises or even a SME with multiple branch offices. 

13. There is NO way to calculate and add markup at the quote stage for example when creating an Estimate in ZohoBooks. 

14. NO Approval process like in the CRM.

All these points are just from scratching the surface. There are more points but I had enough for now.

MY VERDICT - Unless you're a one man band, nut-bolt seller this integration is highly useless. NOT FOR ENTERPRISE. Better to stick to CRM Inventory modules.

Advice for Zoho Books - CRM Integration Developers.

Here's how you can start fixing some of these and what would make the integration useful. Some are simple fixes:

1. Since a Quote (Estimate) and Sales Orders are more SALES related. Let them be in the CRM. (Atleast until you match the Inventory Modules in Books to be highly customisable like in the CRM) 
2. Allow the ability to convert from Quote or Sales Order in the CRM to an Invoice in Zoho Books. 
3. All Inventory Modules are related to a Potential. So give a look up field in Books to relate records to Potentials. 
4. Remove the limitation of Account "tied" to a currency. This has to be flexible. Let people choose who they want to bill in what currency. 
5. Rename stuff.. to simplify things. 
6. Add Parent Account feature. 
Plus other points as above. 

      • Recent Topics

      • How to install Widget in inventory module

        Hi， I am trying to install a app into Sales Order Module related list, however there is no button allow me to do that. May I ask how to install widget to inventory module related list?

      • Add specific field value to URL

        Hi Everyone. I have the following code which is set to run from a subform when the user selects a value from a lookup field "Plant_Key" the URL opens a report but i want the report to be filtered on the matching field/value. so in the report there is

      • error while listing mails

        I can't access email in any of my folders: Oops, an error occurred - retry produces the second error response: error while listing mails (cannot parse null string). I've signed in and out of Zoho, restarted my iMac.

      • Unlocking New Levels: Zoho Payroll's Journey in 2025

        Every year brings its own set of challenges and opportunities to rethink how payroll works across regulations and teams. In 2025, Zoho Payroll continued to evolve with one clear focus: giving businesses more flexibility, clarity, and control as they grow.

      • 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

      • Send Supervisor Rule Emails Within Ticket Context in Zoho Desk

        Dear Zoho Desk Team, I hope this message finds you well. Currently, emails sent via Supervisor Rules in Zoho Desk are sent outside of the ticket context. As a result, if a client replies to such emails, their response creates a new ticket instead of appending

      • form data load issue when saving as duplicate record is made

        Hello. I have a form with a lookup when a value is selected the data from the corresponding record is filled into all of the fields in the form. But the form is loaded in such a state that if any value is changed it will take all of the values pre loaded

      • CRM project association via deluge

        I have created a workflow in my Zoho CRM for closing a deal. Part of this workflow leverages a deluge script to create a project for our delivery team. Creating the project works great however, after or during the project creation, I would like to associate

      • Zoho Browser??

        hai guys, this sounds awkward but can v get a ZOHO BROWSER same as zoho writer, etc. where i can browse websites @ home and continue browsing the same websites @ my office, as v have the option in Firefox, once i save and close the browser and again when i open it i will be getting the same sites. If u people r not clear with my explanation, plz let me know. Thanks, Sandeep  

      • Where can we specify custom CSS in Zoho Forms custom theme ?

        I'm using a form with a dark theme. The OTP popup window is unreadable, because for some reason, the OTP popup background fixes color to white, but still takes the font color specified in the custom theme. This ends up as white on white for me, rendering

      • MCP no longer works with Claude

        Anyone else notice Zoho MCP no longer works with Claude? I'm unable to turn this on in the claude chat. When I try to toggle it on, it just does nothing at all. I've tried in incognito, new browsers, etc. - nothing seems to work.

      • Enable History Tracking for Picklist Values Not Available

        When I create a custom picklist field in Deals, the "Enable History Tracking for Picklist Values" option is not available in the Edit Properties area of the picklist. When I create a picklist in any other Module, that option is available. Is there a specific reason why this isn't available for fields in the Deals Module?

      • The reason I switched away from Zoho Notebook

        My main reason for switching to Zoho was driven by three core principles: moving away from US-based products, keeping my data within India as much as possible, and supporting Indian companies. With that intent, I’ve been actively de-Googling my digital

      • Add RTL and Hebrew Support for Candidate Portal (and Other Zoho Recruit Portals)

        Dear Zoho Recruit Team, I hope you're doing well. We would like to request the ability to set the Candidate Portal to be Right-to-Left (RTL) and in Hebrew, similar to the existing functionality for the Career Site. Currently, when we set the Career Site

      • Ability to Edit YouTube Video Title, Description & Thumbnail After Publishing

        Hi Zoho Social Team, How are you? We would like to request an enhancement to Zoho Social that enables users to edit YouTube video details after the video has already been published. Your team confirmed that while Zoho Social currently allows editing the

      • Free Webinar : Unlock AI driven business insights with Zoho Inventory + Zoho Analytics

        Are you tired of switching between apps and exporting data to build customized reports? Say hello to smarter & streamlined insights! Join us for this exclusive webinar where we explore the power of the Zoho Inventory–Zoho Analytics integration. Learn

      • Critical Issue: Tickets Opened for Zoho Support via the Zoho Help Portal Were Not Processed

        Hi everyone, We want to bring to your attention a serious issue we’ve experienced with the Zoho support Help Portal. For more than a week, tickets submitted directly via the Help Portal were not being handled at all. At the same time no alert was posted

      • Hide/Show Subform Fields On User Input

        Hello, Are there any future updates in Hide/Show Subform Fields "On User Input"?

      • Cloning Item With Images Or The Option With Images

        Hello, when I clone an item, I expect the images to carry over to the cloned item, however this is not the case in Inventory. Please make it possible for the images to get cloned or at least can we get a pop up asking if we want to clone the images as

      • Archiving Contacts

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

      • WorkDrive and CRM not in sync

        1/ There is a CRM file upload field with WorkDrive file set as the source: 2/ Then the file is renamed in WorkDrive (outside CRM): 3/ The File in CRM is not synced after the change in WorkDrive; the file name (reference) in CRM record is not updated (here

      • Custom validation in CRM schema

        Validation rules in CRM layouts work nicely, good docs by @Kiran Karthik P https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/crm/customize-crm-account/validation-rules/articles/create-validation-rules I'd prefer validating data input 'closer to the schema'

      • Adding Default Module Image into mail merge field

        As with most people finding their way to these forums i have a specific requirement that doesn't seem to be supported by Zoho I have created 2 custom modules to suit my purpose 1 is an inventory type module that lists aluminium extrusions, and all relevant

      • Sync Data from MA to CRM

        Currently, it's a one-way sync of data from the CRM to MA. I believe we should have the ability to select fields to sync from MA to the CRM. The lead score is a perfect example of this. In an ideal world we would be able to impact the lead score of a

      • Is it possible to roll up all Contact emails to the Account view?

        Is there a way to track all emails associated with an Account in one single view? Currently, email history is visible when opening an individual Contact record. However, since multiple Contacts are often associated with a single Account, it would be beneficial

      • Update CRM record action

        Currently, MA only offers a "Push Data" action to push data to a CRM module. This action is built to cover the need to both create a new record and update an existing record. Because it has been implemented this way all required fields on the CRM module

      • Notes badge as a quick action in the list view

        Hello all, We are introducing the Notes badge in the list view of all modules as a quick action you can perform for each record, in addition to the existing Activity badge. With this enhancement, users will have quick visibility into the notes associated

      • What's new in Zoho One 2025

        Greetings! We hope you have all had a chance by now to get hands-on with the new features and updates released as part of ZO25. Yes, we understand that you may have questions and feedback. To ensure you gain a comprehensive understanding of these updates,

      • Good news! Calendar in Zoho CRM gets a face lift

        Dear Customers, We are delighted to unveil the revamped calendar UI in Zoho CRM. With a complete visual overhaul aligned with CRM for Everyone, the calendar now offers a more intuitive and flexible scheduling experience. What’s new? Distinguish activities

      • Add deluge function to shorten URLs

        Zoho Social contains a nice feature to shorten URLs using zurl.co. It would be really helpful to have similar functionality in a Deluge call please, either as an inbuilt function or a standard integration. My Creator app sends an email with a personalised

      • Edit default "We are here to help you" text in chat SalesIQ widget

        Does anyone know how this text can be edited? I can't find it anywhere in settings. Thanks!

      • Quick way to add a field in Chat Window

        I want to add Company Field in chat window to lessen the irrelevant users in sending chat and set them in mind that we are dealing with companies. I request that it will be as easy as possible like just ticking it then typing the label then connecting

      • How to create a two way Sync with CRM Contacts Module?

        Newbie creator here (but not to Zoho CRM). I want to create an app that operates on a sub-set of CRM Contacts - only those with a specific tag. I want the app records to mirror the tagged contacts in CRM. I would like it to update when the Creator app

      • Zoho Sheet for Desktop

        Does Zoho plans to develop a Desktop version of Sheet that installs on the computer like was done with Writer?

      • Allow Manual Popup Canvas Size Control

        Hello Zoho PageSense Team, We hope you're doing well. We would like to request an enhancement to the PageSense popup editor regarding popup sizing. Current Limitation: Currently, the size (width and height) of a popup is strictly controlled by the selected

      • Where is the settings option in zoho writer?

        hi, my zoho writer on windows has menu fonts too large. where do i find the settings to change this option? my screen resolution is correct and other apps/softwares in windows have no issues. regards

      • How to set page defaults in zoho writer?

        hi, everytime i open the zoho writer i have to change the default page settings to - A4 from letter, margins to narrow and header and footer to 0. I cannot set this as default as that option is grayed out! so I am unable to click it. I saved the document

      • Develop and publish a Zoho Recruit extension on the marketplace

        Hi, I'd like to develop a new extension for Zoho Recruit. I've started to use Zoho Developers creating a Zoho CRM extension. But when I try to create a new extension here https://sigma.zoho.com/workspace/testtesttestest/apps/new I d'ont see the option of Zoho Recruit (only CRM, Desk, Projects...). I do see extensions for Zoho Recruit in the marketplace. How would I go about to create one if the option is not available in sigma ? Cheers, Rémi.

      • How to import data from PDF into Zoho Sheet

        I am looking to import Consolidated Account Statement (https://www.camsonline.com/Investors/Statements/Consolidated-Account-Statement) into zoho sheet. Any help is appreciated. The pdf is received as attachment in the email, this document is password

      • Zoho Projects Android app: Integration with Microsoft Intune

        Hello everyone! We’re excited to announce that Zoho Projects now integrates with Microsoft Intune, enabling enhanced security and enterprise app management. We have now added support for Microsoft Intune Mobile Application Management (MAM) policies through

      • Next Page