#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



        • Recent Topics

        • Facebook follower count doesn't match FB Analytics

          Hi all, I am wondering if anyone else has issues with follower counts for Facebook not matching FB's native analytics tool. On the Zoho dashboard, it's showing 1,007, but FB shows 1,060. All the other channels match up. Any insights are much appreciated!
        • Meta and Facebook data report discrepancy

          I have been currently gathering manually facebook follower data thru meta. In zoho marketing plus the social media reporting only allows for page likes, and so there is a discrepancy with the data. please the difference in files attached. Is there way
        • 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.
        • 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.
        • Can I export all attachments from Zoho CRM?

          Can I export all attachments from Zoho CRM?
        • Please can the open tasks be shown in each customer account at the top.

          Hi there This has happened before, where the open tasks are no longer visible at the top of the page for each customer in the CRM. They have gone missing previously and were reinstated when I asked so I think it's just after an update that this feature
        • What's new in Zoho Sheet: Simplify data entry and collaboration

          Hello, Zoho Sheet community! Last year, our team was focused on research and development so we could deliver updates that enhance your spreadsheet experience. This year, we’re excited to deliver those enhancements—but we'll be rolling them out incrementally
        • Community Digest — Noviembre y Diciembre 2025

          ¡Hola, Comunidad de Zoho en Español! Cerramos el año de la mejor forma con nuestro último Community Digest de 2025, donde podrás encontrar las últimas novedades de nuestros productos. ¿Todo listo para empezar 2026 con el mejor pie? ¡Vamos a ello! Zoho
        • Zoho Projects Plus’ 2025- the year we launched

          We’ve been building project management tools for the past 19 years, and a question we often hear is: Different teams in our organization prefer different project management methods; while the development team prefers agile, the marketing and sales teams
        • Why can't we change the Account type from an Expense to an Asset?

          Like the question. Why in QuickBooks for example if I mistakenly created an account as an expenses and I already captured information in those accounts, I can just change the account type from expense to asset
        • Zoho Books emails suddenly going to Spam since 11 Nov 2025 (Gmail + now Outlook) — anyone else?

          Hi everyone, We migrated to Zoho Books in July 2025 and everything worked fine until 11 Nov 2025. Since then, Zoho Books system emails are landing in customers’ Spam (first Gmail, and now we’re seeing Outlook/Office 365 also starting to spam them). Impacted
        • How do you print a refund check to customer?

          Maybe this is a dumb question, but how does anyone print a refund check to a customer? We cant find anywhere to either just print a check and pick a customer, or where to do so from a credit note.
        • Data Import | Zoho Analytics Custom Query Window Size

          Please increase the window size for the Custom Query Data Import. It's impossible to work with such a small query window.
        • Company Multiple Branch/ Location Accounting

          Hi All, anyone know whether company can maintain their multiple Branch Accounting in Zoho  Books. It will be chart of Accounts & Master Data will be same but different report available as per per Branch. Thanks & regards, Vivek +91 9766906737
        • Zoho Books Invoices Templates

          It would be really helpful to have more advanced features to customise the invoice templates in Zoho Books. Especially I´m thinking of the spacing of the different parts of the invoice (Address line etc.). If you have a sender and receiver address in
        • Support for Developing Zoho Recruit Extensions via Zoho Sigma

          Hi, I’m interested in building an extension for Zoho Recruit using Zoho Sigma. However, when I navigate to Sigma and attempt to create a new extension (via the "New Extension" option), Zoho Recruit does not appear as a listed service—only options like
        • Email Administrators! Join our tips & troubleshooting series

          Greetings to all the admins out there! This announcement is exclusively for you. As we step into the New Year, we’re excited to start a dedicated series of admin-specific tips curated to support you. These posts will help you overcome everyday challenges
        • 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
        • Deprecation of the Zoho OAuth connector

          Hello everyone, At Zoho, we continuously evaluate our integrations to ensure they meet the highest standards of security, reliability, and compliance. As part of these ongoing efforts, we've made the decision to deprecate the Zoho OAuth default connector
        • Personalize your booking pages with Custom CSS

          Greetings from the Zoho Bookings team! We’re introducing Custom CSS for Zoho Bookings, designed to give you complete control over the look and feel of your booking pages. With this new feature, you can upload your own CSS file to customize colors, fonts,
        • 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
        • No OR Filter for Views with a Related Modules Criteria

          We would like to create a Deal View where the User can see all their deals. For that, we would need an OR to connect the criteria. One of the Fields is a "multiselect User", these (Related Modules Criteria) can only be Filter with an AND. Even between
        • Import Function: ONLY update empty fields

          When setting up an import from a spreadsheet to CRM, there is a checkbox "Don't update empty values for existing contacts" (see screenshot below). While I see some limited benefit from this functionality, I think there should also be an "ONLY update empty
        • Sales IQ Chat Widget is Only Displaying Last Name

          Can anyone suggest why the widget is only displaying "last name"?! We have the latest version of the wordpress plugin installed. Thanks Thanks!
        • Free Webinar: Zoho Sign for Zoho Projects: Automate tasks and approvals with e-signatures

          Hi there! Handling multiple projects at once? Zoho Projects is your solution for automated and streamlined project management, and with the Zoho Sign extension, you can sign, send, and manage digital paperwork directly from your project workspace. Join
        • Begin the year with best practices in the Zoho Desk mobile app : Part 2

          In focus: Optimizing collaboration and supervision Let's begin 2026 with Part 2 of our tips series on driving your ticketing operations at your fingertips. In Part 1, we explored streamlining operations within tickets. This helped individuals at Omniserve
        • Can we disable add to cart in Zoho Commerce?

          Hello, Our sales happen on the phone. During the call the customer is directed to our website to inspect the products together with the sales rep. So we need a way to present our inventory. I figured Zoho Commerce is a good fit for this use case. However we would have to disable the possibility to purchase products in the shop. Is that possible? Sunny regards, Artjom
        • How to update "Lead Status" to more than 100 records

          Hello Zoho CRM, How do I update "Lead Status" to more than 100 records at once? To give you a background, these leads were uploaded or Imported at once but the lead status record was incorrectly chosen. So since there was a way to quickly add records in the system no matter how many they are, we are also wondering if there is a quicker way to update these records to the correct "Lead Status". I hope our concern makes sense and that there will be a fix for it. All the best, Jonathan
        • Zoho DataPrep and File Pattern configuration

          I'm using Zoho data prep to ingest data from One Drive into Zoho Analytics... The pipeline is super simple but I can't any way to get all the files that I need. Basically I need to bring all the files with a certain pattern and for that I'm using a regex
        • JWT Token authentication problem that sometimes generates infinite redirect loops

          Description : Nous proposons un bouton sur notre plateforme permettant de rediriger l'utilisateur vers le portail ZohoDesk via un jeton JWT pour une authentification transparente. Cependant, il arrive que certains utilisateurs soient pris dans une boucle
        • Zoho desk desktop application

          does zoho desk has a destop applicaion?
        • ZOHO Work Drive Back Up

          I am looking for a ZOHO Work Drive backup solution. Something that is cloud based. There's lots of these kinds of options for Google Drive and other providers, but I have not seen anything for WorkDrive. Any suggestions?
        • ZOHO Reports - Filter Logic?

          Hi, I need a way to apply filter logics such as ((1 AND 2) OR 3). All I can see as of now is a way to enter different AND filters in the respective filter column. But how can I add an OR filter? Any advice would be highly appreciated. Mark
        • Scanned Doc - selecting Item overwrites Rate

          I have a Vendor Invoice which was uploaded to Documents. I select Add To > New Bill. The OCR is actually quite good, but it is reading an Item Description instead of an Item Number. I remove the description and select the correct Item Number... and it
        • Recruit API search

          Hi all, Attempting to call the search api endpoint from Postman using the word element as mentioned in api docs Search Records - APIs | Online Help - Zoho Recruit When making the call to /v2/Candidates/search?word=Saudi receive response of { "code": "MANDATORY_NOT_FOUND",
        • Saving reading position + Keep screen on

          While Zoho Notebook is excellent for saving and annotating articles, its utility is severely limited by the lack of reading progress synchronization. On the Android app, if a user exits a long note after reading 50%, the app fails to save the position.
        • Multiple Vendor SKUs

          One of the big concerns we have with ZOHO Inventory is lack of Vendor Skus like many other inventory software packages offer. Being able to have multiple vendor skus for the same product would be HUGE! It would populate the appropriate vendor Sku for
        • Zoho LandingPage is integrated with Zoho One!

          Greetings to the Zoho One users out there! We're delighted to let you know that Zoho LandingPage is available in Zoho One too! With Zoho LandingPage, you can host custom-made landing pages, and persuade the visitors to dive deeper by making further clicks,
        • Android app sync problem - multiple devices have same problem

          Hello, I am having a problem with synchronization in the Android app. When I create a drawing, the data does not sync correctly—only a blank note is created without the drawing. I tested this on multiple devices, including phones and tablets, and the
        • How can i resend a campaign to only one of the recipients on the original campaign

          How can i resend a campaign to only one of the recipients on the original campaign ? Sincererly, Mike
        • Next Page