Tip #5 : Setup Approval Workflow for your Subscription Business

Tip #5 : Setup Approval Workflow for your Subscription Business

Hello everyone,

We have been sharing a tip every week to address specific business scenarios which can be implemented for your subscription business. Last week, we shared a tip about implementing the Refer and Earn Workflow system. This week, we will be looking at how you can set up an Approval Workflow for Subscription Business.

Business Scenario:

One of our customers had a special requirement for his Subscription Box Business. He runs a Pet Food subscription box business where the food items are shipped to customers periodically.

Customers subscribe to a box of their choice online. Once they subscribe, he has a set of prerequisites that his customers must meet. For example, he cross-checks with customers for their preferred food ingredients, validates their delivery address, checks his inventory to see if the stock is available, etc. This usually takes a day or two. After he completes the cross-checking, he approves that subscription. Next, he bills his customer periodically from the approved date instead of the date on which his customer subscribed.

To understand this scenario better, let's consider that a customer subscribed to a box on January 1. After the merchant cross-checks, the subscription is approved on January 4. Rather than billing the customer on the 1st of every month, the customer will be billed on the 4th, say February 4, March 4 and so on.

Although the subscription will be in live status in Zoho Subscriptions (with the payment collected upfront from the customers), he needs an Approval Workflow to address the mentioned business scenario. Now, let's look into how we can implement in Zoho Subscriptions.

Addressing His Scenario

We have summarized the customer's requirements and the solutions we suggested to address them below.
  1. Requirement:
    Introduce a new approval status for each subscription.

    Solution:
    We created a custom field with its type as Dropdown and name as  Approval Status. We added two values: Awaiting Approval and Approved. By default, when a subscription is created, the custom field will hold the value as Awaiting Approval and it will change once the subscription is approved.
  2. Requirement:
    Differentiate and view the subscriptions based on their approval status.

    Solution:
    We created two custom views for the Subscriptions module and configured them to display the subscriptions based on the Approval Status custom field. Learn more about configuring custom views.
  3. Requirement:
    Approve the subscription and change the subscription renewal date automatically.

    Solution:
    We created a custom button to address this requirement. Custom Buttons can be configured to run a piece of code when you click them and you can configure them for any module. In this case, the custom button has two actions:
     
    I.    First, it needs to change the value of the Approval Status custom field to Approved.

    II.   Second, it needs to change the subscription renewal date to be after a month from present date, so that the customer gets billed periodically from the approved date rather than the date on which he subscribed.
We addressed these requirements by writing a code for the custom button. You can view the code in GitHub. By configuring this, he was able to change the Approval Status and also the renewal date in a single click.

To configure the custom field:

      1.  Go to Settings > Preferences > Invoices.
      2. Create a custom field with the name as Approval Status and type as Dropdown.
      3. Type the options as Awaiting Approval and Approved and select the Default Value as Awaiting Approval.
      4. Click Save.

To setup the custom button:
      1. Go to Settings > Preferences > Subscriptions.
      2. Create a new custom button.
      3. Enter a suitable name.
      4. Copy and paste the code from GitHub. Modify it as per your requirements.
      5. Click Save and you are good to go.

Now, you'll find the custom button in the subscriptions details page.

Found this useful? Try it out for your subscription business and let us know how it works. If you have any questions, feel free to comment below! We are here to answer them.


Cheers,
Sasidaran K,
Zoho Subscriptions.

    • Sticky Posts

    • Tip #4 : Refer and Earn Workflow system for your Subscription Business

      Hello everyone, We've been coming up with a tip every week to address specific business scenarios which can be implemented for your business. In continuation to the previous post, this week we will be seeing about how you can implement the Refer and Earn Workflow system to acquire more customers. Why are Referrals important? Customer Acquisition is crucial for any business to sustain itself in a constantly evolving market. It involves persuading new consumers to purchase your products. Customers

    • Tip #2 - Cancellation of Offline Subscriptions based on the Expected Payment Date

      Hello everyone, As you all know, we are coming up with a custom function workflow every week to address specific business scenarios. In continuation of this previous blog, this week we will be seeing about Cancellation of Offline Subscriptions based on the Expected Payment Date. Business Scenario: In general, for any business, the customers make payments via online as well as offline. In case of subscription where the automatic collection of charge is enabled (aka online subscription), the customer's

    • Tip #3 : Send SMS Reminders for your Subscription Business

      Hello everyone, As you all know, we are coming up with a tip every week to address specific business scenarios. In continuation to the previous blog, this week we will be seeing how you can use SMS reminders for your Subscription Business. Using SMS messages for your Subscription Business: While managing your subscription business, more often than not, you need to keep your customers informed about upcoming renewals, payment reminders and cancellations. By keeping them informed in advance, you can

    • Tips And Tricks - Announcement

      Hello everyone, Every business is unique and each of them follows a specific workflow. While managing your customers' subscriptions with Zoho, you might have some needs unique to your business. Custom Functions helps you address such needs. This is a start to a series of posts, where we will be coming up with a custom function workflow every week that addresses specific business scenarios. Watch this space for further updates! Also, if you have any specific business scenario which needs to be addressed,

    • Tip #6 : Accessing external URLs from Zoho Subscriptions

      Hello everyone, We have been sharing a tip every week to address specific business scenarios which you can implement for your subscription business. Last week, we shared a tip about implementing the Approval Workflow system. This week, let's look at how you can access external URLs with the help of Custom Link. Business Scenario: Every business functions differently and has its unique requirements. At times, businesses might want to access other websites or applications by appending specific information

    • Recent Topics

    • Zoho Desk Limit for Comma Separated Queries

      Hi, I have just discovered a limit that I believed is not mentioned in any of Zoho's documentations. My search query looks like so: "query: {"accountId":"786050000091629966,786050000163589273,786050000163589427,786050000162753705,786050000162112971,786050000161987643,786050000160752868,786050000167089504,786050000167089378,786050000167089024,786050000167070005,786050000166295256,786050000128153693,786050000110560021,786050000046594575,786050000039106461,786050000002225356,786050000076889093,786050000047895103,786050000043365354,786050000044765191,786050000041790249,786050000040359116,786050000037945198,786050000024605077,786050000000525015,786050000155333895,786050000157741437,786050000000718125,786050000011574353,","departmentId":"786050000042648070","status":"Finished","sortBy":"createdTime","customField2":"cf_completion_date:2025-01-28T03:00:00.000Z,2025-10-28T03:00:00.000Z","customField3":"cf_billed:false"}"

    • Module Name doesn't exist

      I am trying to create a module named Activity, with plural Activities, but I have an error that module name already exists. This module is doesn't exist, and I don't have a single field called Activity or Activities.

    • Zoho Desk iOS and Android app update: AI powered: Reply Assistance and Refine Messages on IM module.

      Hello everyone! We are excited to introduce new AI powered features on the IM module of the Zoho Desk app. Reply Assistance: Reply Assistance generates suggested responses for incoming chat messages, which you can directly insert into the conversation

    • Is it possible to embed Youtube shorts?

      Hi Zoho desk support, This is Ryan from Accuver America. While I'm trying to create a knowledge base article with embed video, I ran into this issue. "www.youtube.com refuse to connect" A little bit background is that because this video is recorded on

    • Split functionality - Admins need ability to do this

      Admins should be able to split an expense at any point of the process prior to approval. The split is very helpful for our account coding, but to have to go back to a user and ask them to split an invoice that they simply want paid is a bit of an in

    • Delegates - Access to approved reports

      We realized that delegates do not have access to reports after they are approved. Many users ask questions of their delegates about past expense reports and the delegates can't see this information. Please allow delegates see all expense report activity,

    • How to include total km for multiple trips in expense report.

      Whenever I create a mileage report it only shows the total dollar amount to be reimbursed. The mileage for each individual trip is included but I also need to see the total distance for all trips in a report? How do I do this?

    • Get logged in user ID in Deluge script

      Hello all, How do I get the id of the logged-in user in a deluge script? the "zoho.loginuserid" function actually returns the users email address or whatever the user id they use to login to zoho with and not the id of the user record, and given that

    • Item Details Field - New Barcode / Document option?

      Is this a new feature??? its in both books and inventory.

    • Shared Mailbox - Mark as read for all users

      Hi all, Maybe someone can help me out. At the moment we have a shared mailbox without streams. When a users reads an mail or marks it as read other users will not see this. How can we resolve this? We now archive the mails when read and followed up. However

    • How do I increase the email attachment size in Zoho CRM ?

      It looks like I'm limited to 10MB when sending an attachment using the email widget on a record in Zoho CRM. Is there a way to increase the size? Or can I use some other tool? From what I'm reading online, I'm maxed out at 10MB. Any insight would be greatly

    • Can I export to PDF in Zoho Learn

      I have seen help pages where export to pdf options are available but I do not see that option available from the application. I see that exprt is available in my free trial version but that is only to html pages. I need to be able to export my manuals

    • Zoho Sites "pages" management page

      I have 80 plus pages on zoho sites. When I go to the "pages" link to view and edit pages, They are not in any kind of order, so I spend lots of time searching for pages when I need to edit or create new. How can I change the view order of all my pages

    • Staff rules

      Hi! Do you people know what are the default staff rules when a new booking is created? We have two staff members in my team (me as the admin, and my employee). As we share the same services, I'm wondering how Zoho will pick the staff for new apointments.

    • Add Image Upload Field to Zoho Bookings Registration Form

      Hi, We would like to request the addition of an image upload field to the Zoho Bookings registration form. Currently, Zoho Bookings only supports text-based fields (e.g., Single Line, Multi-Line, Email, Checkbox, Dropdown, Radio Button, and Date), but

    • Merge Tags Output Incorrect Placeholder Text After CRM Sync

      Hi everyone, I’m experiencing an issue with merge tags in Zoho Campaigns after last sync of contacts and leads from Zoho CRM (days before everything worked perfectly). Here’s the situation (seems like a default configuration in Campaigns) : My leads have

    • UI Improvement - Ability to Collapse Flow

      The UI for Flow is generally pretty good. However, when multiple decision trees are used, the layout can get pretty convoluted and hard-to-follow (see one of my Flows below): In these cases, even the auto-arrange fails to make this something that a normal

    • Windows agent 2025_M02 release notes

      Agent Version: 111.0.3.300 Release date: 24 February, 2025 Various Major enhancements to improve overall performance and optimize the user experience. Squashed a few bugs to improve overall product quality.

    • Windows agent 2025_M01 release notes

      Agent Version: 111.0.3.299 Release date: 05 February, 2025 Major Enhancement: Live Monitor feature compatibility released. Major Enhancement: Updated Scaling for multi technician cases with Android and Web based viewers. Various other bug fixes and performance

    • how to record deferred revenue?

      Dear Zoho Team, We issue invoices relating to 12-month web hosting service. When we issue the invoice, we should record the entire amount of the invoice as DEFERRED REVENUE (ie. $10 x 12 mths = $120, balance sheet item). After the particular month of the hosting service, $10 of revenue has been earned and deferred revenue amount will be $110. We must keep adjusting the balance sheet and income statement over the course of the service until the company has fulfilled its obligation of services and

    • Narrative 13: Importing your data

      Behind the scenes of a successful ticketing system: BTS Series Narrative 13: Importing your data When importing data into an application, it is crucial to prevent data loss or duplication. These types of errors can hinder the development of a clean and

    • Blueprint Not Triggering When Lead Status Is Updated by Workflow (IndiaMART Integration)

      I have set up a blueprint that triggers when a lead’s status is “New Lead.” Our CRM is integrated with IndiaMART, and when leads are created from IndiaMART, their Lead Status is initially set to None. To handle this, I created a workflow that automatically

    • Update Subform in specific field(Status) without affecting other fields in Zoho CRM using Deluge?

      Scenario: PRODUCT Module(change name Plot) in any product status change From Available to Booked then on PROJECT Custom Module have Subform So, Subform name is Property Details now in that Subform 1 field is STATUS that update according to  product status

    • YouTube Live #2: Agreement Intelligence with Zoho Sign's eSign AI assistant

      Hi there, We're back again with our YouTube live series and this time, we'll take you through our holistic agreement intelligence powered signature workflows. Struggling to draft an agreement? Need help double-checking clauses and going through complicated

    • Can I Build a POS using ZOHO creator and integrate it with ZOHO Books?

      Hello,  I have a Zoho Books account and I was wondering if I can have a POS system that integrates with it. Primarily with Inventory, Customers and Payment and ofcourse Create invoices and credit notes.   So, would Zoho creator provide me with this solution?  Thank you, 

    • An important update for Zoho Cliq desktop users

      The latest version of the Zoho Cliq desktop app (v1.8.0) will no longer be supported on macOS 10.15 Catalina and earlier versions. This is because the framework we use (Electron) no longer supports some older macOS versions. If you’re using macOS 10.15

    • Zoho Projects - Visual improvement to parent and sub-task relationship

      Hi Projects Team, My feature request is to improve sub-task visibility. Please see screenshot below. I really think parent child relationships could be visually improved. Even if the first letter of the parent task was inline with other same level tasks

    • New Toolbar in Zoho Sheet

      We have revamped our toolbar design in this new version of Zoho Sheet. Below are some screenshots to help you get accustomed to this new interface. Click on the picture below to view the animated image in its original size. Scroll down this post to learn about the changes. Highlight of Changes: The previous format tab is now split into 2 tabs - Home and Format. The Home tab contains the commonly used functions and the Format tab holds formatting related options. Under the Home tab towards the far

    • Zoho inbuilt Telephony made a lot of issues!

      Hi there, I am a user that I am working with zoho inbuilt telephony around 1 month. Non of my colleagues are happy with this app! most of the time customer cannot hear my customer service team, customers say our voice is breaking. whenever Telephony support

    • Sending workflow notifications using popular chat services

      Hello everyone, We have introduced instant and scheduled notifications on some of the most popular chat platforms to facilitate easy collaboration, quick action, and wider reach. Workflow notifications can be sent to the following chat platforms: Zoho

    • Webhook not firing.

      I created a webhook using the Web UI, it looks very nice and the testing worked without an issue, but when i save/ update a ticket, the webhook is not firing. Here are the details of the web-hook i get from using the API "modifiedTime": "2019-10-22T09:23:37.380Z",

    • Adding Images to a Quote in Zoho CRM

      We are currently preparing to use Quotes in Zoho CRM and we are building out our Quote templates.  We came across an issue of not being to add Images of the products to the Quote - specifically in the body of the Quote templates.   This is a problem,

    • Applications built with Zoho Creator

      Hi, I’m really interested in seeing how others have built their application using Zoho Creator, especially those designed for external users (clients, vendors, or the public). If you’ve developed something along those lines and don’t mind sharing, I’d

    • Is it posssible to add Asap Widget on Wordpress?

      I have tried to add the ASAP widget so users could iniciate chats and see the KB information but nothings seems to work. I have tried to add the script using a php snippet that adds the to the footers and also tried one for the header in the functio

    • Require ticket resolution

      Hi Zoho team, Is there a way to require resolution even if an agent did not use a blueprint? for example, our blueprint has a "resolve" transition but what if agent revoked blueprint and manually set the status of ticket to closed? Is there a way where

    • Tables from ZohoSheets remove images when updated from source

      I have a few tables from a ZohoSheet in a ZohoWriter document that will remove the images in the cells when I refresh from the source. The source still has the images in the table when I go to refresh. After updating from the source, as you can see the

    • API Pagination Error: 'from' Parameter Limit

      Hello, I am encountering an error while paging through the Zoho Desk API results: Status code: 422 - {"errorCode":"UNPROCESSABLE_ENTITY","message":"The value passed for field 'from' exceeds the range of '0-4999'."} Is 5000 the maximum number of records

    • How to go to the next open ticket in the queue when agents closes ticket

      Zoho Desk When agent closes a ticket - eg when they choose 'Send and Close" - where is the setting that automatically redirects them to the next open ticket in the queue?

    • CRM verify details pop-up

      Was there a UI change recently that involves the Verify Details pop-up when changing the Stage of a Deal to certain things? I can't for the life of me find a workflow or function, blueprint, validation rule, layout rule ect that would randomly make it

    • Custom templates for calendar report

      What about being able to design custom templates for the calendar report, as well as for other types of reports? I think more users are waiting for this.

    • Next Page