InterForm saves around $100,000 annually by automating manual tasks

About the organization

InterForm is an output management software company based in Denmark. Their platform helps businesses convert data from ERPs and CRMs into structured documents like PDFs, labels, barcodes, and XML files. They also help customers migrate documents and set up output workflows.

With over 1,000 customers in 60+ countries and 4,000+ installations worldwide, InterForm enables more than 50 billion prints annually through its software. Many of their clients are large enterprises with complex IT environments.

Challenge: Onboarding customers was slow and prone to errors

InterForm's customer onboarding process involves multiple teams, including sales, legal, finance, and customer success. The process required numerous emails, manual hand-offs, and copying and pasting of data across systems every day.

Once a contract was signed, employees had to manually create customer records, generate invoices, assign projects, create license keys, and alert the customer success team. With all this manual work, the possibility of delays and mistakes was high and would often cause bottlenecks in their workflows.

Solution: A fully automated onboarding flow

InterForm reached out to Natalie Söll Vertrieb GmbH, a Zoho Premium Partner, to implement Zoho apps tailored to their challenges and requirements. One of their experienced project managers introduced InterForm to Zoho Flow and demonstrated its capabilities. The Partner then provided hands-on support in designing initial workflows and optimizing key processes. This collaboration enabled InterForm to confidently continue building and expanding workflows on their own, fully aligned with their internal operations.

For this particular challenge, InterForm slightly restructured their onboarding process and automated its workflows using Zoho Flow. The flow triggers when a deal is marked as "closed won" in Zoho CRM, and a set of tasks is then performed automatically:

• Creates the customer and product records
• Sets up subscriptions in Zoho Billing
• Sends the invoice to the customer
• Creates a project in Zoho Projects

The same flow also generates licenses via an internal tool, which is configured via a custom function.

By automating this workflow, they reduced errors, fast-tracked customer onboarding, and made it scalable without hiring more employees.

"It used to take multiple people and back-and-forth emails just to get one customer set up. Now it happens in seconds."

Morten Lodal Askekilde,Chief Operating Officer,InterForm

Challenge: Subscription renewals and invoicing lacked structure

InterForm's product has multiple pricing models and renewal terms. So invoicing required manually updating subscription data, calculating service periods, and adding license information to invoices. Sometimes, there were mistakes that led to incorrect bills and unnecessary credit notes.

In addition, as InterForm worked with resellers, their CRM contained end-customer data, and mapping them correctly during billing was cumbersome.

Solution: A flow to automate subscriptions and renewals

InterForm built a second flow to handle subscription renewals. When a renewal date is updated in CRM, it calculates the new term (e.g., Jan 1 to Dec 31) and updates the relevant custom fields in Zoho Billing. It also pulls license numbers from Zoho CRM and adds them to the invoice.

To handle reseller billing, the team added logic that maps each subscription in Zoho Billing to the corresponding customer in CRM, despite the invoice being linked to the partner.

"We used to manually type license terms and dates into text fields. Now it’s all structured. It’s faster, more reliable, and easier to scale."

Morten Lodal Askekilde,Chief Operating Officer,InterForm

This flow alone has saved InterForm a considerable amount of time and money, especially after a 70% growth in volume in their business.

Challenge: Licensing and payment inaccuracies

InterForm's licenses and customer support were occasionally provided even before payment was received. The support staff wouldn't always have the invoice status available to them, which created a loss for the business.

Solution: A payment-based license control flow (in progress)

InterForm is building a flow that will trigger whenever an invoice is generated. If payment is delayed, the flow will then:

• Flag the status in Zoho CRM and Zoho Desk
• Prevent license key delivery until payment is received
• Send automatic reminders to the customer
• Add license expiration warnings if needed

"For some customers, not getting a license means their operations stop. But we still need to protect our side. This flow keeps that balance."

Morten Lodal Askekilde,Chief Operating Officer,InterForm

Challenge: Internal email addresses appearing on CRM

Sometimes, InterForm’s own employees registered for webinars or events using their company email addresses. These would get logged as leads in Zoho CRM, causing internal email threads to be visible due to CRM’s email-sharing features.

Solution: A simple flow to eliminate employee email addresses from leads

InterForm built a simple flow that checks for their company domain before passing new leads from different sources to their CRM. If it detects an internal email, the domain is automatically replaced with a dummy placeholder. This prevents internal data from being exposed without affecting tracking.

"It’s a minor use case, but it took just a few minutes to build—and it solves a real problem."

Morten Lodal Askekilde,Chief Operating Officer,InterForm

Benefits and ROI

With the introduction of Zoho Flow, InterForm was able to automate most of the manual work that was slowing them down. With some clever redesigning of their existing workflows, they were able to not only streamline their operations but also reduce errors and data inaccuracies significantly.

A workflow that used to take them around 4 hours a day is now fully automated, saving the company an estimated $100,000 in labor costs. They also now have fewer credit notes and missed invoices, faster onboarding for customers, and an operations team that manages automations independently.

"I’m a lawyer by training, not a developer, but I built these flows myself. That says something about how accessible Zoho Flow is. It has helped us save over $100,000 and 1,200 hours every year."

Morten Lodal Askekilde,Chief Operating Officer,InterForm

Moving forward

InterForm continues to explore how to further utilize Zoho and Zoho Flow. Their current focus is on building a payment-linked license control flow to ensure that services are only activated once payment is confirmed. This automation will help streamline their payment process. They also plan to identify and automate more of their manual work with Zoho Flow going forward.

"Zoho Flow simplifies process automation by seamlessly connecting different apps without code. It helps teams save time, reduce manual effort, and ensure consistent data across systems."

Willi Steinmark,Project Manager,Natalie Söll Vertrieb GmbH