1. Some content may only be available to specific users.
2. Please note that Zoho Subscriptions is now Zoho Billing.
   

Once you have integrated the Zoho Finance Suite into Zoho CRM, you will be able to do the following actions for each of the Zoho Finance applications.

Zoho Books

• The Zoho Books tab groups the sub-modules Invoices, Estimates, Sales Orders and Purchase Orders.
  
• You will be able to create invoices, estimates, sales orders and purchase orders within CRM and this will sync with Zoho Books as well.
• You can view invoices, estimates, sales orders and purchase orders contextually in Zoho CRM.
• You can create custom views, reports and dashboards in CRM for the Zoho Books modules.
• You can also see a Zoho Finance strip in the Record Detail page of Accounts/Contacts that displays the related Payables/Receivables information.
• You can see updated stock information in the Products module, under the Zoho Finance Information section. This is fetched from Zoho Finance Suite.
  
• Integration users
  

Zoho Invoice

• The Zoho Invoice tab groups the sub-modules Invoices and Estimates.
  
• You will be able to create invoices, and estimates within CRM and this will sync with Zoho Invoice as well.
• You can view invoices and estimates contextually in Zoho CRM
• You can create custom views, reports and dashboards in CRM for the Zoho Invoice modules.

Zoho Expense

• The Zoho Expenses tab groups the sub-modules Expenses and Expenses Reports.
  
• You can create expenses and expense reports from CRM and this will sync with Zoho Expense as well.
• You can also view Zoho Expense information contextually in CRM.

Zoho Subscriptions

• The Zoho Subscription module is available once the Zoho Subscription is integrated. You will be able to create subscriptions within CRM and this will sync with Zoho Subscriptions as well.
  
• You can also view the Zoho Subscriptions related list within the record details page. 
  
• You will be able to view, add and edit the Zoho Subscription information contextually in CRM.

Zoho Inventory

• Currently, you will not see a Zoho Inventory tab. However, you will be able to see Zoho Inventory information in contextually through a related list and Info strip in the Detail pages of related accounts and contacts. Following is an image that displays the status of a package - Example, Shipped, Delivered and so on. 
  
  Following is the info strip on the Detail page of an account. Zoho Inventory details are displayed under Ordered Items and Shipment in Progress sections while Zoho Books infomation is displayed under Receivables & Payables. 
  
  

Updating records within the integration modules

  The record detail page for Zoho Books modules like Invoices, Estimates, Sales Orders, and Purchase Orders, etc. surfaces the Zoho Books record's details and Books-native actions directly inside Zoho CRM. The information available on the record page includes:

• Payment status and visibility for the record

• Retainer invoice details

• Package and shipment details

• Record status updates that stay aligned between Zoho Books and Zoho CRM

• The Books-native action set for the record (Edit, Send, Mark as Sent, and so on)

Approvals for Zoho Books records  

Zoho Books supports approval processes for transaction modules such as Invoices, Estimates, Sales Orders, and Purchase Orders. These approval processes are configured inside Zoho Books, not inside Zoho CRM. When an approval process is configured for a Zoho Books module, the corresponding records in Zoho CRM reflect that approval flow—users can submit transactions for approval, and approvers can review, approve, or reject records directly from the Zoho CRM record detail page.

What you can do from Zoho CRM  

• Submit for approval: When an approval process is configured for a module, a Submit for Approval option appears on the record page in Zoho CRM in place of the usual action set. Once submitted, the record enters the approval pipeline.

• Approve or reject: If you have approval permission for that module in Zoho Books, you will see Approve and Reject actions on the CRM record page itself.

• View approval state: The CRM record page shows the current approval state of the record, the users who have already approved, and the next approver in the chain.
  

Who can approve from Zoho CRM  

A user can approve or reject a Zoho Books record from within Zoho CRM only if both of the following are true:

• The user has a regular Zoho Books role (such as Admin or Staff) and is also a user in Zoho CRM. Integration users cannot be configured as approvers in a Zoho Books approval process.
  

• The user has approval permission for that module in Zoho Books.
  

• Integration users cannot be configured as approvers in a Zoho Books approval process. Only regular Zoho Books users can be set as approvers. This is a Zoho Books-side restriction.
  

Notifications  

Create Zoho Finance records in Zoho CRM

To create Zoho Finance records, you need not log into any of the Zoho Finance applications. You can create one from Zoho CRM. This includes Zoho Books modules - Invoices, Estimates, Sales Orders, Purchase Orders as well as Zoho Expense modules - Expenses and Expense Reports. 

To create an Zoho Finance record in Zoho CRM

1. Go to the desired Zoho Finance tab. (Zoho Books/Zoho Expense)
2. Click the desired sub-module. Example, Invoices.
3. Click New [Record]. Example, New Invoice. 
   The Invoice form from Zoho Books is displayed within CRM.
4. Complete the [Record] details and Save the record.
   The Zoho Finance record created in CRM will also instantly sync with the respective Zoho Finance application, in this case Zoho Books.

Note

• Synchronization of data in the transactional modules is instant. Whereas synchronization of accounts, contacts and products will be done once in 2 hours.
• However, you can always enable instant sync for accounts, contacts and products manually from Zoho Books as well as Zoho CRM.
• To enable manual sync in Zoho CRM, go to Setup > Extension & APIs > Zoho > Zoho Finance Suite and click Sync Now under the Contacts Sync, Vendors Sync and Products Sync sections as required.
• To enable manual sync of accounts, contacts and products in Zoho Books, click Settings > Integrations > Zoho Apps > Zoho CRM enable Instant Sync for Accounts and Contacts or Products as required.
  

View Zoho Finance Suite information contextually

Once the Zoho Finance Suite integration is configured, the users can view the Zoho Finance Suite information under the associated accounts, contacts and potentials. Please note that this feature will be available only to users who have the required Zoho Books/Expenses/Subscriptions permissions enabled in their user profiles. Make sure that you have imported the account records from Zoho CRM to Zoho Books/Expenses before you associate the invoices.

To view Zoho Finance Suite information contextually

1. Click Contacts, Accounts, Vendors or Deals module and select a record.
2. In the  [Record Details] page of the Contacts, Accounts, Vendors or Potentials module, go to the  Zoho Books/Expenses/Subscriptions Related List.
   
   • Zoho Books-related list.
     
   • Zoho Expense-related list.
     
   • Zoho Subscriptions related list.
     
   • Zoho Inventory-related list. (Packages). 
     
     All the Zoho Finance information associated to the record will be listed.
     Purchase Orders are displayed only for Vendors.
     
3. Click the Refresh icon next to the each related list to see the latest records.

4. To download an invoice, estimate, sales order, or purchase order as a PDF, open the record and use the Download option from the Zoho Books actions on the record detail page. 

5. You can also create a new record from each of these related lists.
   
   You cannot create a new product from the Packages related list.

Send Zoho Finance information via Email

Send invoices/estimates/sales orders/purchase orders as PDFs to your customer/vendors from within Zoho CRM. Only users with the Email permission for Zoho Books can use this feature.

To email transactions as PDFs

1. Click the Zoho Books tab.
2. Click the desired sub-module.
3. In the [Record Details] page of invoice/estimate/sales order/purchase order, click the Email button.
4. Click on an invoice/estimate/sales order/purchase order.
5. In the details page, click Email.
   
   Enter the details of the email.
   For invoices, you can choose to Attach Invoice PDF as well as Attach Customer Statement.
6. Click Send.

Note

• Attach Invoice PDF is available for Invoices and Estimates.
• Attach Customer Statement is available only for Invoices.
• Neither option is available for purchase orders or sales orders.
  

• The Email action is one of the Zoho Books actions available on the Zoho Books record detail page inside Zoho CRM. The email composition window, the available options (such as Attach Invoice PDF and Attach Customer Statement), and the resulting email are handled by Zoho Books.

Create custom views

Since the Zoho Books and Zoho Subscription modules are available as CRM records, you can create custom views for Invoices, Estimates, Sales Orders, and Purchase Orders within the Zoho Books module, as well as for the Zoho Subscription module.

For instance, you can create a custom list view for invoices made to a particular account.

See also: Create custom list views

Create reports and dashboards

Zoho CRM lets you generate reports and dashboards based on the Zoho Books and Zoho Expense modules.

Zoho Books Reports

Once the Zoho Books integration has been enabled in Zoho CRM, you will also see a section called Zoho Books Reports in the Reports module. This section will have 6 default reports. They are the following.

• Amount Payable by Customer
• Overdue Invoices by Customer
• Purchase Order this month
• Sales by Customer
• Sales by Product
• Sales by Users
  

These reports are pre-defined. You can always edit these reports and also create custom reports for the Zoho Books module. If you have integrated Zoho Invoice you will see the Zoho Invoice Reports.

Following is a screenshot of an Invoices report created to show how many invoices are due each day within the next 5 days.

See also: Creating Reports

You can also create a Zoho Books dashboard with different components sourced from the Zoho Books Reports. Here is a dashboard that shows how many invoices are due each day within the next 5 days.

See also: Creating dashboards

Zoho Expense Reports

Zoho Expense reports for Zoho CRM give you great insight into your sales-related expenses. Let's say, to generate new business, you travel to meet a bunch of prospects. You may have jotted down the travel, boarding and other expenses for the entire trip - but how do you find out if these expenses paid off?

This is possible only if you look at the amount of each deal closed versus the expenses met to do the same. But doing this is a hassle as long as your expense details and sales data are available in different tools. Zoho Expense integration with Zoho CRM bridges this gap. With this integration, you will be able to generate expense reports in any sales context right inside Zoho CRM.

So in the above example, you will be able to quickly generate reports on deals versus the expenses associated with the deals and see if you have spent too much or too less. Zoho CRM also provides you with a set of other default Expense reports. Some of them are as follows.

You can edit these reports, generate new ones and also create dashboards out of them.

Zoho Subscription Reports

Zoho Subscription Overview

Note

• While creating a report in Zoho CRM, if you choose one of the Zoho Books modules as the primary module, for example Invoices, you will see Items in the list of Related Modules.
  
• The Items module stores the line items/products that are used in creating Estimates, Sales Orders and Invoices. Please make sure you choose this module whenever you create reports out of Zoho Books modules.
• When you enable Zoho Books and Zoho Inventory integration, the reports will be renamed as Zoho Finance Reports.