Kaizen 224 - Quote-driven Deal Reconciliation Using Zoho CRM Functions and Automation

Kaizen 224 - Quote-driven Deal Reconciliation Using Zoho CRM Functions and Automation


Hello everyone!
Welcome back to another instalment in the Kaizen series.

This post covers quote-driven deal reconciliation, emphasizing Functions and Automation to address practical sales challenges.

Business Challenge

Sales organizations often mark deals as Closed Won before commercial transactions fully conclude. Quotes generate promptly upon closure, yet businesses typically provide a brief window such as one week for renegotiation or payment. During this period, currency fluctuations, payment delays, and risk thresholds can significantly alter the final deal value.

This Kaizen demonstrates how Zoho CRM Functions and Automation work together to reconcile deal financials with quote activity over time. Sales, finance, and operations teams can thus access accurate, policy-compliant values.
Here is a typical sequence:
  1. Deal closes with Closed Won status
  2. Quote generates immediately
  3. Customer receives grace period (e.g., one week) for payment or adjustments
Key factors during this window:
  1. Exchange rates fluctuate
  2. Payments may succeed or fail
  3. Business absorbs limited losses(up to 10%, for example)
  4. Major variances trigger renegotiation
CRM must reflect actual outcomes rather than initial closure assumptions. Quotes serve as the authoritative commercial record, with final deal values depending on execution timing. This approach captures intermediate and final financial states to enable automated decisions and audits.

Key business scenarios covered

Scenario 1: Payment is made during the grace period

  1. Quote is generated on day 0
  2. Customer completes payment on day 7
  3. Exchange rate has changed since quote generation

Business Requirement

The business wants to calculate the actual payable amount using the exchange rate on the payment day and store it explicitly in CRM.

Outcome

The realized value is captured and stored, ensuring that reports and downstream systems reflect the true commercial result.

Scenario 2: Acceptable loss threshold (10%)

  1. Exchange rate movement results in a loss
  2. The business is willing to absorb losses up to 10%
  3. Loss exceeds the acceptable threshold

Business requirement

If the loss exceeds the defined tolerance, the quote should move to renegotiation instead of being accepted automatically.

Outcome

CRM enforces pricing policy consistently, without manual intervention or subjective judgment.

Scenario 3: Significant currency fluctuations

  1. Exchange rate volatility is unusually high
  2. Even if loss is within limits, risk exposure is significant

Business requirement

Large fluctuations should trigger renegotiation, regardless of absolute loss percentage.

Outcome

Financial risk is handled proactively based on measurable criteria.

Scenario 4: No payment after the grace period

  1. Customer does not pay within the allowed window
  2. Updated exchange rate is favorable to the business

Business Requirement

If the updated rate is profitable, the quote can be revised and reissued with the new amount.

Outcome

CRM reflects market-aligned pricing while maintaining transparency around why the amount changed.

Why Zoho CRM Functions is the best fit?

This reconciliation pattern requires the following capabilities beyond static configuration.
  1. Reading and reconciling data across Deals and Quotes
  2. Applying time-based and threshold-based business rules
  3. Writing calculated values into dedicated fields
  4. Supporting multiple decision paths(accept, renegotiate, revise)
  5. Running logic at specific business moments
Zoho CRM Functions provide the flexibility and control required to implement this logic cleanly, while automation ensures it runs consistently and reliably.

Custom fields used in this post

Deals

  1. Final Accepted Amount - Currency - Amount finally agreed and accepted
  2. FX Impact Percentage - Percent - Gain or loss due to exchange movement
  3. Reconciliation Status - Picklist - Accepted or Renegotiate
  4. Reconciled On - DateTime- Timestamp of final reconciliation

Quotes

  1. Quote Reference Amount - Currency - Amount at quote generation
  2. Quote Exchange Rate - Decimal - Exchange rate used in quote
  3. Payment Due Date - Date - End of grace period
  4. Potential Payable Amount - Currency - Recalculated amount at evaluation time
  5. FX Variance Percentage - Decimal - Difference vs quoted amount
  6. FX Evaluation Status - Picklist - Pending or Evaluated
  7. Recalculate FX - Checkbox - Explicit recalculation trigger
These fields capture commercial intent and outcome, not just static numbers.

High level automation flow

  1. Deal is marked Closed Won
    1. Workflow triggers a function to generate a Quote
  2. Business updates evaluation inputs when needed
  3. User explicitly triggers FX recalculation
  4. Function
    1. Calculates financial impact
    2. Updates quote and deal
    3. Applies business decisions
  5. CRM reflects finalized commercial reality

Function 1: Generate a Quote from the Deal

This function creates a Quote automatically when a Deal is closed, ensuring downstream processes start immediately and consistently.
void automation.generateQuoteFromDeal(int dealId)
{
deal = zoho.crm.getRecordById("Deals", dealId);
if(deal == null) return;

amount = deal.get("Amount");
exchangeRate = deal.get("Exchange_Rate");
account = deal.get("Account_Name");

productItem = Map();
productItem.put("product", {"id":"<PRODUCT_ID>"});
productItem.put("quantity", 1);
productItem.put("list_price", amount);

productList = List();
productList.add(productItem);

quoteMap = Map();
quoteMap.put("Subject", "Quote for Deal");
quoteMap.put("Deal_Name", dealId);
quoteMap.put("Account_Name", account.get("id"));
quoteMap.put("Product_Details", productList);
quoteMap.put("Quote_Stage", "Draft");
quoteMap.put("Valid_Till", zoho.currentdate.addDay(7));
quoteMap.put("Quote_Reference_Amount", amount);
quoteMap.put("Quote_Exchange_Rate", exchangeRate);

zoho.crm.createRecord("Quotes", quoteMap);
}

Function 2: Reconcile Deal from Quote

This function calculates payable values, evaluates financial impact, and updates the Deal with finalized financial information.
void automation.reconcileDealFromQuote(Int quoteId)
{
info "Starting FX reconciliation for Quote ID: " + quoteId;

// -------------------------------------------------
// Fetch Quote
// -------------------------------------------------
quote = zoho.crm.getRecordById("Quotes", quoteId);
if(quote == null)
{
info "Quote not found";
return;
}

dealInfo = quote.get("Deal_Name");
if(dealInfo == null)
{
info "Quote not linked to Deal";
return;
}

dealId = dealInfo.get("id");

deal = zoho.crm.getRecordById("Deals", dealId);
if(deal == null)
{
info "Deal not found";
return;
}

// -------------------------------------------------
// Mark FX Evaluation as PENDING
// -------------------------------------------------
zoho.crm.updateRecord(
"Quotes",
quoteId,
{"FX_Evaluation_Status" : "Pending"}
);

// -------------------------------------------------
// Read required FX inputs
// -------------------------------------------------
quotedAmount = quote.get("Quote_Reference_Amount");
quoteRate = quote.get("Quote_Exchange_Rate");
evaluationRate = quote.get("Evaluation_Exchange_Rate");

info "Quoted Amount: " + quotedAmount;
info "Quote Rate: " + quoteRate;
info "Evaluation Rate: " + evaluationRate;

if(quotedAmount == null || quoteRate == null || evaluationRate == null)
{
info "Missing required FX inputs";
return;
}

// -------------------------------------------------
// FX Calculations(rounded)
// -------------------------------------------------
payableAmount = (quotedAmount * evaluationRate / quoteRate).round(2);
fxVariance = (((payableAmount - quotedAmount) / quotedAmount) * 100).round(2);

info "Payable Amount: " + payableAmount;
info "FX Variance %: " + fxVariance;

// -------------------------------------------------
// Decide Quote Stage(Business decision here)
// -------------------------------------------------
quoteStage = "";
reconciliationStatus = "";

if(fxVariance <= 10)
{
quoteStage = "Acceptable FX Impact";
reconciliationStatus = "Accepted";
}
else
{
quoteStage = "FX Impact Exceeds Threshold";
reconciliationStatus = "Renegotiate";
}

// -------------------------------------------------
// Update Quote(Final state)
// -------------------------------------------------
quoteUpdate = Map();
quoteUpdate.put("Potential_Payable_Amount", payableAmount);
quoteUpdate.put("FX_Variance_Percentage", fxVariance);
quoteUpdate.put("FX_Evaluation_Status", "Evaluated");
quoteUpdate.put("Quote_Stage", quoteStage);
quoteUpdate.put("Recalculate_FX", false);

quoteResp = zoho.crm.updateRecord("Quotes", quoteId, quoteUpdate);
info "Quote update response:";
info quoteResp;

// -------------------------------------------------
// Update Deal
// -------------------------------------------------
dealUpdate = Map();
dealUpdate.put("Final_Accepted_Amount", payableAmount);
dealUpdate.put("FX_Impact_Percentage", fxVariance);
dealUpdate.put("Reconciliation_Status", reconciliationStatus);
dealUpdate.put(
"Reconciled_On",
zoho.currenttime.toString("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssXXX")
);

dealResp = zoho.crm.updateRecord("Deals", dealId, dealUpdate);
info "Deal update response:";
info dealResp;

info "FX reconciliation completed successfully";
}

Workflow


Module: Quotes
Trigger: On create or edit
Condition: Recalculate FX = true
Action: Execute reconcileDealFromQuote
Argument: quoteId -> ${Quotes.id}

All decision logic lives inside the function.

Business Outcome

After implementing this pattern,
  1. Deals and quotes stay aligned with real-world behavior
  2. FX risk is measurable and auditable
  3. Renegotiation is policy-driven
  4. Reports reflect finalized values, not assumptions
  5. Sales and finance operate on the same truth.

Summary

Zoho CRM extends beyond static closures by reconciling deals against quote behavior. Functions plus Automation enforce pricing, limit exposure, and capture true outcomes reliably at scale.
The true value of this implementation is not the calculation itself, but the fact that it produces stable, auditable financial states that can be reused across reporting, approvals, integrations, and policy enforcement.

Further extensions

Executive reporting and dashboards

You can build Dashboards that answer questions like
  1. Total revenue before vs after FX reconciliation
  2. Total FX gain or loss by
    1. Region
    2. Currency
    3. Quarter
  3. Sales owner
  4. Percentage of deals renegotiated due to FX risk
Without the function,
  1. FX impact is implicit
  2. Numbers keep changing
  3. Finance does not trust reports
With the function,
  1. Final Accepted Amount is stable
  2. FX Impact % is explicit
  3. Reconciled On gives a time anchor

Policy enforcement and compliance

Examples
  1. Automatically flag deals where FX loss > 10% but status = Accepted
  2. Audit trail for
    1. Who recalculated FX
    2. When renegotiation was triggered
  3. SLA checks when Deals are not reconciled within 'X' days of quote creation
For many companies, FX policy violations are discovered at a later point in time, but you now enforce them at the moment of decision.

Sales coaching and deal hygiene

Unlock insights such as
  1. Which sales reps close deals with high FX volatility or frequently trigger renegotiation?
  2. Which regions or currencies produce unstable deals?
  3. Which deals are consistently over-optimistic at closure?

Other scenarios

  1. Approval and exception workflows
  2. Integration with ERP or accounting systems
  3. Predictive insights to forecast FX risk
  4. Historical snapshots for audit and analytics

We hope you found this post useful. Let us know your feedback in the comments or write to us at support@zohocrm.com.

Thanks!



=============================================================================





      • Sticky Posts

      • Kaizen #198: Using Client Script for Custom Validation in Blueprint

        Nearing 200th Kaizen Post – 1 More to the Big Two-Oh-Oh! Do you have any questions, suggestions, or topics you would like us to cover in future posts? Your insights and suggestions help us shape future content and make this series better for everyone.

      • Kaizen #226: Using ZRC in Client Script

        Hello everyone! Welcome to another week of Kaizen. In today's post, lets see what is ZRC (Zoho Request Client) and how we can use ZRC methods in Client Script to get inputs from a Salesperson and update the Lead status with a single button click. In this

      • Kaizen #222 - Client Script Support for Notes Related List

        Hello everyone! Welcome to another week of Kaizen. The final Kaizen post of the year 2025 is here! With the new Client Script support for the Notes Related List, you can validate, enrich, and manage notes across modules. In this post, we’ll explore how

      • Kaizen #217 - Actions APIs : Tasks

        Welcome to another week of Kaizen! In last week's post we discussed Email Notifications APIs which act as the link between your Workflow automations and you. We have discussed how Zylker Cloud Services uses Email Notifications API in their custom dashboard.

      • Kaizen #216 - Actions APIs : Email Notifications

        Welcome to another week of Kaizen! For the last three weeks, we have been discussing Zylker's workflows. We successfully updated a dormant workflow, built a new one from the ground up and more. But our work is not finished—these automated processes are

        • Recent Topics

        • Track ZohoForm Conversion using Postmessage event

          Hi, I’ve been using a third-party lead tracking tool to capture leads from my website along with their source. Earlier, with the HubSpot form, the third-party script was able to detect the postMessage event that iframe forms typically send back to the

        • Email task creator when task is updated/marked complete

          I am looking for a way to notify the creator of a task in zoho todo when - Task is updated Task is closed Comments entered 1 and 2 are critical, and I cannot find a zoho flow to do this. There is no way that as a manager I will know when someone has completed

        • 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

        • how to treat a same person as customer and vendor in zoho

          hi team, in my company, few persons acting as creditors as well as debtors (which means sometimes we pay them... some times we paid by them). in that case i would like to maintain a same ledger for that person.in zoho books it is treating creditor and

        • How to implement calculating average value of averaged values?

          Hi, I'm trying to implement a formula in my layout for a module that calculates the average of 2 averaged values, but I can't do so using the formula custom field. To calculate the 2 averaged values, I could use the formula custom field, but in the custom

        • Zoho Recruit update published job boards

          If we have a job thats already posted on several different job boards and we edit this job in zoho recruit (e.g. the description of the job), does this then automatically update this new information to all the published job boards?  If not, how does the

        • Narrative 14: The magic bazaar of Desk

          Behind the scenes of a successful ticketing system: BTS Series Narrative 14: The magic bazaar of Desk Marketplace is a centralized platform where users can discover Zoho and third-party applications that can be integrated with their Desk account to facilitate

        • Collections Management: #2 Late Payment Automation

          "Sir, I'll process the payment by evening, please don't apply any late payment charges", the customer said while arranging papers on his desk. Sanjay stood there with a tired smile. He had already visited twice that week. Payment collection was one thing.

        • Create a table in the layout section of modules

          Dear Sirs, I would like to know whether is possible to create a table under new fields in layouts section of modules. In fact in this section there are single line, multi line, pick list, multi-select, date, formula etc. but I am unable to add a table

        • Nimble enhancements to WhatsApp for Business integration in Zoho CRM: Enjoy context and clarity in business messaging

          Dear Customers, We hope you're well! WhatsApp for business is a renowned business messaging platform that takes your business closer to your customers; it gives your business the power of personalized outreach. Using the WhatsApp for Business integration

        • Power of Automation :: Automatic Task Status Handling for Users

          Hello Everyone, A custom function is a software code that can be used to automate a process and this allows you to automate a notification, call a webhook, or perform logic immediately after a workflow rule is triggered. This feature helps to automate

        • Question - why no way to input a 'tool description' and 'tree of 'tools'

          Every business is different, with different business processes. To be truly useful Zoho MCP needs to have user editable tool descriptions (or ruleset) and a 'tool tree' so that the LLM is context aware when being used. For example, the tool description

        • Develop Zoho Meeting as a Full Native Application (Not a Browser Wrapper)

          Hello Zoho Meeting Team, Hope you are doing well. We would like to suggest an important improvement regarding the Zoho Meeting desktop application. At the moment, the Zoho Meeting app feels more like a mini browser window or an iframe that loads the web

        • Can I create a custom function for chart of accounts?

          I'm trying to add a custom function that should run whenever a record in the Chart of Accounts module is edited, but on the form for creating a new function, the module dropdown does not include the chart of accounts as an option.

        • billing

          hi, I am being billed $12/year, and I can't remember why. My User ID is 691273115 Thanks for your help, --Kitty Pearl

        • Unable to confirm Super Admin assignment — confirmation button not working

          I’m trying to change the roles within my organization. I am currently a super admin and would like to add another user as a super admin. When I attempt to confirm the action, a screen appears asking for my password to verify my identity. However, when

        • Feature Request: Reviews

          Any chance we could get a "Reviews" element to put on sites? It should be extremely simple to do. Basically just take the comments box and add an option for a star rating. At the very least, it would be nice to have more customization options for the comment box so the text could be changed from "Comments" to "Reviews". I've looked at a bunch of embeddable review widgets but nothing meets my needs so this would be a great feature to have added to the site builder.

        • Can we handle a support like (incident management) project in Zoho Projects?

          Hi, I have a new profile of a project whereby we provide "ticket" base support to a client. They have a request and ideally we would handle comms via a email exchange logged in Zoho. Today we use Zoho Projects for all out projects, which means that we

        • Trying to show the actual Terms & Conditions on PDF

          Hi, On Zoho forms I am trying to have the actual terms and conditions that the user needs to accept also show on the pdf that they receive after. Right now it only says "Agreed". Please help.

        • Installing EMAIL Setup in New Domain

          Respected Support team, I'm facing an issue with cloudflare in Pakistan, I want to setup Zoho Mail Setup but I Don't know how to enable Zoho mail setup without cloudflare. My Website https://stumbleguyzzapk.com/, https://fakservices.com/ is using CF,

        • Enhancements to Zoho Meeting Annotator

          Hello Zoho Meeting Team, Hope you are doing well. We would like to share a few improvement suggestions regarding the Zoho Meeting Annotator used during screen sharing. While the current version provides helpful annotation tools, there are several limitations

        • Zoho Social/Marketing Plus - Addition to "Monitor" function

          It would be very helpful if the Monitor function would allow us to add a column to monitor hashtags in addition to pages and mentions. This is a common and very valuable function in other social listening tools.

        • Zoho forms - > Zoho desk multiple agents

          Hi! I would like to use a standard form to be used when we hiring people, so we looked at zoho forms for that. Now we would like to get that info in to Zoho desk and their different users shall take care of this ticket simultaneous . So, what would be

        • Almacenamiento

          Hola, Quisiera saber como podría hacer para bajar el almacenamiento de 5gb a mis usuarios, en otras palabras los quiero ir limitando de la cuota real, y luego ir agregando poco a poco la cantidad hasta llegar a los 5gb que me dan en el plan free. 

        • Will I Get a Refund If I Downgrade Zoho Mail?

          Hello, We upgraded an email account for our new employee. However, the employee left after one month, and now I've reduced the number of Zoho Mail users from 7 to 6. Can we get a refund for the remaining portion of our annual payment?

        • Introducing the revamped What's New page

          Hello everyone! We're happy to announce that Zoho Campaigns' What's New page has undergone a complete revamp. We've bid the old page adieu after a long time and have introduced a new, sleeker-looking page. Without further ado, let's dive into the main

        • Zoho Books - France

          L’équipe de Zoho France reçoit régulièrement des questions sur la conformité de ses applications de finances (Zoho Books/ Zoho Invoice) pour le marché français. Voici quelques points pour clarifier la question : Zoho Books est un logiciel de comptabilité

        • How do i follow up my email campaign in-thread

          Is there a way to follow up the email campaign so that it is in-thread using zoho campaigns? eg customer gets original email with subject line "hello" then 5 days later follow up would be with subject line "RE: hello".

        • Announcing new features in Trident for Mac (1.29.0)

          Hello everyone! Trident for macOS (v1.29.0) is here with new features and enhancements to enhance your business communication. Let's take a quick look at them. Access shared mailboxes. You can now view and access shared mailboxes in Trident, which are

        • Books is extremely slow again today !

          Everything is running slowly even with 500mb connection speed

        • Cyclic dependencies in many-to-many relationships...

          I have an application which includes a form for companies, and a form for contacts. Each company can be assigned 1 technical and 1 administrative contact. I have this working okay so far, but I want to copy the scripts used so far to a new empty application. When I import the scripts it fails with a message that says: Problem encountered while creating the application Error in resolving form dependency:Cyclic dependency among the forms:[Company, Contact] What can I do to resolve this? After all,

        • Zoho API to create ticket

          I'm developing an integration to create tickets via API, but, locally it works (send and recieve requests). In production it also works sending requests, but, my file don't recieve any response data. My URL is available in Zoho API Console and I have

        • Automate Timesheet Approvals with Multi-level Approval Rules

          Introducing Approval Rules for Timesheets in Zoho Projects. With this automation, teams can manage how timesheets are reviewed and approved by setting up rules with criteria and assigning approvers to handle submissions. Timesheet, when associated to

        • Labels Part 2

           Hey Zoho Mail Team, On the labels window on the left-hand pane, alphabetize label name display, rather than displaying in order created.  This one should be easy. Thanks, Drew

        • Building Toppings #1 - Serving your needs with Bigin Toppings

          Hey Biginners! We're excited to kick off our Developer Community series on building toppings for Bigin, and our goal is to provide an accessible, beginner-friendly, and relevant path for every developer. Imagine creating tiny pieces of software that unlock

        • Can we create Sprint with tasks from Multiple projects?

          Hi Team, We were using Zoho Sprints for quite sometime. Currently we have started the process of Sprint method. We couldnt create the active sprint board with the tasks from multiple projects. I would like to know whether this is possible or Any timeline

        • Tip of the Week #74– Create automated workflows in MS Power Automate

          Zoho TeamInbox now connects directly with Microsoft Power Automate, letting you streamline everyday routines tasks such as from sending emails to managing threads, with automated workflows. About the integration Zoho TeamInbox integrates with Microsoft

        • Account validation

          Hello everyone, I registered my account on ZeptoMail to use the system, but the problem is that the verification period on Zepto's end has already passed and I have limited functionality.

        • Paste issues in ZOHO crm notes

          Hi, since a week or so I have issues with the paste function in ZOHO CRM. I use "notes" to copy paste texts from Outlook emails and since a week or so, the pasting doesnt function as it should: some text just disappears and it gives a lot of empty lines/enters.....

        • Is it possible to add a gradient color to a newsletter im designing?

          From where i sit it looks like you can only choose a single color but not combine 2 colors?

        • Next Page