More with Contacts

There’s more to Contacts than what meets the eye. In this section, we’ll look into all the important things that we’ve not explained before.

Associating Templates

The invoices, estimates, notifications mails etc. that you send out to your customers can be unique to each client. In Zoho Invoice, you can personalize your templates such that their design is different and very client-specific. These specifications are not only useful to meet business expectations, but also to bring about the perception of a personal touch among your clients.

• Setting default PDF and mail notification templates
• Selecting PDF Templates
• Selecting Email Notification Templates

Setting default PDF and mail notification templates

You can associate pre-defined default or customized pdf and email templates to your contacts as desired. This includes the ones you have created and added to the Zoho Invoice template gallery.

To associate templates to a contact:

• Go to the Contacts module in the left sidebar.
• Select the contact to which you want to associate a template.
• Click the More dropdown in the top-right corner of the Contact Details page.
• Select Associate Templates from the dropdown.

In the Associate Templates pop-up page, you can create, select and assign a customized PDF or Email Notification templates for your contact as you desire.

Selecting PDF Templates

• Under the PDF Templates section, you can select a template from the dropdown options corresponding to each module. All the templates including the ones added by you to the template gallery will be listed in the dropdown. You can assign the template for each of the following items:

  • Estimate PDF
  • Retainer Invoice PDF
  • Invoice PDF
  • Credit Note PDF
  • Payment Thank You PDF
  • Retainer Invoice Payment Thank You PDF

• Once you’ve associated these templates to the respective module PDFs, they will be the default templates for all future transactions carried out with the selected contact.

• If you do not want to select a template from the dropdown but want to create a template on your own, you can create a new template. To add a new PDF Template:

  • Click the Click Here link at the end of the section to go to the Template Creation page.
  • Click the + New button.
  • Select a template from the existing templates apart from standard templates that are available.
  • Hover your mouse over the template you want to use and click the Use This button. Also, you can click the Preview button to see a perview of the template.

• After selecting the template, you can customize the template as per your preference. Hover your mouse cursor over the template and click the Edit button.

  • The template customization can be done in the following sections: Template Properties, Header, Item Table, Total and Footer. Each section has elements or properties that can be edited and customized by selecting from the options provided on the customization pane. Learn more about Template Customization.
  • After customizing, click the Preview button to preview your customization.
  • Click the Save button once you finalize the changes.

Selecting Email Notification Templates

• Under the Email Templates section, you can select and assign a template from the dropdown corresponding to the module PDF. All the templates including the ones you’ve created and added are listed in the dropdown. You can assign the template for each of the following items:
  • Estimate Notification
  • Invoice Notification
  • Credit Note Notification.
  • Payment Thank You Notification
• Once you associate a template to each notification, they will be set as the default templates for all future mail notifications sent to that contact.
• If you do not want to select a template from the dropdown but want to create a template on your own, you can create a new template. To add a new Email Template:
  • Click the Click Here link at the end of the section to go to the Email Template creation page and create a new email template. Learn more.
• After creating a new email template, click Save to confirm associating templates and proceed.

Stopping All Reminders For A Contact

Zoho Invoice allows you to send automated payment due reminders to your customers. These reminders can be configured in the Settings module for selective durations as you desire. Now, if you do not want to send these reminders to specific contacts you can stop them.

To stop reminders for specific customers:

• Go to the Contacts module in the left sidebar.
• Select the contact for which you wish to stop the payment reminders.
• Click the More dropdown on the top-right corner of the contact details page and select Stop All Reminders.

Payment reminders will be stopped for this contact immediately. Later, if you want to re-enable the reminders for this contact, you can do so.

• Select the contact for which you want to enable the payment reminders, click the More dropdown, and select Enable All Reminders.

Sending Email To A Contact

While doing business with your customers, you might want to communicate something important related to your business to your customers. You can send such emails directly from Zoho Invoice, easily. Additionally, you’ll be able to attach a list of unpaid invoices list to the email and send it to your customers.

To draft emails and directly send them to your customers:

• Go to the Contacts module in the left sidebar.
• Select the contact to whom you want to send an email.
• Click the More dropdown on the top-right corner of the window and select Email Contact.

• In the email draft page, click the Send To dropdown and select the customer’s email address.
• Click the Cc dropdown and select another email address pertaining to the customer to carbon copy the email.

Insight: Only the email addresses that you’ve added to the contact will be shown in the dropdown of Send To and Cc. If you want to instantly add an email address, click + Add Contact Person in the Send To dropdown; enter the contact person’s details and click Save and Select.

• Enter the content you want to send to your customer.
• Check Attach unpaid invoices list to attach and send a PDF of all the unpaid invoices list along with the email. The PDF will be attached only if there are unpaid invoices for that contact.
• Check Attach Customer Statement to attach and send the customer statement of the present month to your customer. Learn more about sending customer statements.
• Click the Attach File(s) link to attach any other document you might want to send to your customer.
• Click Send.

Cloning a Contact

At times, you may find yourself in a fix when your customers pay for invoices in different currencies. In that case, you can duplicate the contact twice and set different currencies, one for each. You can do this by cloning the contact.

To clone a contact:

• Navigate to the Contacts module in the left sidebar.
• Click the contact you want to clone.
• Click the More dropdown in the top right corner and select Clone from the drop-down.

A Clone Contact screen will open where all the details of the contact will be auto-populated. Make sure all the details are correct and click Save.

Merging Contacts

When you import contacts from other systems, it is possible to have multiple contacts for the same customer in the Contacts module. You can merge them together to make them a single contact and bring all the transactions under a master contact.

Prerequisites: The contacts you are merging must have the same currency to merge them together.

There are two ways to merge contacts in Zoho Invoice depending upon your preference:

• Merging Multiple Contacts
• Merging two contacts

Merging Multiple Contacts

It’s best to follow this method, when you want to merge more than two contacts together.

To merge multiple contacts:

• Go to the Contacts module in the left side bar.
• Click the check-box of the contacts you want to merge together.
• Click the More Actions dropdown and select Merge.
• Select the master contact from the contacts displayed and click Continue.
• Click Confirm in the next pop-up page.

Merging two contacts

When you want to merge only two contacts, follow this method.

To merge two contacts together:

• Go to the Contacts module in the left sidebar.
• Select the contact you want to merge with the master contact.
• Click the More dropdown and select Merge Contacts.
• Select the master contact from the dropdown and click Continue.
• Click Confirm in the next pop-up page.

Marking A Contact As Inactive

To mark a contact as inactive:

• Go to the Contacts module.
• Select the contact to be marked as inactive by clicking the check-box. You can select multiple contacts as well to mark them as inactive.
• Click the More Actions dropdown and select Mark as Inactive.

Deleting A Contact

You might want to delete a contact when it has become obsolete. However, you cannot delete a contact if transactions are recorded under it. You must delete all the transactions before you can delete the contact. If you want to retain the transations, you can mark the contact as inactive.

To delete a contact:

• Go to the Contacts module.
• Select the contact to be deleted by clicking the check-box. You can select multiple contacts as well to delete them.
• Click the More Actions dropdown and select Delete.
• Click the Delete button in the pop-up to confirm and delete.

Alternatively, you can also delete individual contacts by selecting them.

• Select the contact you want to delete .
• Click the More dropdown on top of the details page.
• Select Delete from the dropdown.

Assigning Contact Owners

When you have a large customer base, it is diffcult for a single person to handle all of them. Also, it is possible to miss out on some customers when you’re pre-occupied with your business. To help you in scenarios like these, Zoho Invoice offers you the ability to assign one of your employees as a contact owner to a contact or a group of contacts. Now, the contact owner can create, view or edit transactions for the contacts assigned to them.

Prerequisites:

• You must have at least one of your employees as an user in Zoho Invoice with the Staff - Assigned Customers Only role. This role is available by default under the Roles tab in Settings. Learn more about Users and Roles.
• You must be an admin or an user with access to assign other users as contact owners.

After adding an user with the Staff - Assigned Customers Only role, you can assign them as contact owners, either while adding a customer as a new contact or after adding a customer as a contact.

Assigning while creating a new contact

• Select one of the users listed in the dropdown against the Contact Owner field.

Assigning after you’ve added a contact

• Go to the Contacts module in the left sidebar.
• Select the contact to whom you want to assign a contact owner.
• Click the More dropdown and on the top-right corner and select Assign Contact Owner from the dropdown.

• Select an user from the dropdown and click Assign.

You can assign a contact owner to mutiple contacts at a time. To do so:

• Go to the Contacts module in the left sidebar.
• Check and select multiple contacts.
• Click the Assign Contact Owner button in the top bar.

• Select a user from the dropdown and click Assign.

Sending Unpaid Invoices List To Your Customers

At times, customers might delay in making the payments for the invoices that you’ve issued to them. It could be due to a variety of reasons. However, you can send them a copy of all their unpaid invoices and urge them to make the payments that are due.

There are two ways to send a PDF of unpaid invoices list to your customers in Zoho Invoice:

• Attach them while sending a customer statement
• Attach them while sending an email.

Attach them while sending a customer statement

To send an Unpaid Invoices List along with sending a customer statement:

• Go to the Contacts module in the left sidebar.
• Select the contact to whom you want to send the customer statement.
• Click the Statement tab in the Contact Details page.
• Click the Mail icon on the top-right corner of the page.

• Check Attach unpaid invoices list to attach a PDF of the unpaid invoices list of the particular contact.
• Click Send.

Exporting Contacts

The export option in the Contacts module allows you to export the contacts and the contact persons in CSV or XLS format. As soon as you export, the data will be downloaded to your system in the format that you’ve chosen.

To export contacts:

• Go to the Contacts module in the left sidebar.
• Click the Hamburger icon in the top-right corner of the window.
• Select Export Contacts or Export Contact Persons option from the dropdown.
• Select the export file format as either CSV or XLS.
• Click Export.

Bulk Actions

Bulk Actions allows you to perform a particular action on a group of contacts. You will be able to send or print customer statements of a group of customers in a single attempt, update contacts, enable Customer Portal, mark contacts as active or inactive and delete contacts. Let’s look into how you can perform bulk actions in Zoho Invoice.

• Bulk Send Customer Statements
• Bulk Update
• More Actions

Bulk Send Customer Statements

When you select contacts in bulk and send bulk statements, each customer’s statement is sent to their email address respectively. The statements that are sent to every customer will be of the same period.

To send bulk customer statements:

• Go to the Contacts module in the left sidebar.
• Select the contacts to which you want to send bulk statements by clicking the check-box.
• Click the Send Customer Statements icon in the top bar.
• Select the period for which you wish to send customer statements.
• Click Send Statements. The emails are scheduled and sent. You will be notified as soon as the statements are sent to your customers.

To print customer statements in bulk:

• Go to the Contacts module in the left sidebar.
• Select the contacts whose customer statements you want to bulk-print, by clicking the check-box.
• Click the Print Customer Statements icon in the top bar.
• Select the period for which you wish to print customer statements.
• Click Print Statements.

Bulk Update

Bulk Update allows you to update fields such as Currency, Payment Terms, Price Lists and Custom Fields in the contacts in a single attempt.

To bulk update:

• Go to the Contacts module in the left sidebar.
• Select the contacts whose information you want to bulk-update, by clicking the check-box.
• Click the Bulk Update button.
• Select the appropriate Currency and update the new Payment Terms.
• Click the Update Fields button.

More Actions

You can enable Customer Portal in bulk for your contacts, mark contacts active or inactive and delete them.

• Go to the Contacts module in the left sidebar.
• Select the contacts whose information you want to bulk-update, by clicking the check-box.
• Click the More dropdown.
• Select Enable Portal to enable Customer Portal for all the contacts.
• Click Mark as Active or Mark as Inactive to mark all the contacts as active or inactive respectively.
• Select Delete to delete contacts in bulk.

---