The Zoho Finance Suite integration lets you raise quotes, invoices, bills, expenses, purchase orders, and sales orders for a project without leaving Zoho Projects. It supports project budgeting and keeps every financial transaction for a project in one place. It syncs your projects and project users with Zoho Books, Zoho Invoice, and Zoho Billing.

What the integration gives you

• Finance records created in Zoho Projects, and records from Zoho Books shown in Zoho Projects, using the predefined views (all, overdue, pending approval, approved, unpaid, and more) or your own custom views from Zoho Books.
• Actions taken straight from the view drop-down, and status updates from a record's details page that show up immediately in the matching view.
• Timesheets, customers, tasks, users, and bugs from Zoho Projects fetched into Zoho Books.
• Real-time planned versus actual cost, once a project manager has set a budget. Invoices list the products or services sold, prices and quantities, taxes, and discounts. An invoice can be saved as a draft, and one that passes its due date moves to Overdue automatically. Record every expense so the actual cost is accurate.

Benefits

1. Manage quotes, invoices, bills, expenses, purchase orders, and sales orders inside Zoho Projects.
2. Update a finance record's status from its details page.
3. Convert one record type into another instead of creating each from scratch.
4. Invoice the hours logged against a project.
5. Choose a module-based billing method for a project.
6. Remove manual syncing, because projects, users, and finance records sync automatically between Zoho Projects and Zoho Books.

Worked example: planning a client event

An events company plans an annual event for a client in Zoho Projects. The project manager drafts a quote on the project's Finance tab, submits it for approval, and sends it to the client. Once the client approves, planning starts. The manager creates purchase orders for equipment and materials and sends them to vendors, who deliver with bills. The manager uploads the bills and checks them against the purchase orders before approving payment. On site, the team submits expenses such as transport and logistics for approval, reimbursed within the organisation's daily limit.

Part way through, the client asks for extra items that were not in the quote. The manager raises a sales order for those items so the client approves the additional amount in writing, which avoids disputes at final invoicing. Once approved, the sales order is converted to an invoice within the project and included in the final invoices. At the end, the manager tallies every finance record from within Zoho Projects.

Set up the integration

1. Open the Marketplace. Select the Marketplace icon in the top-right of the navigation band, choose Zoho Apps in Marketplace, then select Activate Zoho Finance Suite. If you have no user account in Zoho Books or Zoho Invoice, create one and set up your organisation first. You will be taken to Zoho Invoice or Zoho Books, and you can then return to Zoho Projects to continue.
2. Set the integration preferences under the Configuration tab. Choose the date from which time logs are to be invoiced (logs before it are marked as invoiced). Choose which profiles receive the Finance permission. Enable Manage Expenses (Expense in Zoho Books) to include expenses in the Finance tab. Enable Invoice Milestones & Tasks to create fixed-cost invoicing for milestones and tasks.
3. Optional: Zoho Expense. Enable Expense Claims & Expense Reports (powered by Zoho Expense). You need to create a portal in Zoho Expense first.
4. Choose a customer duplication preference. Overwrite: a Zoho Books or Zoho Invoice customer with the same name is overwritten, and the Zoho Projects customer is linked to the existing one. Clone: the existing customer is not overwritten, and a new customer is created from the Zoho Projects one.
5. Start the sync with the Sync button in the top-right corner. Customers must be imported manually from Books to Projects, after which their fields sync both ways. Projects sync from Projects to Books, and you can use View Mapped Fields to see or edit the mapping of default and custom fields. Tasks sync from Projects to Books. Issues sync as tasks in Zoho Books. Approved and billable time logs sync from Projects to Books.
6. Save, then open Permissions to authorise the users who can view and manage finance records.

• A user must be allowed to view all timesheets before they can be given access to Invoice.
• Budget is switched on automatically for users integrated with Zoho Books or Zoho Invoice.

Billing methods

The billing method decides how you track budget and invoice customers.

The Default Rate Per Hour set when you create a project cannot be edited for issues, only for tasks. The planned cost of a recurring task is multiplied by its number of occurrences and added to the task list, milestone, and project planned cost.

Invoices

Create an invoice for a project

1. Open the project and go to the Finance tab, then select Create Invoice.
2. Choose the sorting criteria, and the fields to show as item name and description, then Save.
3. Complete the details, enter recipients in the Email To field, and Save to send.

Create an invoice for a milestone

1. In the Projects module, select the project, then open Milestones and choose the milestone.
2. Open the Invoices tab and select Create Invoice.
3. Choose the Bill up to date range, and the fields to show as item name, description, and invoice line item amount. Any numeric custom field can be used for the line item amount.
4. Tick the checkbox to mark the associated logged hours as invoiced, then Save.
5. Fill in the details in the frame and choose Save as draft, Save and send, Save and Share, or Save and send later.

You can email, print, or export an invoice as a PDF, and filter invoices by status such as void, draft, paid, and sent.

Create an invoice for a task, or for several tasks

For one task, open the task, go to its Invoices tab, and select Create Invoice, then choose the Bill up to range and the item fields as above, optionally tick the checkbox to mark logged hours as invoiced, and save. For several tasks, open the project's Tasks tab in list view, tick the tasks, select Create Invoice, choose the same options, optionally mark timesheets as invoiced, and Save.

• A maximum of 100 tasks can be invoiced at once.
• The Invoice tab appears only if the project has a Primary Customer and is synced with Zoho Books or Zoho Invoice.

Edit, delete, convert, attach, and comment

• Edit or delete: invoices are saved in the Finance tab. Select the invoice, choose edit (or Edit on the details page), make changes, and Save. To delete, select the invoice, use the delete icon, and confirm.
• Convert: from the Finance tab, choose Invoices in the Finance module drop-down, open the invoice, and select Convert to Quote, Convert to Sales order, or Convert to draft. An invoice pending approval can be converted to a draft. It moves to the matching tab or status immediately.
• Attach files and comments: open the invoice's details page, use the attachment or comment icon, choose files or type a comment and select Add comment. The same icons show uploaded files and all comments.

More invoice actions

• Approve or Reject an invoice that is pending approval.
• Clone an invoice from its details page.
• Lock an invoice to stop further editing (you enter a reason), and Unlock it to re-enable editing (again with a reason).
• Void an invoice that is cancelled before it is closed with payment.
• Mark as Sent from the details page.
• Share an invoice with the Share button below the invoice ID, Send it by email or SMS, or download or print it as a PDF.

Quotes, sales orders, purchase orders, bills, and expenses

Each follows the same pattern. Open the project's Finance tab, choose the record type from the Finance Modules drop-down, and use the Create button. You can then edit, delete, attach files, and add comments from the list or details page.

Invoice details also appear in Timesheet, Tasks, and Bugs, and invoices created in Zoho Projects are listed in Zoho Invoice or Zoho Books.

Troubleshooting sync problems

In the integration settings in Zoho Projects, Error Summary shows sync exceptions and the likely reason, and User Sync Error Summary shows user sync errors. If something goes wrong, you can also open Settings, then Integrations, then Zoho Projects, then View Error Summary in Zoho Books or Zoho Invoice, which lists errors module by module.

Profitability summary

Open a project and select Dashboard to see the Profitability Summary widget, which compares income with expenses. Choose Accrual (income invoiced to the customer but not yet paid) or Cash (income and expenses after invoices are paid), and view the current fiscal year, previous fiscal year, last 12 months, or last 6 months.

Remove the integration

Only the portal owner can delete the Zoho Invoice integration. Go to Marketplace, then Installed Apps, select Zoho Invoice, choose Disable Integration, then Delete Integration. Timesheet entries will no longer be invoiced afterwards, while projects synced with Zoho Books are not affected.