Building extensions #1: Creating and testing extensions for Zoho Finance Suite applications

Building extensions #1: Creating and testing extensions for Zoho Finance Suite applications

Hello developers!

We're excited to announce a new series called "Building extensions" to assist developers in creating efficient extensions for Zoho Finance Suite products. We'll support and guide you through the process of creating an extension and using the features offered in the developer portal.

What are extensions?

Extensions are installable plugins or add-ons that help enhance the existing functionality of your Zoho product or seamlessly integrate and interact with third-party applications for data transmission.

How can you build extensions?

Zoho offers a developer platform called Zoho Developer that allows you to build different types of applications. Sigma is a platform offered within Zoho Developer that is specifically designed for creating extensions for various Zoho products. Throughout this series, we'll look at how to create and develop extensions for the Zoho Finance Suite applications using Sigma.

Get to know all about extensions and building them further in detail.

Sigma extension support

The Zoho Finance Suite consists of seven applications: Zoho Books, Zoho Inventory, Zoho Expense, Zoho Invoice, Zoho Billing, Zoho Checkout, and Zoho Payroll. Currently, the Sigma platform supports creating and building extensions for these five Zoho Finance applications:
  • Zoho Books
  • Zoho Inventory
  • Zoho Expense
  • Zoho Invoice
  • Zoho Billing
Creating an extension
  • Log in or sign up at developer.zoho.com.
  • Go to Sigma and access your workspace.
  • Once you enter your workspace, you'll be taken to the Extensions section in Sigma.
  • Click the New Extension button to start building an extension.                                                                                     
  • Enter a name and description for the extension and choose the service you want to build the extension for. As mentioned earlier, Sigma offers support for Zoho Books, Zoho Invoice, Zoho Inventory, Zoho Billing, and Zoho Expense.                                                                                          
  • For our demo, let's choose the service as Zoho Books. Accept the terms and conditions, and then click Create.                                                                                          
  • The extension is successfully created. You can click the Extension Details icon to see an overview of the extension.                                                                                          
The extension details page shows the general details of the extension, such as creation date, creation time, and version, and allows you to associate developers with the extension.
  • Click the Edit Extension icon to start developing the extension.                                                                                  
  • The Zoho Books Developer Portal opens with the options and native features available to customize, curate, and develop your extension.                                                                
Zoho Books Developer Portal sections

The developer portal has four different sections to help customize and build your extension.

Learn: This section lists the native Zoho Books capabilities that can be used to create and develop extensions. Clicking the Set up Now button next to each feature will take you to the feature's development setup page.
                                                                                           

Build: This is the development setup section, which includes customization, automation, and components like connections, widgets, schedules, webhooks, and signals. You can customize your extension preferences, establish connections to integrate with other applications, and design custom interfaces to enhance user experience.
                                                                                          

Configure: This section assists with handling your extension's required configurations, whether they are generic settings or customizations required from the user. You can add global fields, which can be incorporated as either variables that store static data or through custom widgets that retrieve user inputs. You can also define functionalities that happen during installation and uninstallation.
                                                                                          

Publish: Once the extension has been built and configured, you can use this section to publish it for either private or public use. In both cases, the Zoho Books team will review the extension; for public extensions listed on Zoho Marketplace, the Zoho Marketplace approval team will also review them. You can share your privately published extension with other users using the Shared List option.
                                                                                          

We will explore more about each of these sections and their features in upcoming posts.

Testing an extension

The Zoho Books Developer Portal offers a dedicated testing environment for each extension, allowing you to test and validate it before publishing.

As a developer, you can use the Test Your Extension option in the top right corner of the portal to access your extension's sandbox environment.
                                                                  

This will redirect you to the sandbox testing environment for the extension you're developing, which is similar to Zoho Books and contains relevant modules to test with.
                                                                  

You can populate necessary data and test your extension functionality. Once everything is validated, you can go ahead and publish your extension for private or public use.

For support or questions related to Zoho Finance Suite extension development, you can email developer@zohofinance.com.

We hope you found this guide useful. Keep following this space for more information!

Next>>

    • Recent Topics

    • Update on V2 API End-of-Life Timeline

      Dear Users, Earlier this year, we shared the launch of the V3 APIs and requested users to migrate from the older V2 APIs by December 2025. We have received valuable feedback from our users and partners regarding their migration timelines. We are happy

    • Run a workflow after record merge

      Hello, We are wondering if there is a way to trigger a workflow after two records are merged? We have a sms service that use to text back and forth with Prospects and Contacts. To make it easy for our users, we automatically create them in this other

    • Live webinar | The Evolution of Zoho Show: 2025 Feature Recap

      2025 has been a year of exciting updates and features for Zoho Show. From advanced design and formatting tools to smarter presentation delivery, enhanced collaboration, and AI-powered features—along with the launch of our desktop apps, Show has continued

    • Batch Tracking custom function

      Hi fellow zoho users, We have our ecommerce site setup to shopify. I have some products I want to add batch tracking too, my only issue is that it breaks our shopify workflow (create sales order, invoice, payment, package) because it requires us to manually

    • Is it possible to setup bin locations WITHOUT mandating batch tracking?

      Hi fellow zoho users, I'm wondering if anyone else has a similar issue to me? I only have some products batch tracked (items with shelf life expiry dates) but I am trying to setup bin locations for my entire inventory so we can do stock counting easier.

    • Support “Other” Option with Free Text in Dropdown Fields

      Hello Zoho Bookings Team, Greetings, We would like to request an enhancement to the registration form fields in Zoho Bookings, specifically for dropdown fields. Current Limitation: At the moment, dropdown fields do not support an “Other” option that allows

    • Include Suggested Articles in New Ticket Email

      When someone creates a new ticket, is there any way to include recommended knowledge base articles (like the ones Zia Suggests) in the email notification to the user? When they're waiting for a reply, it would be nice to have sent them some recommended

    • Mapping a new Ticket in Zoho Desk to an Account or Deal in Zoho CRM manually

      Is there any way for me to map an existing ticket in Zoho desk to an account or Deal within Zoho CRM? Sometimes people use different email to put in a ticket than the one that we have in the CRM, but it's still the same person. We would like to be able

    • Item Bulk Edit - Allow for Reorder Level

      We're implementing a process for using the Reorder Level field for Items, and I have to go through and add this value to a huge chunk of our Items. It's driving me bonkers that I have to do this individually through the UI rather than bulk updating. It

    • Sharing my portal URL with clients outside the project

      Hi I need help making my project public for anyone to check on my task. I'm a freelance artist and I use trello to keep track on my client's projects however I wanted to do an upgrade. Went on here and so far I'm loving it. However, I'm having an issue sharing my url to those to see progress. They said they needed an account to access my project. How do I fix this? Without them needing an account.

    • Zoho Flow + QuickBooks Estimates – Line items not created from CRM subform

      Hi everyone, I’m trying to create QuickBooks Estimates from Zoho CRM Quotes using Zoho Flow. I’m aware that Zoho Flow’s native “Create Estimate” action does not support multiple line items, so I followed the community guidance for Invoices using a custom

    • SAP S/4 HANA Integration via ZOHO Flow

      Hi How do I change the SAP Client ID while creating a new connection ? MY client ID is 421. I believe the client id should be an input field for length 3 numbers rather then a drop down to select from a fixed set of values. Thanks

    • VLOOKUP FUNCTION PROBLEM

         Hello, i have a problem with the VLOOKUP  function in my sheet http://public.sheet.zoho.com/public/tonimoreno/indicemasacorporal2 in cell D2. This function doesn't work correctly and always returns the last content of the range. Can you help me?

    • Zoho Flow Completely Broken?

      Since December 13th, 100% of our flows have stopped working completely. Nothing is working or triggering??? I called support & sat on the line with them for 2 HOURS until they finally concluded it was a back-end problem on their end?? Now i'm calling

    • Print / Export full Dashboard page

      Hello Zoho team, It is currently only possible to print/export one component of a dashboard at a time. Requesting the option to print/export a full dashboard page with all components to a pdf or picture. Doing through the browser doesn't give good results.

    • emails duplicated in my outlook client

      Hello I am just new here and I have a litle problem that I do not find how to solve. I sumarise here after. Your help would be very appreciated. I have just recently contracted this zoho mail servicesservices as an initial evaluation yesterday night. I then:   - opened a free account  - created 1 initial email address ..........@domain.com  - created a second email address ..........@domain.com - proceeded with the config instructions (checking the ownership of my domain, changing MX etc... ) as

    • How to check task starting time in zoho mobile app?

      I am using the Zoho mobile app on my iPhone, and I am not able to see the task's starting and finishing times. When opening the Task information / Details, I can only see the Task start date and due date, but not the time. Is there any way to check a

    • Creating an extension in Sigma: Zoho CRM isn't selectable as a service

      I have 2 Zoho accounts which are part of 2 different workplaces. One workplace is able to select 'Zoho CRM' as a service option when creating a new extension, the other one is not. I'm not sure what the exact differences are between them. What do I need

    • List of packaged components and if they are upgradable

      Hello, In reference to the article Components and Packaging in Zoho Vertical Studio, can you provide an overview of what these are. Can you also please provide a list of of components that are considered Packaged and also whether they are Upgradable?

    • How to track a list of ALL the items that ONE customer bought?

      Hello, I am interested in getting a list of all the items that only ONE of my customers bought, and the invoices are what show up instead. It's very tedious to go through every single invoice when we sell a lot of items to this customer. Surely there

    • Knowledgebase SEO

      We have a custom-domain mapped help center that is not restricted via login. I have some questions: a) will a robots.txt file still allow us to control indexing? b) do we have the ability to edit the sitemap? c) do category URLs get indexed by search

    • RouteIQ for Zoho FSM

      Beste, Zou wel top zijn dat we een RouteIQ hebben voor FSM aangezien we constant moeten zien wat de beste route is voor onze monteurs. Nu moeten we een speciale aparte programma hebben om de beste route te berrekenen voor onze monteurs aangezien de planning

    • Export Tickets from the Help Center

      Hello everyone! We are now allowing end users to export tickets directly from the help center. The ticket export allows users to: Filter tickets by Department, Priority, and Account before exporting. Download files from Export History (Setup > Data administration

    • Super Admin Logging in as another User

      How can a Super Admin login as another user. For example, I have a sales rep that is having issues with their Accounts and I want to view their Zoho Account with out having to do a GTM and sharing screens. Moderation Update (8th Aug 2025): We are working

    • Is it possible to remove filtering options?

      My CRM has a lot of custom fields that should not be used in filters or views. Fields that are automated and exist only to store temporary values that get used in functions. These create a lot of noise in the list of fields to filter. Isn't there any

    • Function #18: Associate invoice templates automatically based on customer language

      For businesses dealing with a diverse linguistic clientele, it becomes crucial to send out invoices in the customer's preferred language to ensure effective communication. This requirement can be handled in Zoho Books by creating invoice templates in

    • Changing field types

      Question im a Zoho CRM user and curious, if I change a flied type from single or multi line text to a URL field type will i lose the data in the field or will it be converted to website link automatically. Thanks

    • Quote PDF – Header image stopped rendering suddenly

      Hello Zoho Support Team, We are facing an issue with Quote PDF templates in Zoho Books. Previously, images added inside the Quote header HTML were rendering correctly. However, recently the header image is no longer appearing, while header text still

    • Changing Default PDF Name

      Is it possible to change the default name of a PDF? As of right now, all of my quotes are named 'QT_$QuoteNumber' (i,e: 'QT_19803471298374) - would it be possible to change this to: '$CompanyName - $AccountName - $QuoteNumber' for instance?

    • Tip 2: Recursive functions in Deluge: How to dynamically run a function for a specified number of times.

      Hi folks, As part of the Zoho Creator - Tips and Tricks series every fortnight, we are back today with a new tip on Recursive functions.  Let us first quickly understand what Recursive functions are: A function that calls itself one or more times is known as a Recursive function. That is, you can execute a function to perform a particular action a specific number of times. And, at the end of each iteration, a new output is generated. Recursive functions are commonly used by programmers as it enables

    • Function #48: Manage fixed installment payments using Zoho Books

      Hello everyone, and welcome back to our series! Businesses offer installment payment options to their customers, particularly for expensive purchases, to ease the financial burden on them. By breaking down the total cost into smaller, more manageable

    • Spotlight series #6: The Show app for Android TV has a new look!

      Hello everyone! We are delighted to introduce our revamped and redesigned Show app for Android TV.  Smart TVs are exploding in popularity. Android TV alone has over 110 million active monthly devices. Zoho Show, as part of a constant effort to improve

    • Can’t create alias “Email alias already exists”

      Hi, I’m trying to create the following alias for my domain email. contact@ personal@ private@ But I get a email alias already exists. I had a soho account previously which I deleted which I suspect is causing the issue. Can someone assist? Kind Rega

    • Zoho Books integration sync from Zoho CRM does not work

      Hi Zoho Community & Zoho Support We just tried to get a sync some products into Zoho Books from CRM using the native sync and we're getting an error: "It looks like some mandatory fields you're trying to map are empty. Please provide valid field names

    • Appraisals - Order of Previous Reviews Should Be Newest to Oldest

      The new Zoho People layout generally does a decent job at providing the necessary information for performing appraisals of employee performance. One example of this is the Previous Reviews section: This information is helpful when conducting a review.

    • Paging through API results. a major gap in your documentation.

      There is no way for me. to get all of my data through a single API call. Typically REST APis have mechanisms for paging through API results. But the documentation for the API I am using: https://desk.zoho.com/DeskAPIDocument#Introduction Has no mention

    • Recurring invoices were generated with old template...

      I have recurring invoices setup. Ones generated on 10.20.2025 used the modified template I had used. But for some reason, on the ones created on 11/20/2025, it seems the invoices created reverted to the previous version of the invoice template. Notably,

    • Tip #54- Exploring the Files Icon in Zoho Assist- 'Insider Insights'

      As we’re already in mid-December, it’s a good time to take a closer look at one of the most useful options in the Zoho Assist remote support dashboard—the Files icon. To get started, log in to Zoho Assist using your credentials. Once you’re in, navigate

    • Tip#47: Estimation planner

      Sprint planning becomes easier, smoother, more collaborative and more accurate with the Estimation Planner extension. Most work items involve multiple users, and each user's role and effort vary. To provide an unbiased and fair estimation point to the

    • Upcoming update to Google Drive integration in Zoho Creator

      Hello everyone, We're writing to inform you about an upcoming update to how Zoho Creator integrates with Google Drive. In Zoho Creator, during actions like importing files to create an app or attaching files to fields, you can choose files directly from

    • Next Page