🏠 01 — Dashboard

What this page is about:
The Dashboard provides an overview of your business's financial position. It helps you quickly monitor receivables, payables, cash flow, income, expenses, and other key financial information.

What you'll learn

• Understanding Total Receivables

• Understanding Total Payables

• Reading the Cash Flow chart

• Monitoring Income & Expenses

• Identifying your Top Expenses

• Using the Fiscal Year filter

📦 02 — Items

What this page is about:
The Items section is used to manage the products and services your business sells or purchases.

What you'll learn

• Creating an item

• Managing products

• Managing services

• Setting sales prices

• Setting purchase prices

• Tracking inventory

• Managing stock levels

• Organizing item information

🏦 03 — Banking

What this page is about:
The Banking section helps you manage your business bank accounts and track financial transactions.

What you'll learn

• Connecting a bank account

• Adding bank accounts manually

• Importing transactions

• Categorizing transactions

• Matching transactions

• Reconciling accounts

• Monitoring cash movement

🏷️ Sales

The Sales section manages your business’s customer-facing transactions—from the moment you offer a price to the moment you receive payment.

👥 Customers

Manage the people or businesses that buy from you.

You can store customer information and track their transaction history, invoices, payments, and outstanding balances.

Example:
A company hires your business → you create them as a customer.

📝 Quotes

Create a quotation or price proposal before a customer agrees to purchase.

Quotes typically show the products or services offered, prices, quantities, and terms.

Example:

“Our service will cost SGD 2,000.”

The customer can then accept or reject the quote.

Workflow:
Customer → Quote → Accepted Sale

🧾 Invoices

Create a formal request for payment after providing products or services.

An invoice records how much the customer owes your business.

Example:
You complete a SGD 2,000 project → send the customer an invoice for SGD 2,000.

Workflow:
Sale → Invoice → Customer Pays

🧾 Sales Receipts

Record a sale where payment is received immediately.

Unlike an invoice, a sales receipt usually means there is no outstanding amount owed.

Example:
A customer buys a product and immediately pays SGD 50.

Workflow:
Sale + Immediate Payment → Sales Receipt

💳 Payments Received

Record and manage payments received from customers.

This is used when a customer pays an existing invoice.

Example:
Invoice: SGD 2,000
Customer pays: SGD 2,000

The payment is recorded and linked to the invoice.

Workflow:
Invoice → Payment Received → Invoice Paid

🔄 Recurring Invoices

Automatically create invoices that repeat on a regular schedule.

Useful for businesses with recurring revenue or subscription-style billing.

Examples:

• Monthly retainers

• Membership fees

• Rental payments

• Subscription services

Workflow:
Set Schedule → Invoice Automatically Generated → Customer Pays

📉 Credit Notes

A document used to reduce the amount a customer owes.

This may be needed when:

• A customer returns a product

• You overcharged the customer

• A discount needs to be applied after invoicing

• Part of a service was cancelled

• A refund or account credit is issued

Example:
Original Invoice: SGD 1,000
Credit Note: SGD 200

Customer now owes: SGD 800

🛒 Purchases

The Purchases section manages the money your business spends on suppliers, vendors, and operating costs.

It is essentially the outgoing side of your business finances.

🏢 Vendors

Manage the people, companies, or suppliers your business buys from.

Vendor records help you store supplier information and track your purchase history with them.

Examples:

• Product suppliers

• Service providers

• Freelancers

• Contractors

• Software providers

Example workflow:

Your business buys materials from a supplier → Create the supplier as a Vendor → Track the related purchase or payment.

💸 Expenses

Record and manage the money your business spends during its operations.

Expenses can include:

• Office supplies

• Software subscriptions

• Transportation

• Marketing

• Utilities

• Equipment

• Professional services

Example:

You pay SGD 50 for a business software subscription → Record it as an Expense.

This helps your business track where money is going and supports more accurate financial reporting.

🧮 Accountant

The Accountant section is where you manage the core accounting structure and financial records of your business.

It focuses on how transactions are formally recorded and organized within your accounting system.

📓 Manual Journals

Manual Journals allow you to manually create accounting entries using the principles of double-entry bookkeeping.

Each journal entry records:

• Debit — Where value is being added or increased

• Credit — Where value is being reduced, increased, or balanced depending on the account type

When are Manual Journals used?

They are commonly used for:

• Adjusting accounting records

• Recording depreciation

• Correcting accounting errors

• Accruing expenses or income

• Recording transactions that are not automatically generated by Zoho Books

• Making year-end adjustments

Example

Your business needs to record SGD 500 of depreciation on equipment.

A manual journal can record the appropriate debit and credit entries to update the accounting records.

📊 Reports

The Reports section is where you analyze and review your business's financial performance and financial position.

Reports turn your day-to-day transactions into useful information that helps you understand how the business is performing.

Reports can help you answer questions like:

• How much money did the business earn?

• How much did the business spend?

• Is the business profitable?

• How much cash does the business have?

• How much money do customers owe?

• How much does the business owe others?

Purpose: Turn financial data into insights for analysis and decision-making.

📁 Documents

The Documents section is used to manage and store important files related to your business and financial transactions.

These may include:

• Receipts

• Bills

• Invoices

• Supporting documents

• Financial records

Documents can help keep your accounting records organized and properly supported.

Example

You pay for office equipment and receive a receipt → upload and store the receipt as supporting documentation for the transaction.

Purpose: Keep important business and financial documents organized and accessible.

📄 Templates

The Templates section allows you to customize the appearance and format of business documents generated in Zoho Books.

Depending on the available options, you can customize documents such as:

• Invoices

• Quotes

• Sales documents

• Purchase documents

• Email communications

You can typically customize elements such as:

• Company branding

• Logo

• Document layout

• Colours and styling

• Information displayed

• Text and messaging

Purpose: Create professional, consistent, and branded business documents.