Zoho Invoice

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Customer Portal in Zoho Invoice

Customer Portal allows your clients to keep ​track of all the transactions that have taken place between them and your business. Bid goodbye to lengthy emails and collaborate efficiently like never before.

Read on to know how to enable the portal and provide access to your clients for your account.

Customer Portal Settings

Follow the simple steps mentioned below to enable the customer portal for your Zoho Invoice account.

Setup customer portal


Invite contacts to your portal

To give access to your clients, you need to individually enable the portal for each contact person associated to a contact. Once they log in to your portal they can view the estimates, invoices you have sent them, all on their own. You can collaborate and discuss with your clients on estimates and invoices. This will hasten the quotes approval process and payments.

The steps to enable the portal for your contact are as follows,

Insight: Customer portal will be enabled only when you have added a contact person for the contact.

Enable customer portal for contact

Select contacts for access

Accept Invite to customer portal

Create password for customer portal

Your clients will be able to log into your portal and view the invoices, estimates and also download customer statements.


Working in the Customer Portal

Your clients can login to the customer portal using their email address and the password they created in the previous step.

Customer portal login

Dashboard

The first thing that your client will see upon logging into your customer portal would be the dashboard. ​The dashboard displays important details such as, outstanding invoices, retainer invoices, and the last payment made.

Customer portal home

It also displays the number of estimates that are yet to be approved. Clicking on the number will display the details of the said estimates.


Transactions

Your clients can view the status of all the invoices and estimates they have received as well as the payments made in the past.

Estimates

Your clients can view a list of the estimates they’ve received from you. If they are satisfied with the price, they can take your business forward by clicking on the Accept button.​ The client can also filter the list to display a particular type of estimate by clicking on the drop-down above the list.

Accepting Estimate in customer portal

Accepting Estimate in customer portal

Clients can also decline an estimate for a better offer by clicking on Decline in the More drop down that is visible once the estimate is selected.

Declining Estimate in customer portal

Insight: You can always rework on the declined estimate by clicking on the ‘Edit’ option provided in your Zoho Invoice account ​to make an offer your clients clients can’t resist and update them.

Invoices

Your clients can view a list of invoices sent by you in the portal. They can open the invoice by clicking on one of them. ​If the invoice is unpaid, they can choose to pay instantly by ​clicking on Pay Now. The client can also filter the list to display a particular type of invoice by clicking on the drop-down above the list.

Instant Pay for an Invoice

Instant Pay for an Invoice

Your clients can make payments by choosing a mode of payment. Various payment gateway options can be given to the client at the time of creating ​an invoice.

Payment Gateway screen

For making payments using Credit/Debit card, clients can enter their card number, CVV, expiry date, billing address and the country to make payment. They can also save the cards and use them while making payments for upcoming invoices.

Credit Card screen

Making ACH payments.

Ach customer portal account

Insight: Customers can also choose to save their account details for future transactions by checking the Use this account for future transactions option.

Payments Made

The client can keep track of all the payments made for invoices sent by you.

PaymentsMade


Projects

If you had enabled the “Allow customers to view projects and timesheets” option in the portal settings, an additional module will be made available in your customer’s customer portal.

Project Enable

The Projects module in the customer portal will list all the projects created for your customer.

ProjectsList

When you click on one of the projects, you will see the following tabs:

Tasks

All the billable tasks created for this project will be listed here. The details such as Logged Hours, Billed Hours and Unbilled Hours will also be displayed.

Project Tasks

Timesheets

All the billable timesheet entries created for this project will be listed here. The details such Task, Date, Time and Status will also be displayed.

Project Timesheet

Comments

Your clients can comment in the customer portal regarding the project.

Client Comment Project

You can check and reply for the comments made by the client on the specific project from your Zoho Invoice account.

Check the ‘Display in customer portal’ box to make your reply visible in the customer portal.

Client Comment Reply


Bulk Payments

The customer portal’s dashboard will display the total amount for Outstanding Invoices. Select Pay Now to view the number of invoices for which the amount is due.

Pay Now Button

To view more details of the outstanding invoices, click on the hyperlink below the Total Amount.

Invoice Payment Details

You can then proceed to make the payment for all your outstanding invoices using a Credit Card or through any one of the associated payment gateways.


Get Notified

The ‘Viewed’ Notification

Once your clients have viewed your estimate or invoice, you will be notified about it with a ‘​Viewed’ icon on the specific estimate or invoice on your Zoho Invoice account.

Viewed notifcation

Comments

Your clients can comment in the customer portal about the estimate or invoice they receive. This feature comes handy when clients ask for a better price on your estimate rather than declining it.

Client comment in Customer portal

You can check and reply for the comments made by the client on the specific estimate or invoice from your Zoho Invoice account. Check the ‘Display in customer self service portal’ box to make your reply visible in the customer portal.

User comment in Zoho Invoice

Your clients can view your reply in the customer portal.

User Reply view for client in Customer portal

By Mail

A notification email will be triggered to your email account if your client


Save, Print and Forward

Estimates and Invoices can be printed, downloaded as PDF’s and can be forwarded to other contacts by your clients from the options provided inside the More drop-down.

Save, Print and Forward

Insight: Once the estimate or invoice is forwarded to a contact by the client, that contact gets added up as a contact person for the client in your Zoho Invoice account.


Statements

Your clients can view a detailed ‘Statement of Accounts’ consisting of all the transactions between them and your company. They can also have their statements printed or downloaded as PDFs.

Statements of all the trasactions

Client Details

Clients can update and edit their personal details, company details and change their password using the customer portal.

Client Review

Sometimes, you would want to know what your clients think about your service. Under such cases, you can ask your clients to rate/review your services. Your customers can rate and review your organization’s services through the customer portal. To know how, click here.

My Account

The ‘My Account’ section is used for updating & editing personal details of the client.

Clients can fill in their name and contact details. They can also edit their credit/debit card details.

Client’s account details

Insight: Please note that the profile picture for your customer portal account would be fetched from Gravatar.

My Company Details

The My Company Details' option is used for updating and editing the company details of the client. Clients can fill in their name and contact details including the Billing and Shipping address.

Client’s account details

Change Password

Clients can change the password they use to enter the customer portal by selecting this option.

changepassword

Insight: The password changes only for the specific contact person using the customer portal.