Zoho Books is one of the most complete accounting cloud-based solutions. You can use it as a standalone product for your company’s bookkeeping. Sending an estimate or invoice through email or other channels is commonplace, but Zoho Books built on essential functionalities and created the client portal.
The Portal is a hub, a dedicated space where your customers and clients can view and manage within permissions their transactions. The client portal is a collaborative feature that can speed up business interactions and improve efficiency.
Your customers can accept or negotiate estimates through the client portal and pay their invoices, among many other valuable features.
This article will go through the most frequently used options in the client portal.
Generate estimates and manage pricing negotiations
The usual negotiating process includes emails, meetings and numerous phone calls. While you can still work on your relationship through traditional methods, the client portal in Zoho Books lets you speed up the process. Your clients can see the estimates list, accept them if they agree, or decline if they want to negotiate.
In the Estimates sections, you and the customer can negotiate through the comments, and when you reach an agreement, create a new invoice for approval.
Issue invoices and integrate payment gateways
The client portal in Zoho Books cuts out the middleman. You don’t have to send invoices by email or other channels. Instead, customers can view all their invoices in the dedicated part of the portal.
The client portal allows them to view the invoice details and pay the unpaid ones. If you have enabled partial payments, customers can enter custom amounts. Otherwise, they can click on Pay Now and resolve the invoice instantly.
Besides adding bank transfer payment details on your invoices, you can also enable integrations with different payment gateways, including PayPal and Stripe, to allow clients to pay in multiple ways.
Track Payments Made
The client portal is extremely useful for your company and customers. The client can track all offline and online payments recorded in Zoho Books. In addition, you can filter the list to view invoice payments or filter the list by Date or Amount.
Each payment contains receipts; they can see the invoice or retainer details. In addition, the client portal allows customers to download or print the receipt.
View Sales Orders
Along with estimates and invoices, the client portal in Zoho Books enables customers to view Sales Orders under the same name section. They can choose a single sales order by clicking on the order number. Customers can see the order specifics and the details of the associated invoice.
Manage Projects
The collaboration in the client portal goes beyond viewing estimates and paying invoices. Customers can see the list of active projects and view single projects with more detail on specifics.
You can see Tasks with all the billable tasks created for a specific project like logged, billed and unbilled hours. Time Entries contain all billable timesheet entries so customers can know how much and when you spent/recorded for the project. Time entries will be with logged hours in the client portal.
This part also has a comment section, and you can collaborate through comments to resolve issues on the project.
Manage Timesheets
You can use the client portal to get approval for the time spent on the project. For example, you can present timesheets for authorisation if you want to inform clients how much you have worked on the job. They can see all the timesheets in the Timesheet section of the client portal. Clients can filter timesheets based on their status. When you have approval, it will help create a more accurate invoice for the project.
Generate Statement of Accounts
Advanced functionalities of Zoho Books give your company a better overview of finances and money flow. Simultaneously, the client portal allows your customers to generate a statement of accounts, a document with the list of all the transactions they’ve had with your company in a certain period. In addition, customers can see the amount they have outstanding.
Share documents, get notified and update client details
The client portal is an excellent collaborative tool that can significantly speed up business transactions. Besides the option to view, negotiate and pay estimates, invoices and other documents, the client portal allows customers to print, download PDFs and forward the documents like estimates or sales orders.
For your company, the client portal lets you engage swiftly with the customers. For example, you will get notifications if a customer views your estimate, invoice, or makes payments. The Viewed icon will be next to the estimate or invoice the customer interacted with in Zoho Books. In addition, you will get a notification sent to your primary email address.
Customers can update their company information if anything is changed through the client portal under My Account Details. It will speed up the process and keep all the information accurate.
Bottom line
The client portal in Zoho Books makes workflow and business interaction much faster and more accurate. Customers can see the estimates, pay invoices, and view sales orders in one place. You can collaborate with the customers to negotiate the right amount on the estimate and create a new invoice or sales order.
On top of that, the client portal allows you to log time spent on the project accurately and submit a timesheet for approval. Moreover, the portal lets you share a document and get notifications on customer actions, and it is a time-saving useful collaborative environment that is mutually beneficial.
