Sync with Zoho Books

When Zoho Books is where your books live, Crewtavo sends your clients, invoices and payments there as they happen, in whichever Zoho data center your account is in.

Crewtavo connects through an app you make in Zoho’s API Console, for your business only. It’s free and takes about five minutes.

Make your app in Zoho

Open Apps → Zoho Books in Crewtavo and click Install. It shows these steps with every address ready to copy.

1. Pick where your Zoho account is. The address you see in Zoho Books shows it: books.zoho.com is the United States and books.zoho.eu is Europe, for example.
2. Click Open Zoho API Console, which opens the console for your data center. Click Add Client (or Get Started) and choose Server-based Applications.
3. Fill it in with what Crewtavo shows: Crewtavo as the client name, your Crewtavo address as the homepage URL, and the redirect URI, which ends in /api/apps/zoho_books/callback. Click Create.

Install

1. Copy the Client ID and Client Secret Zoho shows.
2. Paste them in Crewtavo under Apps → Zoho Books and click Save keys.
3. Click Sign in to Zoho Books, sign in to Zoho and click Accept. Back in Crewtavo, Zoho Books shows as installed, with a check on the Apps page.

The secret is stored encrypted on your own server and never shown again. Crewtavo syncs with your default Zoho Books organization.

What syncs

• Clients are added as Zoho Books customers when their first invoice goes over, not on their own.
• Invoices arrive when they’re sent, with their lines and discounts.
• Payments are recorded against their invoice, including ones clients pay through Stripe.

Syncing goes one way, from Crewtavo to Zoho Books. Record payments in Crewtavo, or let Stripe record them: a payment entered only in Zoho Books doesn’t show up in Crewtavo, so the client would still look like they owe it. Refunds aren’t sent yet, so enter those in Zoho Books yourself.

If something doesn’t sync

Apps → Zoho Books shows when Crewtavo last synced, and anything Zoho turned down. A change that didn’t go through is tried again on its own.

• “Needs to be reconnected”: Zoho stopped accepting the sign-in. Click Reconnect.
• “Didn’t accept the Client ID and secret”: a key was pasted wrong. Click Change keys and paste them again.
• Zoho says the client is invalid when you connect: the app was made in another data center than the one picked in Crewtavo. Click Change keys and pick the right one.

Uninstalling

Uninstall, at the top of Apps → Zoho Books, stops syncing. Nothing already in Zoho Books is deleted. Your app’s keys stay, so installing it again is one sign-in. Remove keys forgets them too.