SMS Integration - Twilio

Zoho Invoice now integrates with Twilio to enable you to send notifications to your customers via SMS. Twilio is a cloud communications platform that enables businesses to make and receive phone calls, SMS and perform other communication functions using its web service APIs.

Prerequisites

• An account with Twilio. If you don’t have an account, you can create now.
• Account SID and Auth Token from Twilio.
• An active phone number that works with Twilio. If you don’t have one, you need to purchase a phone number from Twilio.
• You must have subscribed to the Premium plan (Indian edition) or to the Standard or higher plans (All other editions). If you’re a Zoho One or a Zoho Finance Plus user, this feature will be available for you.

Connect with Twilio

To set up this integration:

• Go to Settings > Integrations.
• Select SMS Integrations.
• Click Connect. If you don’t have a Twilio account, you can click Sign Up Now to create one.
• Click Connect with Twilio.

Now, Zoho Invoice will be connected with the Twilio and you’ll be able to view the SMS notifications that are enabled for your organization by clicking Configure below the integration.

You can enable or disable these notifications in the SMS Templates page.

Configure SMS Notifications & Templates

After you’ve connected your Zoho Invoice account with your Twilio account, you can configure SMS notifications. You can manually send SMS notifications for:

• Invoice Creation
• Payment Reminder
• Payment Thank You

To configure SMS notifications:

• Go to Settings > SMS Notifications > SMS Templates.
• Enable the SMS notifications that you’d like to send to your customers.

The SMS notification will be enabled to all your customers by default. If you’d like to disable it,

• Go to the Contacts module in the left sidebar.
• Select the contact for whom you want to disable the SMS notification.
• Click More > Disable SMS Notification.


Note: At the moment, you’ll not be able to edit the SMS that will be sent to your customers.

Send SMS Notifications

You can notify your customers via SMS when you create an invoice, or want to remind about payment you’re yet to receive or say thank you for the payment received.

Based on the SMS notifications that you’ve enabled, SMS will be automatically sent in the following cases:

• When you’ve configured the ‘Create and Send Invoice’ or ‘Create, Charge and Send Invoices’ preferences for recurring invoices, Invoice Creation SMS will be sent.
• When you receive online payments from your customers, Payment Thank You SMS will be sent.

Also, you can send SMS notifications manually. To send SMS manually:

• Go to the Invoices module in the left sidebar.
• Select the invoice for which you want to send an SMS.
• Click the More option in the top-right corner and select Notify via SMS. You’ll find this option, only if you’ve enabled the invoice creation notification and have not disabled SMS Notification at contact level.
• Check the phone numbers to which the SMS is sent and preview the SMS message.
• Click Send.

The SMS notification will be sent immediately and the status of the SMS will be updated in the transaction history and contact activities.

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