Integrate Zoho Billing with Zoho CRM

When you integrate Zoho Billing with Zoho CRM, you can view and manage customer and accounting information in one place. This integration improves collaboration between sales and finance teams in your business, allowing them to track deals, create quotes, and invoices without switching between applications.

Benefits of the Integration


Set up the Integration

Prerequisites: If multi-currency is enabled in Zoho CRM, ensure that the base currency in Zoho CRM matches the one set in Zoho Billing.

Insight: When you integrate, the following data from Zoho Billing will be shared with Zoho CRM:

  • Your organisation name, email address, and your country.
  • All your users’ details.

To set up the CRM integration from Zoho Billing:

A two-way sync will be set up, which means that data will be fetched from Zoho CRM into Zoho Billing and vice-versa.

Note: If you want to integrate multiple Zoho Billing organisations with a Zoho CRM organization, email us at support@zohobilling.com, and we’ll assist you with the set up. However, this will be a one-way sync, which means that data will be fetched only from Zoho CRM into Zoho Billing and transaction modules will not be synced during this process.


Configure the Modules to be Synced

Once you set up the integration, you can configure the modules to sync between Zoho Billing and Zoho CRM. To do this:

You can sync data for the following modules from Zoho CRM into Zoho Billing:

Sync Customers

To sync customer data from Zoho CRM into Zoho Billing:

Insight: If you choose two-way sync, a Customer with Customer Type set as Business in Zoho Billing will sync with the Accounts module in Zoho CRM, and a Customer with Customer Type set as Individual in Zoho Billing will sync with the Contacts module in Zoho CRM.

Prerequisite: If you’ve enabled multi-currency in Zoho CRM, ensure that the base currency in Zoho CRM matches the base currency in Zoho Billing before mapping the fields.

The customers will be synced in a while, based on chosen preferences. To check the status of the sync, click Check Status under the Customers section.

Customer Sync Status

Sync Items

You can sync the Items in Zoho Billing with the Products in Zoho CRM, similar to customers. To sync items:

Insight: If you selected Sync both ways in the previous step, Zoho Billing items will be pushed to Zoho CRM first, which may result in duplicate records in Zoho CRM. For one-way sync, duplicate records will appear in Zoho Billing.

Insight: If you want to classify the products in Zoho CRM as goods or services, create a custom field with Goods and Services. Then, map this custom field for the Product Type field in Zoho Billing.

The items will be synced in a while, based on chosen preferences. To check the status of the sync, click Check Status under the Items section.

Sync Options

Once you’ve configured the integration, any new account, contact, or product you add in Zoho CRM will sync into Zoho Billing every two hours after the initial sync. If you choose to sync transaction modules, they will sync instantly. To do this:

Insight: To update changes for a specific customer synced from Zoho CRM instead of a full sync, select the required customer in Zoho Billing, click the More dropdown in the Details page, and select Re-sync Contact from Zoho CRM.

Sync Options

Note: If you’ve created a record in Zoho Billing, synced it to Zoho CRM, and then deleted the record in Zoho CRM, the respective record will not be deleted in Zoho Billing. Refer this FAQ.

Working With the Integration in Zoho Billing

Once you set up the integration, you can perform the following actions in Zoho Billing:

Access Zoho CRM Customers

Depending on how you choose to sync records, the accounts and contacts from Zoho CRM will be available as Customers in Zoho Billing.

Filter by CRM Customers

You can view all the accounts and contacts synced from Zoho CRM into Zoho Billing as Customers. Here’s how:

The respective CRM accounts and contacts will be displayed.

The customers fetched from Zoho CRM will be available in Zoho Billing, and you can create transactions for them. However, you can also create transactions for customers not yet imported. Here’s how:

A list of contacts and accounts associated with the entered account name will be displayed. Select the required contact or account from the list.

Once done, the selected account or contact will be fetched as a customer in Zoho Billing. Now, you can create sales transactions for them.

Insight: If you want to search contacts, the available Search Criteria are First Name and Last Name. If you want to search for accounts, enter the account name from Zoho CRM. The contacts associated with the respective account will be displayed.

Working with the Integration in Zoho CRM

When you integrate Zoho Billing with Zoho CRM, you can sync records between both apps and easily manage them from Zoho CRM. Let’s take a look at the actions you can perform in Zoho CRM.

Set up User Profiles in Zoho CRM

All Zoho CRM users are assigned a specific profile, such as Marketing, Sales, Support, etc., which controls what actions they can perform on records in Zoho CRM. An admin can create or modify profiles to grant or remove permissions and assign them to users.

Insight: Once a profile is permitted or denied a permission, it applies to all users associated with the profile. Learn more about profiles in Zoho CRM.

You can also set permissions for actions like creating and sending sales transactions in Zoho Billing. This allows admins to assign permissions based on user’s roles and responsibilities.

For example, if you want a salesperson to create quotes and not send them to their prospects (or customers), you can remove the Send Email permission from the role assigned to the salesperson.

To configure these permissions:

Here, you can enable or disable access to transaction modules for the respective profile. You can also configure individual permissions like View, Create & Edit, and Send Email for each transaction.

For example, if a profile doesn’t have the Send Email permission for Quotes, users associated with that profile won’t be able to send quotes to customers in Zoho Billing.

Similarly, you can also restrict a profile from viewing the financial summary of Zoho CRM accounts and contacts (records synced from Zoho Billing into Zoho CRM). Here’s how:

The users associated with the profile won’t be able to view the summary. Only the users associated with a profile that has this option enabled can view the financial summary of each account or contact in their respective Details page.

Disable Integration

Create Transactions in Zoho CRM

Warning: Zoho CRM has its own modules for Quotes and Invoices. Transactions created in those modules will not sync with transactions created in the Zoho Finance module. So, two separate sets of transactions will be created for your accounts and contacts in Zoho CRM.

Once integrated, you can create transactions for customers in Zoho Billing directly from Zoho CRM. Once created, they’ll sync instantly with Zoho Billing.

You can create a transaction in Zoho CRM in two ways:

From the Dedicated Module of That Transaction

To create a transaction:

The invoice will be created.

From the Accounts or Contacts Module

To create a transaction:

The invoice will be created.

Create Quotes

The Create Quote page in Zoho CRM is similar to the one in Zoho Billing. The quote form is fetched from Zoho Billing, and fields like Quote Number and Customer Notes are automatically generated based on your Zoho Billing settings. Fill in the required details and save the quote.

Once done, click the Convert dropdown in the top right corner of the quote’s Details page, and select if you want to convert it to an Invoice. Similar to Zoho Billing, you can also perform actions like send email, print, mark as sent, and more. Once the quote is accepted, you can mark it as Accepted. If not, mark it as Declined.

Create Invoices

The Create Invoice page in Zoho CRM is similar to the one in Zoho Billing. The invoice form is fetched from Zoho Billing, and fields like Invoice Number and Customer Notes are automatically generated based on your Zoho Billing settings. Fill in the required details and save the invoice.

Similar to Zoho Billing, you can also perform actions like send email, print, mark as sent, and more.

Generate Reports

You can create customised reports in Zoho CRM for the transactions recorded in Zoho Billing. Here’s how:

You can create custom reports or edit the predefined reports to include data from both Zoho Billing (including custom fields) and Zoho CRM. Learn how to create a report in Zoho CRM.

Collaboration Between Sales and Finance teams

When you integrate Zoho Billing with Zoho CRM, it allows your sales and finance teams to share data between the apps at the transaction level. The sales team can view comments related to a specific invoice or quote in Zoho CRM. Similarly, the finance team can see notes, events, and calls related to that transaction in Zoho Billing.

View Comments in Zoho Billing

Let’s consider an example where a sales transaction is created in Zoho CRM, and notes are added to it. Your finance team can view these details in Zoho Billing. Here’s how:

You can the comments added for the respective transaction.

View Comments in Zoho CRM

Let’s consider an example where the finance team has commented on a transaction to communicate with the sales team. To view the comments:

You can view the comments added to the transaction in the History section.

Disable Integration

If you do not want to sync records between Zoho Billing and Zoho CRM, you can disable it temporarily.

Warning: If you’ve enabled syncing of transaction modules, disabling the integration will delete any custom reports, comments, and attachments associated with transactions in the Zoho Finance module of Zoho CRM. However, your existing transactions in Zoho Billing will remain unaffected.

To disable the integration:

The integration between Zoho CRM and Zoho Billing will be temporarily disabled. To re-enable the integration:

The integration will be enabled again, and data will be synced from Zoho CRM into Zoho Billing.

Delete Integration

If you’ve disabled the integration between Zoho Billing and Zoho CRM and no longer want to sync records, you can delete the integration. Once deleted, the mapping between the records will be permanently removed. This action cannot be undone. If you’ve integrated your Zoho Billing organisation with other Zoho Finance apps, the integration will be removed from those apps as well.

Prerequisite: You can delete the integration only if it is disabled.

To delete the integration:

The integration will be deleted. You’ll also receive an in-app notification when the deletion is complete.

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