I set up Zoho Books for quite a few  Companies. And honestly the client portal is one of the features I always demo because it looks great on the surface. Clients love the idea of it.

But then a few months into going live, I start getting the same feedback. Their customers are still calling to ask about invoices. Still emailing to dispute a line item. Still texting to say they need more time to pay. The portal exists but the communication is still happening completely outside it.

And when I dig into why, it is always the same thing. The portal lets you view and pay. That is it. There is no way for a client to ask a question on a specific invoice. No way to say hey this line item does not look right. No way to flag that payment will come in next week. They see the invoice, they have a question, and they go straight to WhatsApp or email because there is nothing else to do inside the portal.

So the conversation happens outside Books, the dispute or delay is invisible to the system, and the business owner is manually chasing and tracking everything anyway.

What I would love to see is just a simple comment thread on each invoice inside the portal. Nothing fancy. Just let the client type a message against an invoice and let the business owner respond. That one thing alone would change how useful the portal actually is in day to day business.

Beyond that, a small account summary when the client logs in would make a real difference. Something that shows total amount paid this year, any open invoices, next due date. Right now logging into the portal feels like opening a filing cabinet. It should feel a bit more like a dashboard.

I think Zoho Books is genuinely close to having a world class client experience here. The foundation is already there. It just needs a bit more thought on what the client actually needs to do when they log in, beyond just paying.

Anyone else finding this with their clients? Would love to know how others are handling it.