How to Use Zoho Books: A Step-By-Step Guideline in 2025

Struggling to keep track of your business money?

It can feel like a real headache, right?

You’re not alone! 

Many small business owners find it tough to manage invoices, bills, and other financial tasks.

What if there were a way to make it simpler?

Ready to learn how this tool can make your life a little easier? Let’s take a look at how to use Zoho Books!

Setting Up Your Zoho Books Account

Okay, let’s get you started with Zoho Books!

Think of it like setting up a new app on your phone.

This guide will walk you through the first steps.

Signing Up

• • How do you get your own Zoho Books space? First, you go to their website and sign up. It’s usually pretty easy – you’ll need to enter your name, email, and create a password.
  • Did you know Zoho Booksoffers different plans? It’s like choosing a size for something. They have plans for small businesses and bigger ones.
  • Which plan should you pick? Well, think about how big your business is and what you need to do. If you’re starting, a smaller plan might be fine. As you grow, you can always get a bigger one.

Initial Configuration

• • What stuff does Zoho Books need to know about your business? Think of it like introducing your company. You’ll probably need to enter your business name, address, and possibly some other basic information.
  • You also get to set up your special corner in Zoho Books, kind of like your profile. This is where your business details live.
  • Guess what? You can even change how your Zoho Books looks a little bit to make it feel more like yours.

Navigating the Dashboard

• • When you log in, you’ll see a main page – that’s the dashboard. It’s like the home screen of the accounting software. You can see important stuff here at a glance.
  • Zoho Books has different sections for various tasks, such as managing customers, sending invoices, and tracking finances. These are called modules. You’ll get used to where everything is.
  • Want to see how your business is doing? The dashboard often shows you quick views of important financial information, like who owes you money or how much you’ve made.

Connecting Your Bank Accounts

• • Why should you connect your bank to Zoho Books? It can save you a lot of time! Instead of typing in every transaction, Zoho Books can automatically import them.
  • Don’t worry, it’s usually secure to connect your bank and credit card accountant. Zoho Books uses special ways to keep your information safe.
  • Yes, most of the time, Zoho Books can automatically capture your transactions, so you don’t have to type them in yourself.

Setting Up Users and Roles

• • Do other people in your business need to use Zoho Books? Maybe your partner or someone who helps with the money stuff?
  • You can add them as users to your Zoho Books.
  • It’s smart to assign different tasks to different people in Zoho Books. These are called roles. For example, someone might be able to make invoices but not change important settings.
  • This way, you can control who sees and does what in your crm and money areas.

See? Getting started with Zoho Books isn’t too tricky.

Just take it one step at a time, and you’ll get the hang of it! You can even integrate it with other tools you might use.

For example, you can set up online payment options so your customers can pay you easily.

Managing Your Contacts

Think of your contacts in Zoho Books like your phone’s address book.

But for your business buddies – your customers and the people you buy stuff from (vendors).

Keeping this organized helps a lot!

1. Adding Customers:
   • How do you put a new customer into Zoho Books? You can type in their info yourself.
   • Got a whole bunch of customers already listed somewhere else, maybe even in QuickBooks? You can usually import that list into Zoho Books, so you don’t have to enter everyone’s information again manually.
   • What info should you keep for each customer? Things like their name, email, phone number, and address are super helpful.
   • You can also group your customers. Maybe you have some who buy a lot and others who buy just a little. Putting them in groups can help you keep track.
2. Managing Customer Details:
   • Need to change a customer’s address or phone number? It’s easy to edit their info.
   • Sometimes, one company may have several different people you can talk to. You can add all those contact people under the same customer.
   • Want to see all the bills and payments for one customer? Zoho Books keeps a history of all your transactions.
3. Adding Vendors:
   • Adding vendors – the people you buy supplies or services from – is pretty much the same as adding customers. You type in their details.
   • Just like with customers, if you have a list of your vendors somewhere else, you can probably import it.
   • What should you remember about your vendors? Their name, contact info, and maybe their payment details.
4. Managing Vendor Details:
   • If a vendor changes their address or contact person, you can easily update that in Zoho Books.
   • Ever wonder how much you’ve paid a certain vendor over time? Zoho Books keeps track of all your purchases from them.
5. Contact Groups:
   • Why group customers or vendors? It can be useful for sending emails to multiple people at once or offering special deals to specific customer groups.
   • You can categorize your customers into different groups, such as “regular customers” or “customers in a specific area.” You can do the same for your vendors.
   • Yes, once you have groups, you can send emails to everyone in that group or even set up special rules that only apply to them. For example, you might give a discount to a certain group of customers. You can also see the balance they owe. You might even keep a digital receipt of your communications with them.

Mastering Sales: Invoices and Estimates

Now, let’s talk about getting paid!

This part of Zoho Books helps you send out bills (invoices) and give price quotes (estimates) to your customers.

Creating Estimates

• • When should you send an estimate? Usually, before you do the work or sell something, so the customer know how much it will cost.
  • How do you make a new estimate in Zoho Books? There’s usually a button that says “New Estimate” or something similar. Click that!
  • What should you put on an estimate? List the things you’re going to do or sell, how many, and how much each one costs.
  • Guess what? You can make your estimates look professional by adding your company’s logo.
  • Once it looks good, you can send it to your customer through email right from Zoho Books.

Converting Estimates to Invoices

• • What happens after a customer says “yes” to your estimate? You need to bill them!
  • Good news! Zoho Books allows you to easily turn an estimate into an invoice with just a few clicks. It saves you from typing everything again.
  • You can still make small changes to the invoice if needed before sending it.

Creating Invoices

• • How do you make a bill from scratch? Just like with estimates, there’s usually a “New Invoice” button.
  • What are the important things that go on an invoice? Your business name, your customer’s name, what they bought, how much it cost, and when they need to pay.
  • You add each item they bought or service you provided as a separate line on the invoice, along with the price.
  • You can also add discounts if you’re offering one, and it will automatically calculate the taxes.

Customizing Invoices

1. • Want your invoices to look like they came from your cool business?
   • You can add your company picture (logo) to make it look official.
   • You can even customize the way the invoice looks, including the colors, fonts, and the information displayed.

While you’re dealing with sales, sometimes you might create a sales order first.

Which is like a promise from the customer to make a purchase. 

For the stuff you buy, you’d use purchase orders. 

All this information eventually feeds into your chart of accounts, which is like a map of all your money.

You can even automate some of these steps to save time!

Handling Purchases: Bills and Expenses

This section is all about the money you spend to run your business.

It helps you keep track of bills from your suppliers and other costs.

Creating Bills

• • How do you keep a record of the bills you get from the people you buy from? You create a bill in Zoho Books.
  • What info goes on a bill? Things like who you bought from, what you purchased, how much it cost, and when it’s due.
  • If you have the actual paper bill, you can usually attach a picture or scan of it to the bill in Zoho Books. This helps you keep everything organized.

Managing Bills

• • How do you remember when you need to pay your bills? Zoho Books helps you keep track of the due dates.
  • Once you pay a bill, you mark it as “paid” in the system.
  • You also record how you paid the bill – was it with a check, a credit card, or maybe even through payment gateways if your vendor uses them?

Recording Expenses

• • What about other things you spend money on that aren’t bills from suppliers? Like buying office supplies or paying for gas? These are called expenses.
  • You can manually type in these expenses in Zoho Books.
  • It’s a good idea to categorize your expenses, such as “office supplies” or “travel,” so you know where your money is going. This is part of good financial management.

Expense Reports

1. • Do your employees spend money on things for the business?
   • They can fill out expense tracking reports to show what they spent.
   • You can set up a way to approve these reports in Zoho Books.
   • Once you approve them, you can reimburse your employees.

Integrations: Extending Zoho Books’ Power

Think of integrations like connecting different apps on your phone so they can talk to each other and work better together.

Zoho Books can connect with other software to do even more cool stuff!

Exploring Integrations

• • Did you know that Zoho has other apps besides Zoho Books? Like one for keeping track of customers (CRM), one for managing stuff you have in stock (Inventory), and one for working on projects (Projects).
  • When you connect these Zoho apps, they can share information and make things easier. For example, when you make a sale in your CRM, it will automatically appear in Zoho Books.
  • Zoho Books can also connect with apps that Zoho doesn’t make – these are called third-party applications.
  • What kinds of third-party apps? Things like payment gateways so that people can pay you online, or e-commerce platforms if you sell products online.

Connecting Integrations

• • How do you get Zoho Books to talk to these other apps? Usually, there’s a section in the settings where you can find a list of apps you can connect to.
  • You click on the app you want to connect to and follow the steps. Sometimes you need to enter your login info for that other app.

By connecting Zoho Books with other tools, you can streamline your business processes effectively.

For example, if you use Zoho CRM, you won’t have to enter customer info in two places.

It all works together!

Some integrations might even offer a free trial so you can see if they’re a good fit for your business.

Wrapping Up

So, that’s the rundown on using Zoho Books!

It might seem like a lot at first, but once you get the hang of it, it can really help you keep your business finances in order.

From sending out bills to keeping track of what you owe.

It puts many tools in one place.

Remember that doing things like regular reconciliation. 

By using Zoho Books to manage your money.

You can really smooth out your business workflow and spend less time stressing about numbers and more time on what you love doing!

Frequently Asked Questions