Integrate Zoho Books with Zoho Projects

If you use Zoho Projects, an online project management platform to manage your projects, then you can integrate with Zoho Books to track your projects and manage their expenses effortlessly.

Once you integrate, the projects along with their primary clients, tasks, bugs, timesheets, and users will be synced with Zoho Books, and made available within the Time Tracking module. Next, you can track time and create transactions such as quotes, invoices, recurring invoices, expenses, and recurring expenses for these projects.

Benefits of the Integration

Save time and effort by managing the projects and its finances in one place.
Create invoices for milestones, task lists, and tasks in your Zoho Projects application.
Access timesheets, tasks, bugs, and users associated with the projects within your Zoho Books organization.

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Note: This feature is only available for certain plans of Zoho Books. Visit our pricing page to check if it is available for your current plan.

Set Up the Integration

Prerequisite: You must be an admin in your Zoho Books organization and the owner of the Zoho Projects portal to set up this integration. If your Zoho Books is already connected to Zoho Expense, you must also be an admin in the Zoho Expense organization.

To integrate with Zoho Projects:

Go to Settings.
Select Zoho Apps under Integrations and Marketplace.
Click Connect near Zoho Projects.
In the next page, click Connect Now.
Select the required project portal from the Portal Name dropdown.
Select the modules to be synced in this integration:
- Projects: This module will be selected by default. However, only the projects associated with the primary client will be fetched. Any tasks or bugs associated with the projects will also be fetched.
- Timesheet: Select this module to fetch billable and approved timesheets to your Zoho Books organization. All users associated with the timesheets will also be fetched as Project Staff Users in Zoho Books. Users from Zoho Projects who are not part of Zoho Books will be fetched as Inactive Timesheet Staff Users. Similarly, general timesheets will be synced to your Zoho Books organization.
- If you are managingprojects either using a different accounting software or manually, you can select a date before which the timesheets from Zoho Projects will be marked as Invoiced. Timesheets logged on or after that date will be marked as Unbilled.
  - Alternatively, you can also choose to import all the timesheets as Unbilled.
Select the duplication preferences for the customers to be synced from Zoho Projects. You can either Clone or Overwrite them in your Zoho Books organization.
- Overwrite: The existing customer’s details in Zoho Books will be replaced with the primary client’s details.
- Clone: A new customer will be created in Zoho Books using the primary client’s details, while the existing customer will also be retained.

Note: If you’ve already synced your Zoho Projects portal with Zoho CRM, the projects and customer details synced from Zoho CRM to Zoho Projects will take priority when you sync your Zoho Projects portal with Zoho Books.

Check the option Restrict project creation in Zoho Books to prevent users in your organization from creating projects in Zoho Books.
Click Next.
In the Map Field page, the fields to be synced from Zoho Projects to Zoho Books will be displayed. You can also map the custom fields between Zoho Books and Zoho Projects, provided they have the same data type.
Click Save and Sync.

Now, your Zoho Projects portal is integrated with your Zoho Books organization.

Check the Status of the Synced Data

The status of the sync will be displayed in the The modules have been synced with Zoho Projects section.

Status	Description
Sync in Progress	The modules and their data are being synced.
Active	All the modules are synced.

It may take a while to sync your data. To view the latest status of your sync, click Refresh near the Delete icon in the top right corner of the page.

If you create new projects, tasks, timesheets, or other modules in Zoho Projects after integrating with Zoho Books, you can sync them instantly. Here’s how:

Go to Settings.
Select Zoho Apps under Integrations and Marketplace.
Click Show Details next to Zoho Projects.
Click Instant Sync at the top of the page.

The new projects and other entities created in Zoho Projects will be synced with Zoho Books.

To view the details of the modules synced during the integration, click Show Sync History.

Hover over the required modules list and click View Mapped Fields to view the synced fields.

Update Customer Duplication Preferences

You can also update your customer duplication preferences after you’ve set up the integration. Here’s how:

Go to Settings.
Select Zoho Apps under Integrations and Marketplace.
Click Show Details next to Zoho Projects.
Click the Gear icon next to Customer Duplication under Integration Preferences.
In the pop-up that appears, select the required duplication preference and click Save.

Error Summary

The Error summary contains a module-wise list of the errors that occurred during the sync.

To view the error summary for your integration:

Go to Settings.
Select Zoho Apps under Integrations and Marketplace.
Click Show Details next to Zoho Projects.
Click View Error Summary.

You can view the list of errors that occurred during the sync in the Error Details page.

Create Transactions for Your Projects

Once you set up the integration, the active projects will be instantly synced to Zoho Books , and you can create transactions for them. Here’s how:

Go to Time Tracking on the left sidebar and select Projects.
Select a project that was fetched from Zoho Projects.
Click the Create Invoice or New Transaction dropdown in the top right corner of the project’s Details page.

From here, you can create transactions for your projects and send them to your customers, if required.

Similarly, the timesheets, tasks, bugs, and users associated with the projects will also be present in your Zoho Books organization.

Note: You can also create, update, and delete the quotes, invoices, and expenses in Zoho Projects.

Disable the Integration

Once you disable your integration, the sync between Zoho Projects and your Zoho Books organization will be paused.

To disable the integration with Zoho Projects:

Go to Settings in your Zoho Books organization.
Select Zoho Apps under Integrations and Marketplace.
Click Show Details next to Zoho Projects.
Click Disable Integration in the top right corner of the page.
In the pop-up that appears, click Disable to confirm.

The integration with Zoho Projects will be disabled. You can re-enable the integration, if required.

Re-enable the Integration

Once you’ve disabled the integration with Zoho Projects, you can re-enable the integration and connect with the Zoho Projects portal again. To do this:

Go to Settings.
Select Zoho Apps under Integrations and Marketplace.
Click Show Details next to Zoho Projects.
Click Enable Integration in the top right corner of the page.

The integration will be set up again, and the modules will be synced automatically from the last sync time.

Note: You can re-enable the integration only with the Zoho Projects portal that was previously connected.

Delete Integration

If you want to connect your Zoho Books organization to a different Zoho Projects portal, or if you no longer want to sync projects with your Zoho Books organization, you can delete the existing integration.

Once you delete the integration, the projects that were synced from Zoho Projects will be available as standalone projects in the Projects module of Zoho Books.

Warning: You can re-enable the integration only with the Zoho Projects portal that was previously connected.

To delete the integration with Zoho Projects:

Go to Settings.
Select Zoho Apps under Integrations and Marketplace.
Click Show Details next to Zoho Projects.
Click the Delete icon in the top right corner of the page.
In the pop-up that appears, click Delete to confirm.

The integration with the respective Zoho Projects portal will be deleted.

Troubleshooting

Errors	Why did it happen?	How do you resolve it?
Projects could not be fetched.	The projects were not associated with the primary client.	1. Ensure that the projects created in Zoho Projects are associated with the primary client. 2. Check if the primary client already exists in Zoho Books with a different currency, and try changing the currency if necessary.
Timesheets could not be fetched.	Case 1: The timesheets will not be fetched if: 1. They are not Billable. 2. They are not approved in Zoho Projects yet. 3. They belong to projects that are not associated with a primary client. Case 2: The timesheet’s related tasks or projects could not be fetched.	Ensure that the timesheets are billable, approved, and associated with projects that have a primary client.
Tasks could not be fetched.	The task’s related projects could not be fetched.	1. Ensure that the related projects are associated with the primary client. 2. Verify whether the primary client already exists in Zoho Books with a different currency, and try changing it if necessary.

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