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

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 display 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.
  

Zoho Invoice

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

• Currently, you will not see the Zoho Subscription tab. 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. 
  
  

Update Status of Invoices/Estimates/Purchase Orders/Sales Orders

You can update the status of Invoices, Estimates, Purchase Orders & Sales Orders right from Zoho CRM.

When you send an Estimate to a customer for approval, sometimes the customer may accept it in an offline mode - perhaps a phone call. In such a case, you can manually mark an Estimate as Accepted directly from Zoho CRM.

Similarly, there are many such actions that you can perform on Invoices, Estimates, Purchase Orders and Sales Orders directly from Zoho CRM. They are as mentioned below:

Actions associated with Invoices

• Mark as Sent

Actions associated with Estimates

• Mark as Sent
• Mark as Accepted
• Mark as Declined

Actions associated with Sales Orders

• Convert to Open
• Mark as Closed
• Mark as Void
• Reopen

Actions associated with Purchase Orders

• Convert to Open
• Mark as Cancelled
• Mark as Closed
• Reopen

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. Move the mouse pointer to a record and click the PDF link to download the invoice/estimate/sales order as a PDF.
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.
  

Create custom views (applicable only for Zoho Books modules)

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

For instance, you can create a custom list view for invoice 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 gives you great insight into your sales related expenses. Let's say, in order 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 actually 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 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 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.

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 Order 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.