Connect Zoho Books

With the Zoho Books integration you keep writing your estimates in Zoho Books. As soon as you mark one as sent there, Flino takes it over including the PDF and takes care of the follow-up. What happens in Flino goes back to Zoho Books: when you send the offer from Flino, win it, or lose it, Flino records that on the estimate in Zoho.

The integration covers Zoho Books. Zoho CRM is a separate product with its own API and is not included; for it, the webhook import remains the way in.

Requirements

• A Zoho Books account. If you have several organisations there, Flino connects the one set as default in Zoho.
• The owner or admin role in your Flino organisation. Everyone else sees the note “Only organization admins can manage the Zoho Books connection.” in the card.

The integration is included in every Flino plan. Every estimate taken over from Zoho Books does use a place in your offer quota, just like an offer created in Flino (see Billing).

Connect

1. Go to Settings → Integrations, Zoho Books card.
2. Click Connect with Zoho Books.
3. Zoho opens its sign-in page. Sign in with your Zoho account and allow Flino access. Flino never sees your password.
4. You are then back in Flino. The card shows Connected and, under Account, the name of your Zoho organisation.

Flino asks for access to three areas: estimates (read, set status, write comments), customers (read only), and settings. Flino needs the settings to set up a notification for new and changed estimates in Zoho and to remove it again when you disconnect. Flino detects which Zoho data center your account lives in, for example EU or US, during sign-in.

Reconcile

Flino reconciles with Zoho Books every 15 minutes. Reconcile now fetches new and changed estimates right away. The card shows Last transfer and Last reconcile.

When you connect, Flino also tries to set up a change notification in Zoho. That requires a Zoho plan with workflow rules. Without them, the card shows: “Instant notification of new offers is not available in your Zoho Books plan. Flino reconciles every 15 minutes instead, or right away with ‘Reconcile now’.” This is not an error; the estimates then arrive through the reconcile.

What Flino takes over from Zoho Books

Flino takes over an estimate as soon as it is no longer a draft in Zoho Books, that is from Mark as sent onwards. Drafts stay in Zoho; their PDF still carries the “Draft” band there. Estimates that are already accepted or declined in Zoho are not taken over anew.

Flino does not pull in older estimates when you connect. It takes over estimates created or changed after connecting. An older estimate therefore only arrives once you change it in Zoho again.

From each estimate Flino takes over:

• the title in the format Estimate number – Company – Date, for example “EST-000007 – Panther GmbH – 07.10.2026”
• the estimate number, valid until, and the amount, net or gross depending on the setting
• the line items as a summary in the offer text (up to 1,000 characters), not as individual items
• company and contact: the company is the company name of the Zoho customer; for individual customers without a company name Flino creates no company. The contact is the first contact person on the estimate with an email address, otherwise the customer’s primary contact. Flino reads salutation and phone number from the customer record in Zoho. Existing contacts and companies are matched by email address and company name, and Flino only fills empty fields there without overwriting anything.
• the estimate PDF. If it can’t be fetched at the moment, Flino creates the offer without a file and fetches the PDF later.

The offer appears in Flino as a draft, in the offer list with the status New and the note Imported from Zoho Books. Supported currencies are EUR, USD, and CHF; Flino does not take over an estimate in another currency, and the job then shows as failed.

If your Flino organisation already has an offer with the same estimate number, Flino does not create a second one. The existing offer stays unchanged.

Changes in Zoho Books

When an estimate that was taken over changes in Zoho, Flino updates it as long as you haven’t sent the offer from Flino yet. After that, the Flino offer stays as it is.

If you delete a taken-over offer in Flino and the estimate changes in Zoho afterwards, Flino takes it over again.

If a taken-over estimate is accepted or declined in Zoho, Flino pauses the follow-up, adds a note to the offer, and notifies you in the app. An estimate that is already invoiced in Zoho counts as accepted. You set the status in Flino yourself; Flino does not change it. If an estimate expires in Zoho, Flino only notes that.

Several salespeople, one Zoho account

If several people write their estimates in the same Zoho Books and each has their own Flino workspace, each of them connects Zoho Books in their own workspace. Under Settings in the card, each picks themselves at Salesperson. Flino then only takes over new estimates that have exactly this salesperson in Zoho.

• All (default) takes over every estimate, whoever is entered.
• Once a name is chosen, Flino does not take over estimates with an empty “Salesperson” field.
• Estimates already taken over keep being updated, even if you change the filter later.

Flino learns the names to choose from your estimates. Load names from Zoho Books reads them from the newest estimates, and every reconcile remembers new names as well. If a name is missing, it isn’t on any of the newest estimates; it appears as soon as an estimate with it is taken over or changed.

What Flino writes back to Zoho Books

In Flino	In Zoho Books
Offer sent	The estimate is set to sent, with a comment such as “Flino: Angebot am 07.10.2026 um 19:30 Uhr an [email protected] versendet.”
Offer won	The estimate is accepted, with a comment
Offer lost	The estimate is declined, with a comment containing the reason and note from Flino

The comments start with “Flino:”, are written in German, and are internal; your customer doesn’t see them. Flino writes no comments for individual follow-up emails.

Flino never overwrites a decision that was already made in Zoho. If it differs from Flino, Flino only leaves a comment asking you to check the status.

Test mode

Every new connection starts in Test mode. Flino then reads from Zoho Books but writes nothing back, not even a comment. The card shows “Test mode is on: Flino reads from Zoho Books but writes nothing back. You can switch it off in the settings below.” Under Recent activity, the affected jobs carry the note Test mode – not sent.

Once taking over and reporting back work the way you expect, switch Test mode off under Settings and click Save.

Settings

The settings apply to all offers from this connection.

• Amount: Net (default) or Gross
• Salesperson: All (default) or a name, see above
• Test mode: see above, on by default

Recent activity

Recent activity shows the last 20 jobs between Zoho Books and Flino: Import offer, Fetch PDF, Report sending, and Report outcome, each with its status. Skipped means Flino deliberately did not take the estimate over, for example because it is still a draft in Zoho, belongs to another salesperson, or the estimate number is already taken.

If a job is Failed or Given up, bring it back with Retry, for example once your offer quota has room again. Open offer takes you to the offer in Flino.

Test, renew, disconnect

• Test connection checks whether Zoho still accepts the access.
• If the card shows Connection broken, Zoho has rejected the access. Use Reconnect and sign in to Zoho again. If you connect a different Zoho account in the process, Flino resets the salesperson choice.
• Disconnect deletes the stored credentials and removes the notification in Zoho. Offers already taken over stay in Flino; no new ones are added.

After disconnecting, Flino no longer uses the access. Your Zoho account still lists Flino among its connected applications, though; you can remove the access there as well.

Limits

• Zoho Books only, not Zoho CRM.
• Line items arrive as text, not as individual items with quantity and price.
• EUR, USD, and CHF only.
• No older estimates when connecting.
• One Zoho Books connection per Flino organisation.
• Flino does not take over decisions made in Zoho as a status; it pauses the follow-up and lets you know.