10 useful integrations to help automate your accounting

An accounting app not only keeps track of your income, expenses, and transactions but also any associated customer information. Because it's so difficult to add transactions manually, after they happen, they have to be recorded in your accounting app in real time. It doesn’t matter if you run an ecommerce business, charge for consultations, or bill clients by the hour—information has to flow in and out of your accounting app whenever a sale or booking happens, or when hours are logged.

When each aspect of your business is powered by a dedicated SaaS app, it only makes sense to invest in an integration application, so that you can choose the apps you want to choose without having to worry about whether it integrates with your accounting app.

In this article, we’ll go through some of the common yet important integrations that you can create using an integration platform.

1) Generate an invoice for a new ecommerce order

You'd hope that your accounting app is natively integrated with major ecommerce platforms, but even if that's the case, you’re still operating on limited choices. You wouldn’t need to worry about things like this with an integration platform, though. All you need to do is set up an integration so that every time an order is placed in your ecommerce store, an invoice is generated in your accounting app. You can set this up once and forget it, reviewing it only when necessary.

2) Add new customers to a mailing list

Your customers are probably a great fit for your newsletter. So why not set up an integration that adds customer information to a specific list in your email marketing app as soon as a new customer is created in your accounting app? You can also set up the integration so that it won’t activate unless the customer agrees to be part of your mailing list.

3) Automatically back up customer information in a spreadsheet

It’s always good practice to back up critical information. In this case, you can create an integration in your integration platform that adds customer information to a spreadsheet as soon as a new customer is created in your accounting app.

4) Get notifications in your team chat

You want the right team to know when an invoice is generated or a customer is created. You can notify people of updates like these, or regarding any other accounting event, by creating an integration in your integration platform. These would be simple two-step workflows where an update is posted in the relevant channel in your team chat app whenever the chosen event occurs in your accounting app.

5) Add new appointments to your accounting app

If you’re charging clients for consultations, this integration is going to be important. Because the appointment scheduling is typically taken care of by a bookings app, you’d need to create an integration that records the new appointment with the customer details and generates an invoice. You can even add another step, where the invoice is automatically sent to the customer, as well. Now your scheduling, accounting, and invoicing can all happen in one smooth motion.

6) Add details from a form to your accounting app

Online forms are extremely versatile. Say you’re using a form to gather customer or transaction details and your accounting app isn’t natively integrated with your online forms app. You’re either going to have to write a script yourself or enter all those details manually. Of course, it doesn’t have to be this way. If you’re using an integration platform, you can create this integration in minutes and be done with it. Data from all your forms will now be safely logged in your accounting app.

7) Create an order in your shipping management app when a new invoice is generated

This is another crucial integration if you’re in the ecommerce space. For the order to be shipped to the customer, it has to be recorded in your shipping management app in real time. You can use your integration platform to create an integration where an order is automatically placed in your shipping management app as soon as an invoice is generated in your accounting app. A smooth setup ensures that ordering, invoicing, accounting, and shipping all take place the moment an order is placed.

8) Create an invoice for the hours logged in your time tracking app

When you’re billing clients for projects, you’re probably using a time tracking app where your employees log in hours spent on the project. These are billable hours and need to be accounted for. In your integration platform, you can create an integration that creates an invoice for the hours logged via the time tracking app.

9) Keep CRM data in sync with your accounting app

When you need data in your accounting app, like customers and transactions, to be in sync with your CRM, you can create an integration that creates a customer record in your accounting app as soon as it's created in your CRM.

10) Integrating your inventory management system

The integration between your inventory management system and your account is imperative for an ecommerce business. Every time a new item is added to your inventory management system, it needs to be accounted for. Every time a credit note is raised for a returned item, the inventory management system should reflect the change. You can easily create this important integration in minutes in your integration platform.

There are so many more custom integrations you can create depending on the nature of your business. Zoho Flow already supports more than 500 apps, and the list is only growing. If you already use other Zoho products, investing in Flow will give you even more flexibility to make the most of your Zoho apps and smoothly tie in other apps to your SaaS ecosystem.

Try Zoho Flow, create a couple of integrations, and write to support@zohoflow.com if you have any questions.