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 higher plans 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.

You can configure the portal in the preferences section.

Accept the Invitation

Once your vendor accepts the invitation, they will be able to view and track all their transactions, upload transaction documents and collaborate with you easily. To join the portal, your vendor should:

Go to the email invite sent to them.
Click the Accept Invitation button and they will be redirected to the portal login page.
Enter the email address, set a password and sign in.

They will now be logged into the portal where they can perform various functions.

Functions in the Vendor Portal

Let us see the functions that can be performed in the vendor portal.

Home

Once your vendor logs in to the portal, the home page/dashboard will give them an overview of all the transactions that took place between you and your vendor. They can view the following details:

Outstanding Bills: The total bill amount that you owe them for previous transactions.
Available Credits: Amounts they might have refunded or any amount they owe you (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 you made.
My Account Details: Vendor’s name and contact details which can be edited.
Customer’s Contact Details: Your contact information.

View Purchase Orders

Documents created by you in Zoho Books requesting your vendors to supply specific goods along with their prices and quantities are Purchase Orders. Vendors can view the purchase orders and comment on them to negotiate the prices or add their remarks before they create the final invoice. To access the purchase orders, your vendors should:

Click the purchase order and view its details.
Add comments if necessary to discuss the order.

They 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 your vendor has shipped goods to you, they can upload a picture of the transaction’s document (invoice) to the portal, you can then verify it and accept or reject them in Zoho Books. Once accepted, it will be created as a bill in Zoho Books.

Upload Documents

To upload a transaction document in the portal, your vendors should:

Download/Print and take a picture of the transaction’s document.
Log into the portal using the link provided in the email.
Go to the Invoices module and stay on the Uploaded Documents tab to add transaction documents.
Drag and Drop or Upload Documents from the computer.

Insight: Your vendor can upload images and PDFs of the document. The maximum file size for each document is 5MB.

The document will be in the Pending state as soon as it is uploaded. If you accept the document in Zoho Books, it will be converted into an invoice in the Vendor Portal. You will be able to add comments to the document by clicking it.

View Invoices

Once your vendor uploads a document, you can review and accept/reject the document. If it is accepted, it will be created as an invoice in the portal. Here’s how your vendor can view the invoice in the portal:

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 the vendor will be a bill for you (Zoho Books user). Once you accept the document, it will be recorded as a bill in your Zoho Books account.

Click an invoice to view all the details.
Enter comments and click Add Comment to share them.

Track Payments Received

You might have made an online payment or a cash payment towards the vendor’s invoices. Your vendor will be able to view them once you record the payment manually in Zoho Books. This section will show the details of the amount, the payment mode and the reference transaction. To view this, your vendor should:

Login to the portal and go to the Payments Received module. This will list all the payments you (Zoho Books user) have made.

Click on a payment receipt to drill down the details of the payment.
Click the Download PDF or Print button 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 your vendor and you. Your vendor 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 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 you have stored in Zoho Books will be visible to your vendors. In case they have changed their address, they can edit them in their portal. To do this:

Login to the portal and go to Home.
Go to the My Account Details section and click Edit near the address.

Update the address in the pop-up and click Save.

Insight: Only the person saved as the primary contact by you in Zoho Books will be able to update the address.

Send Email

Your vendor will be able to contact you directly from the portal by sending an email. Here’s how:

Log into the portal and go to Home.
Scroll down and the organisation details will be listed.
Click the Mail button and enter the message.

Click Send.

Change Password

If your vendor’s password is too old or vulnerable, they 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 the password.

Logout

To logout of the 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.

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