Vendor Portal
As your business grows, it might be difficult to manage all your supplies, keep track of each transaction, collaborate and maintain vendor relations. Which is exactly why Zoho Books has a dedicated portal for your vendors which lets them view and access their transactions.
Once you enable the portal in Zoho Books, your vendors will be able to:
- Upload transaction documents which you can verify and convert to bills in Zoho Books.
- View details of purchase orders, invoices and track payments received.
- Generate a consolidated statement of accounts.
- Add comments to discuss transactions and work jointly.
Insight: You can allow customers to keep track of their transactions, add comments and collaborate using the Client Portal.
Note: This feature is available only for the users in the Professional or Premium plan (India) of Zoho Books.
In This Page
Enable Vendor Portal
To start off, you will have to enable portal access and invite your vendor or their contact persons you’ve added in Zoho Books. To enable the portal:
- Go to Purchases > Vendors.
- Select the vendor for whom you want to enable the portal.
- Click the More dropdown and select Configure Vendor Portal.
(Or)
Go to the Overview tab and enable portal access under the Other Details section.
- Choose the contact person for whom you would like to enable portal access and set a Password, if necessary.
- Click Save and an email invitation will be sent to your vendor and they will be able to access the portal by accepting the invitation.
Accept the Invitation
Your customer might send you an email invitation to join their vendor portal. Once you join the portal, you will be able to view and track all your transactions, upload transaction documents and collaborate with your customer with ease. To join the portal:
- Go to the email invite sent to you by your customer.
- Click the Accept Invitation button and you will be redirected to the portal login page.
- Enter your email address, set a password and sign in.
You will now be logged into the portal where you can perform various functions.
Functions in the Vendor Portal (For Vendors)
Let us see the functions that can be performed in the vendor portal.
Home
Once you login to the portal, the home page/dashboard gives you an overview of all the transactions that took place between you and your customer. You can view the following details:
- Outstanding Bills: The total bill amount that your customer owes you for your previous transactions.
- Available Credits: Amounts you might have refunded or any amount you owe your customers (through credit notes) are saved as credits in Zoho Books. These can be applied to transactions and tracked accordingly.
- Last Payment Received: The recent payment your customer has made.
- My Account Details: Your name and contact details which can be edited.
- Customer’s Contact Details: The contact information of your customer.
View Purchase Orders
Purchase orders are documents created by your customers requesting you to supply specific goods along with their prices and quantities. You can view the purchase orders and comment on them to negotiate the prices or add your remarks before you create the final invoice. To access the purchase orders:
- Login to the portal and go to Purchase Orders from the left sidebar.
- Click the purchase order and view its details.
- Add comments if necessary to discuss the order.
You will also be able to filter the purchase orders by their statuses by clicking the Show All Purchase Orders dropdown. The available filters are: All, Billed, Partially Billed and Cancelled.
Manage Invoices
When you’ve shipped goods for your customer, you can upload a picture of the transaction’s document (invoice) to the portal, confirming their purchase which your customer can accept or reject them. Once accepted, an invoice will be created by the customer.
Upload Documents
To upload a transaction document in the portal:
- Download/Print and take a picture of your transaction’s document.
- Log into the portal using the link provided in your email.
- Go to the Invoices module and stay on the Uploaded Documents tab to add your transaction documents.
- Drag and Drop or Upload Documents from your computer.
Insight: You can upload images and PDFs of the document. The maximum file size for each document is 5MB.
Your document will be in the Pending state as soon as it is uploaded. If they accept the document, it will be converted into an invoice. You will be able to add comments to the document by clicking it.
View Invoices
Your customer will review and accept/reject the document. If it is accepted, an invoice will be created. To view the invoice:
- Login to the portal and go to the Invoices module.
- Go to the Invoices tab to view all the accepted documents.
Insight: An invoice created by you (vendor) will be a bill for the customer. Once your customer accepts the document in Zoho Books, it will be recorded as a bill for them.
- Click an invoice to view all the details.
- Enter your comments and click Add Comment to share your inputs with your customer.
Track Payments Received
Your customer might have made an online payment or a cash payment towards your invoices. You will be able to view them once your customer records the payment manually in Zoho Books. This will show the details of the amount, the payment mode and the reference transaction. To view this:
- Login to the portal and go to the Payments Received module. This will list all the payments your customer has made to you.
- Click on a payment receipt to drill down the details of the payment.
- Click the Download PDF or Print button if you want to save a copy of the document.
Generate Statement of Accounts
Statement of account shows a consolidated list of all the transactions carried out between you and your customer. You can generate this statement for any period and view the payments received and balance due. To view the statement:
- Login to the portal and go to the Statements module.
- Select the Date Range in the top corner.
- Click Go to generate the statement.
- Click the Download PDF or Print button if you want to keep a copy of the statement.
Create Bills (Zoho Books Users)
You will be able to create bills in Zoho Books based on the document uploaded by the vendor. You can accept the transaction document to create a bill or discuss them in the comments section. To create bills:
- Click the notification sent to your Zoho Books account when your vendor has uploaded a document.
(Or)
Go to the Vendors module and select the vendor who has uploaded documents. Click the document inbox to view the pending documents.
- All the uploaded documents will be listed. You can click a document to view its details.
- Click Convert to Bill from the top-right corner to accept the document. You can also reject/delete the document, if necessary.
Pro Tip: You can hover over the document and click Convert to Bill to create bills instantly.
Enter the details by viewing the bill alongside. The vendor’s name will be auto-populated for you.
Click Save as Draft or Save as Open. Only the transactions that are in the Open state will be visible for the vendors.
Other Actions (For Vendors)
Edit Address
The address your customer has stored in Zoho Books will be visible to you. In case you have changed your address, you can edit them in the portal. To view this:
- Login to the portal and go to Home.
- Go to the My Account Details section and click Edit near the address.
- Update your address in the pop-up and click Save.
Insight: Only the person saved as the primary contact by your customer in Zoho Books will be able to update the address.
Send Email
You will be able to contact your customer directly from the portal by sending them an email. To do this:
- Log into the portal and go to Home.
- Scroll down and your customer’s organisation details will be listed.
- Click the Mail button and enter the message.
- Click Send and your email will be sent to your customer.
Change Password
If your password is too old or vulnerable, you can an change it easily from the portal. Here’s how:
- Login to the portal and click Change Password in the left sidebar.
- Enter the Old Password and enter a New Password based on the password requirements.
- Re-enter the password and click Save to update your password.
Logout
To logout of your portal:
- Go to the portal.
- Click Logout in the left sidebar.
Vendor Portal Preferences (Zoho Books Users)
The preferences section will allow you to configure the portal.
- Go to Settings > Preferences > Portals.
- Navigate to the Vendor Portal tab.
The custom options available are:
Portal Name
The portal name is unique to your organization and it is used in the URL of the Client and Vendor Portal. This is auto-generated by default. However, you can edit the portal name, and click Save if you want to customize it.
Notify me for every activity that takes place in the portal
Enabling this option notifies you via emails and in-app notifications whenever your vendor uploads documents, adds comments or updates any details.
Notify my vendor when I comment or reject the documents
Enabling this option notifies your vendor via an email whenever you add a comment or reject the documents they had uploaded.
Allow vendors to update their contact details in the portal
Enabling this option allows your customers to add/edit their shipping/billing addresses, custom fields and other contact details in case of any changes.
Allow vendors to upload documents
Enabling this allows vendors to upload PDFs or Images of transactions that support your purchase. You can view the document and accept it to create a bill in Zoho Books.
Banner Message
The banner message will be displayed in the Home screen of the vendor portal. For example, you can say “Welcome to Zylker. Have a nice day!”
- Click Save after configuring these settings.
