How to maintain steady cash flow during the COVID-19 crisis using Zoho Invoice

How to maintain steady cash flow during the COVID-19 crisis using Zoho Invoice

Dear customers,

I hope this finds you and your loved ones in good health.

As we are witnessing, the COVID-19 pandemic has started taking a toll on businesses of all types. Here are some useful tips that could help you streamline your invoicing and AR processes to keep your business healthy.

1. Communicate clearly with your customers:
During this period, transparent communication with customers is a necessity. A lot of businesses have started displaying messages on their home pages, explaining their BCP (Business Continuity Process) and other important announcements they want to convey to their customers.

As an additional means of communication, you can use the banner message in the customer portal of Zoho Invoice. The banner message is visible in the home page of the portal, so it can help get the customer's attention quickly. You can set up this message under Settings > Preferences > Portal.

2. Relax the deadlines for estimates and invoices:
Your customers' priority at this moment will be keeping their family and loved ones safe, which might mean your estimates get accepted a little later than usual. Same goes for your invoice payments. Instead of bombarding the customer with multiple reminder emails, you can relax your policy and push back the expiration dates and due dates of your estimates and invoices. 

To push back the dates on individual transactions, you can simply edit and make the changes. However, you can also perform this action in bulk (for up to 25 transactions in one go). Here's a screenshot that explains the steps:



You can follow the same steps in the Estimates section to update expiration dates in bulk.

 3. Be approachable:
As a standard business practice, you might have set up automatic payment reminders in Zoho Invoice to go out on specific days before or after the invoice due date. However, given the current circumstances, you can definitely expect delays in payment.

Since you have control over the content that goes out in these reminder emails, think about rephrasing it to let your customers know that if they need any assistance, they can reach out to you by phone or email. This way, your finance team doesn't have to wait and wonder whether the customer will make their payment or not, or spend time sending extra emails. You can tweak your reminder email content under Settings > Reminders.

By making it easy for your customers to approach you and treating them on a case-by-case basis, you can actually bring down the number of unpaid transactions.

Let's say you have done this and have clearly stated how your customers can contact you. Now, what responses can you expect from them?
a) "I might not be able to pay the full invoice amount on time."
b) "I might not be able to pay the full invoice amount at all."
c) 'If you can offer me a discount, I can pay now."

Tips 4, 5, and 6 can help you handle these cases efficiently.

4. Enable partial payments for invoices:
Rather than waiting for your customers to be able to make a full invoice payment, you can encourage them to make partial payments for invoices so that you can have a steady cash flow. If you are collecting payments online, you can enable this option while creating or editing an invoice.



If you collect payments offline, you can convey this information through the 'Terms and Conditions' field on the invoice.

5. Offer discounts:
By offering discounts on your outstanding invoices, you are proving that you care about your customers enough to give them a bit of a break. If you don't see the option to apply discounts to existing invoices, please enable it under Settings > Preferences > General.

6. Write off invoices in special cases:
If you've extended the deadline for a payment, but your customer has really run out of funds and won't be able to make the payment any time soon, you can waive the invoice so you can move ahead with your accounting. 



Since written-off invoices turn into bad debt, use the Bad Debt report in the Reports section of Zoho Invoice to make sure you're not accumulating too much. 

7. Increase the credit limit for loyal customers:
If a customer has been with you for a long time and is sticking with you during this period, an increased credit limit is a good way to thank them for their business. By increasing their credit limit, you are letting them know that you continue to want their business. The option to set a credit limit is available when you create or edit a customer profile.

Though some of these tips might have a negative effect on your finances temporarily, they can gain you long-term benefits like customer loyalty and customer retention, which will help your business recover more easily. 

Did you find these tips useful? Can you think of some other best practices that businesses can use to get through difficult times? Let us know in the comments. 

Note from Zoho: If you need any assistance regarding Zoho Invoice, our support team is available 24 hours a day, Monday-Friday. You can also reach out to us through email (support@zohoinvoice.com), live chat, or phone.

Because Zoho recognizes that our own customers may be facing difficult times right now, we have rolled out an Emergency Subscription Assistance Program (ESAP) to help small businesses through this crisis. Learn more about this program.

Take care and stay safe! We'll get through this storm together.

Regards,
Harikrishna
Customer Relations | Zoho Finance



      Zoho Campaigns Resources


        • Desk Community Learning Series


        • Digest


        • Functions


        • Meetups


        • Kbase


        • Resources


        • Glossary


        • Desk Marketplace


        • MVP Corner


        • Word of the Day


        • Ask the Experts


          • Sticky Posts

          • Zoho Finance Workshop 2023 is coming to the USA. Get exclusive training on Zoho Finance apps, one-on-ones, and more.

            Hello all, We'd like to invite you to our biggest Zoho Finance workshop in the United States. After a brief break, we are excited to be back. This year, we're bringing together our customers and community members for two days of curated hands-on sessions,
          • How to maintain steady cash flow during the COVID-19 crisis using Zoho Invoice

            Dear customers, I hope this finds you and your loved ones in good health. As we are witnessing, the COVID-19 pandemic has started taking a toll on businesses of all types. Here are some useful tips that could help you streamline your invoicing and AR processes to keep your business healthy. 1. Communicate clearly with your customers: During this period, transparent communication with customers is a necessity. A lot of businesses have started displaying messages on their home pages, explaining their
          • Introducing: Digital signature for estimates and invoices

            Dear customers, We are pleased to announce that the much awaited Zoho Invoice - Zoho Sign integration is live! You can now sign your estimates and invoices before emailing it to your customers. Also, you can have them sign your estimates while accepting it. Here is our help document to help you get started: https://www.zoho.com/invoice/help/integrations/sign-integration.html Note: This feature is available across all editions of Zoho Invoice except the Indian edition. Out of all the feature requests
          • Webinar: Introduction to the Client Portal

            Business owners know there is never enough time in the day. Not only do you have to beat the competition and make the sale, you then have to make sure you get paid. In fact, the sales process starts way before the sale, and never really ends. Preparing and getting estimates approved, collecting payments, and fielding customer requests for information related to past transactions are all part of the day in the life of a business owner. Well, Zoho Invoice can offer some relief to weary business owners.

          Zoho CRM Plus Resources

            Zoho Books Resources


              Zoho Subscriptions Resources

                Zoho Projects Resources


                  Zoho Sprints Resources


                    Zoho Orchestly Resources


                      Zoho Creator Resources


                        Zoho WorkDrive Resources



                          Zoho CRM Resources

                          • CRM Community Learning Series

                            CRM Community Learning Series


                          • Tips

                            Tips

                          • Functions

                            Functions

                          • Meetups

                            Meetups

                          • Kbase

                            Kbase

                          • Resources

                            Resources

                          • Digest

                            Digest

                          • CRM Marketplace

                            CRM Marketplace

                          • MVP Corner

                            MVP Corner




                            Zoho Writer Writer

                            Get Started. Write Away!

                            Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.

                              Zoho CRM コンテンツ




                                ご検討中の方

                                  • Recent Topics

                                  • Zoho Bookings changes Lead Source

                                    Hi. i would like to know if there's a way for Zoho Bookings to not change the lead source when booking a lead for an appointment as the lead source will be used in a report. Scenario: Lead source: Website after booking an appointment Lead source: Zoho Bookings Thanks. Dan
                                  • Need to set workflow or journey wait time (time delay) in minutes, not hours

                                    Minimum wait time for both Campaigns workflows and Marketing Automation journeys is one hour. I need one or the other to be set to several minutes (fraction of the hour). I tried to solve this by entering a fraction but the wait time data type is an integer
                                  • Suggestion: Associating Assets with Company in Zoho FSM

                                    Hello Team, I would like to share an idea based on practical experience. Currently, all assets in the Zoho FSM Asset module are linked to a specific contact person. I would like to know if it is possible to associate assets with a company instead. This
                                  • Zoho Inventory / Finance Suite - Extend Visibility of File Names on Attachment Fields

                                    Hi Inventory / Finance Suite team, I noticed recently that when you add an attachment field to a module in Inventory, only the first 8 characters of the file name are visible on the details view. 8 characters is not a useful amount and there is plenty
                                  • AI Interview Insights: Turn Recorded Interviews into Quick Transcripts & Summaries

                                    Evaluating interviews shouldn’t require replaying long recordings or taking manual notes. With AI Interview Insights, you can now review complete transcripts and AI-generated summaries of your One-way (Recorded) interviews right inside Zoho Recruit. This
                                  • Edit Pinned Comments in Zoho Desk

                                    It's great that private comments can now be pinned to the top of the ticket but what would be extremely helpful would be to allow for the pinned comment to be edited vs. having to find the comment in the ticket to edit it.
                                  • Many Notes Becoming Unusable

                                    Hello. The Notebook app is becoming unusable. I'm getting odd-looking results from my searches. Some of the notes, after clicking on them, show an update button that does absolutely nothing. Not sure what has happened, but it would be nice to get this
                                  • Kaizen #218: Actions APIs - Field Updates

                                    Hello all!! Welcome back to a fresh Kaizen week. In the previous weeks, we covered Workflow Rules APIs, Actions APIs - Email Notification APIs, and Tasks Update APIs. This week, we will continue with another Actions API - the Field Update API in Zoho
                                  • How Contract Types and Templates Form the Backbone of Zoho Contracts

                                    Every contract in Zoho Contracts starts with two essential elements: Contract Type and Template. These are not just administrative steps. They define how every contract in your organization is created, governed, and managed over time. Let us look at the
                                  • E-Invoicing in Belgium with Zoho Books

                                    Starting January 1, 2026, Belgium is introducing mandatory electronic invoices (e-invoicing) for all B2B transactions between VAT-registered businesses. This means that invoices and credits notes must be exchanged in a prescribed digital format. How E-Invoicing
                                  • Zoho Books Finance Modules Not Accessible in Zoho CRM Mobile App

                                    We have integrated Zoho CRM with Zoho Books using the Zoho Finance Suite integration. In the CRM web version, we can see the Finance modules (Estimates/Quotes, Invoices, Sales Orders, Items, Payments) and are able to create invoices and quotes directly
                                  • Greek character in Deluxe script

                                    Hi, We have been using a script since 2022 which replaces characters in Greek contact names using replaceAll. Since this morning, all the Greek characters used in the script have turned to question marks. I tried retyping the characters, copy-pasting
                                  • CRM Related list table in Zoho analytics

                                    In Zoho Analytics, where can I view the tables created from zoho crm related lists? For example, in my Zoho CRM setup, I have added the Product module as a related list in the Lead module, and also the Lead module as a related list in the Product module.
                                  • Zoho Flow Credits

                                    Hi , I would like to ask the reason why every time I added plus credit but few days later I will return back to default? (as below I add credit to 3000 but today It change back to 1000) Most important is, when the credit fully used, not any reminder to
                                  • Connecting zoho creator to zoho writer to send prefilled documents

                                    i will paste the worflow below // Get user's submitted data from the form userSalary = input.Current_Salary; userCIBIL = input.CIBIL_Score; userEmail = input.Email; userName = input.Name; // You need to get the Document ID from the URL of your Zoho Writer
                                  • Zoho Creator to Zoho Writer for prefilled documents...

                                    In response to the question about connecting Zoho Creator to Zoho Writer for prefilled documents, I wanted to share a working implementation that demonstrates how to use the record_id parameter with the Zoho Writer Merge API. This allows Writer to automatically
                                  • Managing functions

                                    Can someone let me know if there are any plans to improve the features for managing functions in CRM? I have lots of functions and finding them is hard. The search only works on the function name and the filter only works on function type. I have created
                                  • Introducing our latest privacy enhancement - Hiding email IDs in Zoho Cliq Networks

                                    Hello everyone, Zoho Cliq Networks offers a powerful collaboration platform that allows businesses to create dedicated digital workspaces for external vendors, partners, or individuals you want to communicate with professionally without adding them to
                                  • zoho performance

                                    OVERALL CONFIGURATION OF ZOHO PERFORMANCE Quarterly performance review Self rating and scoring Manager rating and scoring
                                  • Zoho Social API for generating draft posts from a third-party app ?

                                    Hello everyone, I hope you are all well. I have a question regarding Zoho Social. I am developing an application that generates social media posts, and I would like to be able to incorporate a feature that allows saving these posts as drafts in Zoho Social.
                                  • When will it be possible to edit Subform records via either views or tabular reports?

                                    Hey there, data maintenance often requires mass update of quite a lot of records. While this is a piece of cake via either List view or Zoho sheet view, the same cannot be carried out for subform records yet. When one of the two options will be made available?
                                  • Onboarding

                                    Hello Team, Im yuktha working as HR at Ossisto Technologies. We are currently utilizing zoho for onboarding candidate. right now facing issue with onboarding Attaching the screenshots for your reference
                                  • Move attachments from one module to another with Deluge

                                    I have created a button that works just like the convert button for my custom modules. I would like this custom function to move any attachments in this record to the new module. I can't seem to find any documentation on how this can be accomplished.
                                  • Archiving Contacts

                                    How do I archive a list of contacts, or individual contacts?
                                  • How do I change a form's name? Why isn't this more intuitive?

                                    Can someone please let me know how to change a form's name?
                                  • Updating Secondary Contact (CCs)

                                    We use Zoho Forms to capture the user request and integrated with Zoho Desk to raise tickets. Active Microsoft login is captured in our Zoho forms and registered as Primary contact in Zoho desk ticket. We also an have an option to raise ticket on behalf
                                  • Control Over Zia Generative AI Reply Assistance Behavior

                                    Hello, I would like to request an enhancement to the Zia Generative AI feature, specifically concerning the Reply Assistance within Zoho Desk. Current Issue: When replying to a ticket, the Ticket Properties section is automatically replaced by the Zia
                                  • AI feature in Zoho Desk suggesting answers based on past ticket threads

                                    Hi I would like to suggest something that would be very useful : instead of suggesting answers based on the Knowledge Base, I think it would be great if Zia could analyze the history of all customer and agents threads, to suggest answers in new tickets.
                                  • Zia now integrated with Open AI in Zoho Desk

                                    The powerful integration of Zia with OpenAI, has empowered Zoho Desk reach a new level of efficiency and performance. With contextual self-service capabilities, Zia enables agents to boost their productivity and delivers superior customer experiences.
                                  • Zoho Desk Partners with Microsoft's M365 Copilot for seamless customer service experiences

                                    Hello Zoho Desk users, We are happy to announce that Zoho Desk has partnered with Microsoft's M365 to empower customer service teams with enhanced capabilities and seamless experiences for agents. Microsoft announced their partnership during their keynote
                                  • Employee self-service portal: Onboarding and continuous learning platform for support reps

                                    Hello everyone, In any organization, employees must go through multiple courses to learn about the product, their organization's standards, and how to respond to customer queries using the knowledge base articles available. This typically requires completing
                                  • 2024 Email Authentication Standards: Elevating Security with Google and Yahoo

                                    In contemporary email communication, email authentication plays a pivotal role in mitigating email fraud, spam, and phishing attacks. Brace yourself for a new level of security. Starting February 2024, Gmail and Yahoo will be implementing robust email
                                  • Contact custom field in layout

                                    Good day, all, I have an "Extension" custom field in contacts, and would like to display the contact extension in the ticket layout, but I don't seem to be able to. What am I missing? Thanks Rudy
                                  • Is there a way to automatically add Secondary Contacts (CCs) when creating a new ticket for specific customers?

                                    Some of our customers want multiple contacts to receive all notifications from our support team. Is there a way to automatically add secondary contacts to a ticket when our support team opens a new ticket and associates it with an account? This would
                                  • Exact match in name when searching workdrive

                                    Hello, I am wondering how to search workdrive files/folders with an exact match in the name. For example, when I search across folder with the url param search[name]=someName, I get multiple results such as "someName", "someNameAndMore", or "someName
                                  • Meeting impossible to use when sharing screen

                                    he Meeting tool in Brazil is practically unusable when sharing anything, whether it’s a presentation or simple navigation. When accessed via Cliq, the situation gets even worse: even basic calls fail to work properly, constantly freezing. And as you are
                                  • Add System Pre-Defined Lookup Field to Subform?

                                    Hi there! New to using Zoho, so this may already exist, but I'm having trouble figuring it out. Is there a way to get the system pre-defined Account Lookup field (in our case, renamed to Company Name), as the starting point for a subform? In our company,
                                  • Changing the Default Search Criteria for Finding Duplicates

                                    Hey everyone, is it possible to adjust the default search criteria for finding and merging duplicate records? Right now, CRM uses some (in my opinion nonsensical) fields as search criteria for duplicate records which do nothing except dilute the results.
                                  • Text widgets in dashboards

                                    Having a text widget in a dashboard would help immensely. It would allow adding links to related documents, relevant CRM views, etc. It would allow adding explanations of the data displayed in the other widgets, about how to interpret them or about filtering.
                                  • Is there a way to create a desktop shortcut for a website course portal?

                                    Hello everyone, I recently got a laptop and bought an online course from a website, Skillwint.com, which I visit regularly. I open that site many times a day and want to create a desktop shortcut so I can open it directly instead of searching in the browser
                                  • Next Page