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


    • 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.
    • Recent Topics

    • Login for test case

      Had a few questions regarding authentication test cases and couldn't find an answer in the the docs. 1. If an app like Zoho Creator requires authentication before providing access, do I need to create a login function and add it to each test case? 2.
    • Merge Tickets Directly from Contact Page in Zoho Desk

      Dear Zoho Desk Support Team, We are writing to request a new feature that would allow users to easily merge tickets directly from the contact page in Zoho Desk. Currently, the only option to merge tickets is from the Tickets list view page, which can
    • Remove Special Characters "\" using Zoho Deluge

      Who needs this? I don't know! I did, and I sure did not find any helpful information out there, not with this keyword though. So, if you find this article because you searched the same thing as I do, then hey, you're in luck! And do note that I am not
    • Zoho Error: This Operation has been restricted. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details

      Hello There, l tried to verify my domain (florindagoreti.com.br) and its shows this error: This Operation has been restricted. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details. Screenshot Given Below -  please check what went wrong. Thanks
    • Separate Triggers and Enhanced Information for Zoho One Departments and Groups in Zoho Flow

      Dear Zoho Flow Team, I hope this message finds you well. Currently, there seems to be a mix-up between zoho one departments and groups in Zoho Flow, which causes some challenges in handling triggers effectively. For instance, when using the "User added
    • Create Quote does not show the "Product Description" entered as part of the Product setup.

      The product description created as part of the product setup page, does not show in the Create Quote module; The module allows for an additional description to be added but without access to the original stored description. By selecting the product from the "Product Name Lookup" pop-up, the "Product Description" part should be populated from the product record where the user is allowed to further modify it.
    • Add bank transfers via a webhook or API

      Hello ZOHO Books Community, is there anyway to add single transactions to bank accounts via an API or webhook? I found in docs to upload a bank statement. But i want to add a transaction from an external (unsupported bank) in the moment there is a transaction
    • Which WhatsApp API works seamlessly with Zoho CRM?

      I’m exploring WhatsApp API solutions that integrate seamlessly with Zoho CRM for customer communication, lead nurturing, and automation. I would love to hear insights from those who have successfully implemented WhatsApp within Zoho CRM. My Requirements:
    • Multi Select Between Modules

      Hi, I'm not sure if this is possible, but I want to "import" or "mirror" the multi select options from one module to another. For example... I have Module "Clients" with a Multi Select Field of "Enrolled Services" I also have a Module "Services" with
    • Zoho Desk View Open Tickets and Open Shared Tickets

      Hi, I would like to create a custom view so that an agent can view all the open tickets he has access to, including the shared tickets created by a different department. Currently my team has to swich between two views (Open Tickets and Shared Open Tickets).
    • Is a record ID in Zoho Books always numeric?

      Hi Support Team, For storing Zoho Books' contact, invoice and other record IDs in an external app, I wanted to know if the IDs are always numeric. As far as I can see in Books, they are all numeric and while fetching a record via the Zoho Books API, passing
    • Using IMAP configuration for shared email inboxes

      Our customer service team utilizes shared email boxes to allow multiple people to view and handle incoming customer requests. For example, the customer sends an email to info@xxxx.com and multiple people can view it and handle the request. How can I configure
    • Work Orders / Bundle Requests

      Zoho Inventory needs a work order / bundle request system. This record would be analogous to a purchase order in the purchasing workflow or a sales order in the sales cycle. It would be non-journaling, but it would reserve the appropriate inventory of
    • Resubmit for Approval for Zoho Books Module in CRM

      The integration between CRM and Books is great, but it is incomplete in many areas. One of them is if an estimate/invoice/sales order is rejected, the users in CRM cannot resubmit it for approval. Let's face it, sales people will mostly be in CRM and
    • Automatically add a retainer to every estimate

      Hi all, I've been trying to find a way to automatically add a retainer at a set % to every estimate we create and send. So far I haven't been successful, does anyone know of a way to do this? Thanks,
    • Confirmation prompt before a custom button action is triggered

      Have you ever created a custom button and just hoped that you/your users are prompted first to confirm the action? Well, Zoho knows this concept. For example, in blueprint, whenever we want to advance to the next state by clicking the transition, it is
    • New in WorkDrive: WorkDrive Genie, a quick-editing app for desktop (Beta)

      The WorkDrive Genie app lets you open and edit any of your WorkDrive files on the web with your default desktop applications. For example, you can open and edit files such as documents, images, and videos with Microsoft Word, CorelDRAW, and Adobe Premiere
    • This domain is not allowed to add. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details

      I am trying to setup the free version of Zoho Mail. When I tried to add my domain, theselfreunion.com I got the error message that is the subject of this Topic. I've read your other community forum topics, and this is NOT a free domain. So what is the
    • Kaizen #78 : How to disable clone record?

      Hello everyone! Welcome back to another interesting Kaizen post. In this post, let us discuss a workaround solution for the use case - How to disable clone record for a user. Requirement Consider that you want to disable the clone option for the Deals
    • Client Script | Update - Introducing Subform Events and Actions

      Are you making the most of your subforms in Zoho CRM? Do you wish you could automate subform interactions and enhance user experience effortlessly? What if you had Client APIs and events specifically designed for subforms? We are thrilled to introduce
    • Add Serial Number Zoho CRM Subform

      Hi Guys, I need to add Serial Number in Zoho CRM Subform table. In addition of an row we can easily create in Zoho Creator. But in Zoho CRM how we can do that? Any suggestion would be very helpful.
    • Suddenly Can't Send Outgoing Mail (SMTP)

      Suddenly I can't send mail anymore from my phone mail app. I have Zoho OneAuth MFA set up and an app specific password set up. It has been working correctly for a while. Has something changed with your servers or setup for SMTP? No settings have changed
    • Sent emails not going and showing "Processing"

      Hello Team, Could you please assist with sent emails showing "processing" and not actually going through? Many thanks and regards, Cycology
    • 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
    • Domain verification is in progress... (How long do I need to wait?)

      Trying to setup my first email domain by connecting with GoDaddy. Have been here for quite some time and the screen is not changing. How long should this take?Send DataSend Data
    • Multiple workflows based on stage?

      I am trying to have multiple things happen when I close a deal. First, I would like to send a thank you/coupon email to all deals that are closed. Second, I would like to create connected records in a separate pipeline for certain projects that qualify.
    • discount on total amount

      i want to add discount on total value of my purchase order instead of applying line by line.my customer will not accept the discount on line by line.
    • Important update in Zoho Forms: Enhancements for improved email deliverability

      Hello, form builders! We would like to inform you about some changes we're making in Zoho Forms to ensure the deliverability of your outbound emails. Changes to Gmail policies Gmail has updated its DMARC policy which quarantines emails sent with gmail.com
    • payment voucher, receipt printing feature

      Why dont ZOHO add the voucher printing feature in zoho book with authorised signatory and receiver's signature
    • Inventory asset or cost of goods sold ?

      We can only choose inventory asset for items but lots of bills for items are posted with cost of goods sold - is this all balanced correctly or should it be entered differently ?
    • Stock reservation in zoho for upcoming delivery

      Hi, Is there any option available in zoho for reserve item for a upcoming delivery. So that we can avoid the item should duplicated on another order. Means needs to deduct the item from zoho before making invoice.
    • Banking: Transfer from another account without base currency

      Scenario: A banking line item shall be categorised as an "internal transfer" from another bank account. This is a USD to EUR transfer. Our base currency is CHF. What we tried: Category: "Transfer from another account" From: Our USD account To: Our EUR
    • How to search records in integration task in creator?

      How to search using integration task in creator searchString = {"zcrm_account_id:4050082000001001499"}; contactData = zoho.books.getRecords("Contacts","xxxxxx",searchString); I get an error that third argument needs to be string, I tried to convert it
    • Show my cost or profit while creating estimate

      Hi, While creating estimate it becomes very important to know exact profit or purchased price of the products at one side just for our reference so we can decide whether we can offer better disc or not .
    • Outgoing emails to btinternet blocked.

      ERROR_CODE :421, ERROR_CODE :Too many messages (1.5.6.1) from 74.201.84.163I have been having problems sending to btinternet.com and btopenworld.com for the past week.  First 'email delayed' message, and then 'delivery failed', as above. Looks as though someone is spamming from the ZOHO email server 'sender163-mail.zoho.com' Surely this is abuse of your system, and you should be able to trace who it is (if it is a registered user of Zoho mail?) and block their account. An email system is really no
    • single user access to the CRM suits

      I am currently using Zoho CRM Plus, where the pricing for a single user is ₹3,500 INR, and it includes access to multiple applications. However, I would like to add an additional user but restrict their access to only two specific applications within
    • Mixed order: stock item and business purchase

      Hi, I'm just getting started with Inventory, and I haven't been able to find an answer to this. I am a small service business, and am just starting to sell products (in very low numbers). From my vendor, I purchase both items that I will on-sell, which
    • Facebook Professional Account

      Zoho social says there is nothing to be added when I try to add my Facebook and Instagram accounts. Both are Professional profiles. How do I go about adding them? They are not Pages or Groups, they are simply Professional accounts.
    • This user is not allowed to add in Zoho. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details

      Hello, Just signed up to ZOHO on a friend's recommendation. Got the TXT part (verified my domain), but whenever I try to add ANY user, I get the error: This user is not allowed to add in Zoho. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details I have emailed as well and writing here as well because when I searched, I saw many people faced the same issue and instead of email, they got a faster response here. My domain is: raisingreaderspk . com Hope this can be resolved.  Thank you
    • How do you apply field validation to a date field?

      We are using Sign for remote e-signature of liability waivers. The signer must enter a date of birth, and if they are a minor their legal guardian must sign for them. However we have had numerous problems with signers returning an invalid date of birth
    • Next Page