Create Customers and Vendors

To create a customer:

• Log into your Zoho ERP organisation.
• Go to Sales on the left sidebar and select Customers.
• Click CREATE NEW CUSTOMER if you’re creating a customer for the first time, or click + New in the top right corner.
• In the New Customer page, fill in the following fields:
  • Customer Type: This option will be selected by default, based on the preferences you had selected earlier.
  • Primary Contact: Enter the name of your customer in the format of Salutation, First Name, and Last Name.
  • Company Name: If you’re recording a business customer, enter their company name.
  • Display Name: Choose how you want the customer’s name must appear in your transactions. For a business customer, their company’s name can be set as the Display Name.
  • Email Address: Enter your customer’s email address. You can use it to invite them to the customer portal, send notifications, and more.
  • Phone Number: Enter your customer’s phone number.
  • Customer Language: Enter your customers’ preferred language. This can be used when you customer collaborates with you through the customer portal.
• Switch to the Other Details, and fill in the following fields:
  • GST Treatment: Select the GST treatment your customer falls under.
  • Place of Supply: Enter your customer’s place of supply where you must sell your goods to.
  • PAN: Enter your customer’s PAN (Permanent Account Number) details, as it is required for financial transactions and tax-related activities in India.
  • Tax Preference: Choose whether your customer is Taxable or Tax-Exempt.
  • Currency: Choose the currency in which you want to carry out transactions with your customer.
  • Accounts Receivable: Choose the account with which you want to track the customer’s transactions.
  • Opening Balance: Enter your customer’s opening balance.
  • Payment Terms: Set the required payment terms for your customers.
  • Enable Portal?: Check Allow portal access for this customer to invite them to the customer portal. Note that the customer’s email address is mandatory to do this.
  • Documents: Upload required files for the customer. Note that you can upload a maximum of 10 files, with 5 MB each.
  • Click Add more fields and fill in the following fields:
    • Website URL: Enter the customer’s website, if they have any. You can use it to record your business customers’ company websites.
    • Department: If your customer is working in a specific company you sell goods or services to, enter the department to which they belong.
    • Designation: If your customer works for a company and is in a specific designation to contact, provide it here.
    • X: Enter your customer’s X id.
    • Skype Name/Number: Enter your customer’s skype name or number.
    • Facebook: Enter your customer’s facebook profile URL.
• Switch to the Address tab, and enter your customer’s billing and shipping addresses.
• Switch to the Contact Persons tab, and enter their details. Click + Add Contact Person to add more than one contact person for your customer.
• Switch to the Custom Fields tab, and enter the required data in your custom fields.
• Switch to the Reporting Tags tab, and select the required reporting tag for your customer.
• Switch to the Remarks tab, and enter the remarks for your customer for internal use.
• Click Save.

The customer will be created. Similarly, to create a vendor:

• Go to Purchases on the left sidebar and select Vendors.
• Click CREATE NEW VENDOR if you’re creating a customer for the first time, or click + New in the top right corner.
• In the New Vendor page, fill in the following fields:
  • Primary Contact: Enter the name of your vendor in the format of Salutation, First Name, and Last Name.
  • Company Name: Enter your vendor’s company name.
  • Display Name: Choose how you want the vendor’s name must appear in your transactions.
  • Email Address: Enter your vendor’s email address. You can use it to invite them to the vendor portal, send notifications, and more.
  • Phone Number: Enter your vendor’s phone number.
  • Vendor Language: Enter your vendor’s preferred language. This can be used when you vendor collaborates with you through the vendor portal.
• In the Other Details section, fill in the following fields:
  • GST Treatment: Select the GST treatment your vendor falls under.
  • Source of Supply: Enter your vendor’s place of supply from where you purchase goods.
  • PAN: Enter your vendor’s PAN (Permanent Account Number) details, as it is required for financial transactions and tax-related activities in India.
  • MSME Registered?: Enable This vendor is MSME registered if your vendor’s business is registered as micro, small, or medium enterprise. If enabled, enter their MSME/Udyam Registration Type and MSME/Udyam Registration Number.
  • Currency: Choose the currency in which you want to carry out transactions with your vendor.
  • Accounts Payable: Choose the account with which you want to track the customer’s transactions.
  • Opening Balance: Enter your vendor’s opening balance.
  • Payment Terms: Set the required payment terms for your vendor.
  • TDS: Select the required TDS you want to associate with this vendor.
  • Enable Portal?: Check Allow portal access for this vendor to invite them to the vendor portal. Note that the vendor’s email address is mandatory to do this.
  • Documents: Upload required files for the vendor. Note that you can upload a maximum of 10 files, with 5 MB each.
  • Click Add more fields and fill in the following fields:
    • Website URL: Enter the vendor’s website, if they have any. You can use it to record your vendors’ company websites.
    • Department: If your vendor is working in a specific company you purchase goods or services from, enter the department to which they belong.
    • Designation: If your vendor works for a company and is in a specific designation to contact, provide it here.
    • X: Enter your vendor’s X id.
    • Skype Name/Number: Enter your vendor’s skype name or number.
    • Facebook: Enter your vendor’s facebook profile URL.
• Switch to the Address tab, and enter your vendor’s billing and shipping addresses.
• Switch to the Contact Persons tab, and enter their details. Click + Add Contact Person to add more than one contact person for your vendor.
• Switch to the Bank Details tab, click + Add Bank Account to add your vendor’s bank details and fill in the following fields:
  • Account Holder Name: Enter your vendor’s name as it appears in their bank account.
  • Bank Name: Enter the bank’s name where you vendor has their account.
  • Account Number: Enter your vendor’s account number.
  • Re-enter Account Number: Enter your vendor’s account number to confirm it is correct and avoid errors.
  • IFSC: Enter the IFSC code for the bank. This is useful to identify the bank and branch when you make online payments.
  • To add more bank accounts for your vendor, click + Add New Bank.
• Switch to the Custom Fields tab, and enter the required data in your custom fields.
• Switch to the Reporting Tags tab, and select the required reporting tag for your vendor.
• Switch to the Remarks tab, and enter the remarks for your vendor for internal use.
• Click Save.

The vendor will be created.

Create Customers and Vendors From Other Sources

Import Customers and Vendors

If you have customers or vendors in your previous ERP software, or have them stored locally, you can import them into your organisation. Here’s how:

• Go to Sales on the left sidebar, and select Customers in the module bar.
• Click the More icon in the top right corner, hover over Import, and select Import Customers.
• In the Import Customers pop-up, choose if you want to import Customers or Customer’s Contact Persons.
• Click Continue.
• Click Choose File and upload the required file. You can also download a sample file for your reference.
  • Note that you can upload files in the CSV, TSV, and XLS formats. The maximum file size is 25 MB.
• Select the required Duplicate Handling for the records you’re importing into Zoho ERP.
  • Skip Duplicates: Retains the vendors in Zoho ERP does not import duplicates from the import file.
  • Overwrite: Imports the customers into Zoho ERP and updates the details of the existing customers.
  • Add duplicates as new customers: Imports the customers into Zoho ERP, and adds them as new records.
• Select the required Character Encoding and Field Delimiter for the import file.
• Click Next.
• In the Map Fields page, check if all the headers in the import file are mapped to the fields available in Zoho ERP.
• Enable Save these selections for use during future imports if you’ll be use the same mapping again.
• Click Next.
• In the Preview page, click Import.

The customers will be imported into your Zoho ERP organisation. Similarly, you can also import vendors and their contact persons.

Create Customers and Vendors From Transactions

You can also create customers or vendors directly when you create transactions, without setting them up in advance. When you do so, Zoho ERP automatically creates a new record and adds them to the respective modules.

To create a customer in the transaction page:

• Go to Sales on the left sidebar.
• Select a transaction you want to create in the module bar (for example, Invoices).
• Click + New in the top right corner.
• In the New Invoice page, click the Customer Name dropdown, and select + New Customer.
• In the New Customer pop-up, fill in the required details and click Save.

The customer will be added to the transaction. Fill in the transaction details and save it.

Similarly, you can also create vendors when you create purchase transactions.