Beckmann Collaborative - Marketing Blog , Operations

How to Sync Transactional Data to Zoho CRM

Fri, 16 Jan 2026 07:36:12 -0600

Turn Sales Calls into Closing Opportunities:
How Real-Time Financial Data in Zoho CRM Powers Personalized, Data-Driven Deals

For a sales team, information is power. When a salesperson hops on a call, knowing exactly what a client bought in the past, when they bought it, and how much they spent can be the difference between a cold pitch and a closed deal. This level of insight allows reps to tailor their conversations with relevance and personalization—using real, historical data to speak directly to the client’s needs, pain points, and buying patterns. For instance, if a client previously purchased a specific software module in Q2, a salesperson can reference that purchase and suggest complementary products or upgrades that align with their current business goals.

Seeing transactional data such as sales orders, invoices, and payment history directly within Zoho CRM gives your team a comprehensive, real-time 360-degree view of the client journey. Instead of spending valuable time switching between email platforms, accounting software, ERP systems, or spreadsheets, sales reps can access all critical information in one centralized location. This eliminates data silos, reduces manual data entry, and ensures that every interaction is informed by accurate, up-to-date context.

Whether it’s tracking order fulfillment timelines, identifying overdue payments, or spotting recurring purchase cycles, having this data at the fingertips of your sales team enables faster decision-making, more confident follow-ups, and a more proactive approach to relationship management. As a result, sales team members can build trust, demonstrate expertise, and close deals more efficiently—turning every call into a strategic opportunity rather than a generic outreach.

Here is how you can bridge the gap between your finance data and your CRM by implementing an integrated data flow that connects key financial transactions—such as sales, expenses, and invoices—to customer records within your CRM system.

Start by identifying the most relevant financial data points that directly relate to customer interactions, such as revenue generated per client, payment history, or contract renewals.

Adding the "Easy Button" - Zoho Books Native Integration

If you are already using the Zoho ecosystem, you’re in luck. The most effective method to get transactional data into your CRM is the native integration between Zoho CRM and Zoho Books.

With just a few clicks, you can map your Accounts, Contacts, and Products. Once enabled, all transactional modules sync automatically. Your sales team will see a "Zoho Finance" related list section directly on the Account and Contact records, showing every invoice and estimate associated with that client.

Watch: How to Set Up the Zoho CRM & Zoho Books Integration

What if your transactional finance data lives outside of Zoho?

If you use a third-party accounting tool or an e-commerce platform (such as QuickBooks, Xero, or Shopify), you’ll need a more custom strategy to keep your data flowing. There are two primary ways to handle this.

Option 1: Import Data into Native CRM Inventory Modules

This approach involves moving your data into the standard Zoho CRM modules (Invoices, Sales Orders, etc.). It offers the smoothest user experience but requires the most "heavy lifting" during setup.

1. Establish Unique Identifiers Before Syncing Data - you must ensure the CRM knows which client is which.

Clients: Use a unique alphanumeric ID from your external app. If one doesn't exist, a unique Email Address is a solid fallback.
Products: Use the SKU as your unique identifier to ensure line items map correctly to your CRM Product catalog.

2. Complete the Initial Migration Export of data from your third-party app.

You’ll likely have two files: the transaction header (the invoice date and total) and the Line Items (the specific products and quantities). Use the Zoho CRM Data Migration tool to perform an "Upsert" to bring this historical data in.
Use the Data Migration tool to do an initial import of all transactional data (Learn More).

3. Automate the Future with Zoho Flow
To keep data updated in real-time, use Zoho Flow. You can set up a "trigger" so that every time a new transaction is created in your external app, Zoho Flow automatically creates the corresponding record in Zoho CRM. (Alternatively, for bulk processing, Zoho DataPrep is an excellent tool for cleaning and pushing data).

Option 2: The "Smart View" Approach via Zoho Analytics

If you want a low-maintenance solution that doesn't clutter your CRM database or eat up your API limits, this is for you. Instead of physically "moving" the records into CRM modules, you simply "show" them using Zoho Analytics.

Sync to Analytics: Connect your third-party app to Zoho Analytics. You can set this to sync on a schedule (as often as every hour).
Create a Custom Related List: Using a Deluge custom function, you can embed a "Related List" directly on the Account or Contact page in Zoho CRM.
The Result: When a user opens a record, the CRM queries Zoho Analytics in real-time based on the client ID and displays a clean table of all transactions.

Watch the Tutorial Video About Custom Related Lists in CRM

Which option is right for your Zoho CRM?

The choice between these two paths depends on your specific needs.

Choose Option 1 if your sales team needs to run CRM reports on sales totals, trigger CRM workflows based on purchase dates, or if they need the most "native" feel possible.

Choose Option 2 if you want a faster setup, need to conserve API credits, and simply want your team to be able to see the data for context rather than manipulate it.

Whichever path you choose, moving transactional data into your CRM is one of the highest-ROI activities you can perform for your sales operations. Stop searching through spreadsheets and start selling with the full picture.

Data synchronization allows sales and customer service teams to see a more complete picture of your client - who a customer is as well as their financial behavior. This setup enables better forecasting, personalized outreach, and improved cash flow management.

Additionally, you can establish reporting dashboards that pull from both systems to provide a unified view of customer profitability and financial health, helping leadership make data-driven decisions. Regular audits and data validation steps should be included to maintain accuracy and compliance, especially when handling sensitive financial information. Ultimately, this integration transforms your CRM from a customer relationship hub into a dynamic intelligence center.

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Can Accounting Automation Help Your Productivity?

Wed, 07 Aug 2024 10:01:42 -0600

Do automation and accounting mix well?

While accounting decisions must be done by a financial professional or business leader, there are many accounting automations that can help your productivity. This operational improvement is about developing ways to run the business more smoothly and efficiently while still producing results and the data needed to help you make good decisions.

In an article from the CPA Journal, the authors shared this:

"Most companies and governments still spend 80% of their time on data cleansing, which an appropriate machine learning (ML) algorithm can perform in minutes. Thus, the market faces a challenge: accountants with technical expertise are required to design algorithms capable of reducing the human workload. Traditional accounting and business analytics are insufficient to meet current business needs; modern data analytics offer businesses in-depth insight into their daily operations."

In this article, we discuss:

A Definition of Accounting Automation
Growing Trend of Business Automations
Accounting Tasks to Automate
Ways to Improve Your Productivity

What is Accounting Automation?

Automation accounting refers to using software for handling the repetitive and mundane accounting tasks, which do not require human intellect. These automations can potentially help the accounting team work more efficiently so they can focus on the more important things, such as data analysis and financial planning.

Limitations to Manual Accounting

Business owners who rely on manual accounting methods have experienced the challenges and limitations that come with the traditional approach. There are high costs, increased potential for errors due to human input, and a longer timeline to complete tasks. Incorrect data in one place can impact several departments and lead to numerous issues for a business. It's important for all business owners to recognize the drawbacks of manual accounting that may not be immediately apparent.

Accounting automation addresses many of the issues and limitations of manual accounting. Using a software solution takes time to setup correctly, but it is a reliable tool that allows for business growth.

Growing Trend of Automation

Automation has emerged as a significant trend across multiple industries in recent years. From manufacturing to finance, organizations around the world are adopting automated processes to streamline operations, enhance efficiency, and reduce costs. This trend of automation is particularly relevant to those working in accounting where repetitive and time-consuming tasks are prevalent.

Managing large volumes of financial data, performing complex calculations, and ensuring accuracy in financial reporting are key to success for a financial professional, which is why more are adopting automation tools. The traditional accounting flow usually includes a ton of manual data entry, reconciliation, and reporting. These tasks are time-consuming and prone to human error. By leveraging automation, organizations can expedite these processes, minimize errors, and reallocate their workforce to more strategic and value-added activities.

Advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, robotic process automation (RPA), and other technologies have revolutionized the field of financial software systems. These technologies enable tasks that used to require human intervention to be automated. A prime example is the use of AI-powered tools to analyze vast datasets, identify trends, and generate insightful financial reports. The result is a significant reduction in time and effort for these tasks.

The emphasis on data-driven decision-making and real-time financial insights has further driven the demand for automation in accounting. By implementing automated processes, organizations can access up-to-date financial information and key performance indicators faster, empowering them to make informed decisions quickly.

The widespread adoption of automation in various industries highlights its potential for transforming accounting practices, increasing productivity, and improving the efficiency of financial management processes. As technology continues to advance, the importance of automation in accounting is expected to grow even more, providing substantial benefits to businesses of all scales.

What can you automate in your accounting / bookkeeping software?

This article explores some of the strategic ways that companies implement automations in their accounting. Since we use the Zoho Finance Suite, most of the automation ideas here will reference those apps. However, many of these same automations can be done in other platforms such as QuickBooks Online and Zero using third party tools.

With automation and accounting, you can say goodbye to these tedious tasks...

Constantly checking for and inputting data into software
Manually cross-verifying bank statements for accuracy
Individually processing payments
Creating financial reports manually in a spreadsheet
Chasing after clients for necessary documents and payments repeatedly
Enduring other repetitive tasks that can be automated

5 Ways to Improve Your Productivity with Accounting Automation

1. Avoiding Double Data Entry

Connect your bookkeeping software with your CRM to connect your sales and finances departments and keep data up to date. In Zoho Books, for example, the native integration with Zoho CRM automatically checks for updates to your Accounts (Companies) and Contact records in the CRM, and then it makes updates them in Zoho Books. If there is a new Contact added in the CRM to the Company, your bookkeeping software will automatically add that person as a contact. Or if your existing contact has a new email address, that will be updated for you. This ensures the correct Contact receives an invoice.

Using this kind of integration, you can also draft invoices from the expected sales in the CRM. This can be done with a workflow in your CRM or using the native integration. For example: Your requirement is to draft an invoice whenever a new Deal / Opportunity is marked as Won in the CRM by the Sales team so that payment can be collected quickly. In addition, you want a notification sent to the finance team that a new Invoice or a new Customer has been created. This process can be completely automated. No more waiting for the sales team to let you know about sales and customer updates.

With these flows, the finance team does not need to enter data into the Bookkeeping software manually. It is there already so they can focus on important details such as taxes.

2. Cross-Checking Data in Siloed Systems

When you integrate your different software systems – such as your CRM, payment processing, accounting, and digital signature platforms – then the finance team does not need to jump back and forth between platforms to confirm the data is correct.

Switching between siloed systems is a poor use of someone's time. Comparing a PDF from the bank with the transactions in your accounting software is also a poor use of your finance teams' time. Many, if not most, of the accounting software programs today include categorization rules to streamline accounts payable and accounts receivable tracking. This tool aims to reduce manual data entry by recognizing common expenses such as a monthly fee for your software and suggesting the correct expense category.

3. Expedite Invoice Creation and Payment Collection

The monthly accounting close process can easily become tedious and lead to stress. Sending invoices to clients, receiving payments, updating accounts, and following up with those who haven't paid yet are among those tasks. Automating the monthly close process can ensure more accurate data and make your life easier.

Retainer Clients are ideal for automations. There's an option in many bookkeeping software platforms that allows you to auto-generate invoices each month for retainer or recurring invoices. In Zoho Books, we use the Recurring Invoices to achieve this requirement.

If you use a project management or time tracking software (such as Zoho Projects), then you can connect it with your bookkeeping software to auto-generate (preferably as a draft) invoices from the time tracked on each project.

Schedule email reminders to automatically follow up with your customers regarding payments. You want to ensure the email templates you use for reminders are personalized using merge fields and include clear instruction for the customer to take action. Properly define the email schedule in your workflow to be based on when the invoice is due and to deliver on business days.

4. Automate Late Payments and Discounts

As if tracking down a customer or client for payments isn't enough of a challenge, then you are forced to also remember to update their invoice with a late payment fee. An alert could easily be missed and you are open to human error when manually adding a late fee to an existing open invoice.

Use a workflow automation based your business rules and processes to automatically add a late fee to any open invoices based on the due date.

There are many different ways to configure this late payment workflow to include or exclude certain invoices or to generate the late fee calculation. You will want a corresponding email notification sent to the customer once the late payment is applied too. And an extra useful tool is to copy the accounts payable contact on that email notification so that a phone call can be made, if necessary.

Perhaps you want to give a 5% discount for any client making a purchase over a certain amount. It would tedious to manually find and then apply discounts to every applicable invoice. Instead you can use a workflow with a custom function to find those invoices in your bookkeeping software and automatically set a 5% discount to each one before they go out.

5. Create and Send Reports

Accurate budgeting, forecasting, and management reporting play a critical role in helping companies make well-informed business decisions based on precise financial information. Some companies have a dedicated department for financial planning and analysis that spends significant time collecting and organizing data. This team's team would be better spent on strategic financial analysis.

Implementing the right reporting automations can enhance both accuracy and productivity. Leverage artificial intelligence built into many reporting systems to minimize the risk of errors and generate these recurring reports.

Team members who must submit expense reports can also use automations. For example, Zoho Expense allows you to generate and submit expense reports automatically on behalf of employees on a weekly or monthly basis.

Your business will get more dependable financial reporting and ensuring regulatory compliance. This not only saves time but also instills confidence in the precision of your financial data.

A Few Other Ideas:

Send a special thank you note to new customers
Tracking sales commissions
Alerting vendors of a new purchase order
Group items on Invoices by a Category (custom function in Zoho Books)
Update your CRM Deal / Opportunity when payment is made

In conclusion, the utilization of automation in accounting processes has become a game-changer for businesses of all sizes. By harnessing the power of new technologies, companies can streamline their financial management, drive productivity, and make better-informed decisions based on real-time data.

Automation eliminates errors, saves time, and enhances the accuracy of financial reporting, ultimately building trust and confidence in your financial data. As technology continues to advance, the role of automation in accounting is only set to grow, offering even greater benefits to organizations.

Embracing automation in your accounting practices not only empowers your teams to focus on strategic analysis and planning, but it also positions your business to thrive in a fast-paced, data-driven world. Take the leap and discover the transformative power of automation in accounting for your company today.

If you want support with setting up these automations, then request a free consultation with us. We would love to hear your ideas and let you know what it takes to bring them to life.

Why Use Zoho for a Content Marketing Platform?

Thu, 21 Mar 2024 07:47:00 -0600

Content Marketing Management Using Zoho Apps

Originally published Apr 10, 2023

Executing a strong content marketing strategy means having unified messaging, which requires a connected team using connected marketing apps or platforms.

Marketers use content marketing platforms (sometimes called a CMP) to centralize planning, creation, measurement, and implementation of their marketing. Using the right CMP gives your team the ability to collaborate. Whether it is about content development, strategy, measuring KPIs, or the distribution of marketing assets, the CMP streamlines the overall process.

As a marketing consulting team, Beckmann Collaborative's primary goal in content marketing is to drive engagement at every touchpoint using an easily managed process. Let us emphasize this part - having an Easily Managed Process is key to being successful. You can write the best copy and make cool images, but if it is too complicated to publish or share, then it's a useless effort.

We often recommend the highly integrated technology suite of Zoho One for a content marketing platform. Zoho's suite of apps make it easy to create and manage all of your marketing without cluttering up email inboxes, Slack channels etc. And beyond marketing, teams can leverage the other integrated apps to stay organized, automated processes, and ultimately grow the business.

Key Areas for Managing Your Content Marketing

What are the common tasks that a content marketing platform is used for?

The goal of software is always about efficient without negatively impacting the content quality. Content is King after all.

Content Creation

For so many business owners and marketers, starting from a blank page can be a huge challenge.

Content Templates

One way to fight writer's block is using a template. You can create campaign templates, social media posting templates, email templates, SMS text message templates, and even blog templates. Having outlines to provide direction is both a time saver and brand consistency tool. We can overcome the barrier to content creation success by getting organized.

A/B Testing

Being a data-driven company, we often run A/B tests on different pieces of content. From emails to landing pages and more. The focus of A/B testing is to increase conversions and improve user experience. Testing can help guide your future content writing based on what you learn.

Collaboration on Content

Our team communicates in multiple ways about client content. Key to this overall collaboration is a simple, yet robust content calendar that holds our ideas, deadlines and activities - blog posts, social media posts, emails, events, etc. A good content calendar provides a snapshot of your marketing campaigns and the details of tactics such as deadlines. Creating this as a shared document in an accessible place for the team makes it efficient.

Beyond the content calendar, our team depends on dedicated communication channels through an instant messaging system and project management platform.

Zoho Apps for Content Marketing Management

The main apps we use for ourselves and with clients for content marketing management are: Zoho Social, Zoho Campaigns, Zoho Survey, Zoho Forms, and Zoho CRM.

Zoho CRM is the heart of this system - as the primary database. The CRM helps us track leads from all sources, see their progress, build relationships, and convert them.

In addition, we leverage the CRM as a customer nurturing center to see what content they are engaging with.

Your Zoho CRM can show the social media and email interactions you've had with a Lead or a Contact throughout their lifecycle. In turn, this can guide your future content marketing strategy.

Zoho Social is the robust social media management tool we use for scheduling posts, monitoring mentions or comments, responding to them, and social inboxes. We also use it to track social media performance with a variety of reports. This app helps us stay connected to our customers and drive them back to our website or blog posts.

Zoho Campaigns lets us manage both broadcast and automated drip email campaigns. It includes workflow creation, segmentation of lists based on topics and fields, and sending out emails with personalized content from contact profiles. Campaigns has helped us reach both prospects and customers with relevant information in a timely manner.

We use this email marketing tool to send out emails at the right time with relevant information, which is important for building relationships with customers - especially if they are looking for specific information such as pricing or product features before deciding to work with us.

Zoho Forms is a simple and powerful way to capture leads. This form builder allows for tracking lead sources that map into your CRM and Google Analytics tracking with UTM codes. We have used it for resource downloads on websites, newsletter sign-ups, webinar registration, and much more. The ability to redirect someone to a landing page or resource is helpful, as is the use a pre-fill URLS and triggering workflow rules in Zoho CRM.

Zoho Survey can do more than collect customer feedback and market research. We get creative and use it to deliver fun quizzes or polls. This helps us identify the needs, pain points, and interests of our prospects and customers. It also helps our business understand how we can improve based on the feedback given by our customers.

Here is an example:

Using Zoho Survey, create a simple "personality quiz" and publish that link using Zoho Social to your social platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook.

When a prospect fills out the quiz, he or she is automatically added to your contacts list in Zoho Social and created as a new Lead in Zoho CRM.

With an engaging marketing strategy, you can guide this Lead through your process of converting them into a sale. Invite him/her to opt into your newsletter (with a link to your Zoho Campaigns form). Perhaps you will send a direct message within a social platform. Using Lead Scoring in your CRM can help you identify the highest quality leads, then automations can deliver customized messages based on lead interests.

Apps for Marketing Operations and Productivity

In addition to the marketing apps from Zoho, we also use productivity and collaboration tools to keep the team connected - Zoho Workdrive, Zoho Cliq, and Zoho Projects. These tools help with our marketing operations to keep us all up to date while managing our individual tasks.

Zoho Workdrive is very similar to Google Drive or OneDrive. This platform enables us to create and share documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and other files across our organization. We have templates set up for different types of documents that we use often use such as meeting notes, content calendars, and blog posts. You can track progress and campaigns among your team and securely share it with the clients too. Following our internal processes as we use Workdrive helps us stay organized.

Zoho Cliq is like a more unified version of Slack or Microsoft Teams. This app allows us to chat in real-time so that we can collaborate internally, with outside agencies assisting us, and with clients. Even non-Zoho users can have a free Cliq account to chat with us, which makes it easier for everyone to communicate. All parties involved in a project can access important updates relevant to them, share files, and set reminders without having to rely on emails or text messages for communication purposes.

Zoho Projects is highly useful for managing our daily tasks for each project. In our case, each client is set up as a project. However, you may want to create separate projects for different kinds of work you do. Perhaps there is a separate project for each marketing campaign that you're running or project that requires a unique set of tasks. While getting started with Zoho Projects can be daunting to setup, the long-term use can be quite powerful.

Zoho Analytics pulls all of our data together. After all, marketing data from different apps must be connected for actionable reporting and consistent user experience. The good news is that it is no longer expensive to have an all-in-one connected analytics solution for tracking your marketing KPIs. So you're not stuck managing siloed marketing platforms and exporting into spreadsheets.

We Have a Passion for Efficiency and Processes

Though it is fun to be creative and write content, so much of what offer clients is marketing operations. Often, we work with clients to create systems, processes, and workflows to ensure all of the cool marketing ideas come to fruition. This may also come in the form of a communications strategy, detailed process document, or workflow diagrams.

If you're curious about how we work with clients using Zoho tools to improve marketing operations, then please feel free to reach out.

Improving Marketing Operations for Financial Institution

Thu, 07 Mar 2024 09:45:26 -0600

Case Study: Marketing Operations Improvements for a Financial Institution

Originally published Sep 18, 2018
What do you do when your business requires 30+ documents from the client for them to work with you?
Do you email them a list of all the documents and wait for a reply?
Do you call the client repeatedly and ask for the documents needed by a specific date?

This is a problem we faced in a marketing operations improvement project for a financial institution. We describe it as marketing operations because the client communications are key to the company’s reputation and success. Nurturing relationships with current and past clients is the most profitable way of marketing themselves – referrals. This company was already a user of Zoho CRM, so making sure that the marketing operations improvements worked with that platform was important.

The Project Requirements

Collect 30+ forms and documents ranging from a simple contract to detailed personal financial information
Get digital signatures on some of the documents
Make it easy to collect the documents
Make it easy to submit the documents
Create email templates for the team to use
Integrated with Zoho CRM so that information is in a single place and secure

Challenges

The number one challenge we faced during this project was user adoption. While the CEO of the company was enthusiastic about automations and simplifying the process, some team members feared failure within a more technology-driven system. This is a common issue anytime we take on a marketing operations project or even a Zoho consulting project. It is vital for leadership to model the behavior they seek to see in the team as well as preparing their team for change.

Another challenge was going to be educating the potential clients. The aim of any marketing operations project always includes a smoother customer / client experience. However, knowing your target audience is important to the decisions made along the way. The potential clients in this case were split between the tech savvy and the tech avoidant.

Our Approach

This client offered different types of financing options, which meant the list of required documents was slightly different for each one. We began with the simplest project type with the least amount of paperwork.

Working side-by-side with the team, we discussed the key steps in the customer journey (from initial interest to completing the project). From there, we were able to identify the places where things could be setup ahead of time or automated.

The big questions in our minds throughout this project were:

“How can we make this easy and approachable for any potential client?”
“How do we make this easy for the team to manage?”

1. Data Gathering

With a clear understanding of the process, we had to come up with a way to collect the key information from the prospective client before even scheduling a phone call. For this step, we chose to use a form that included contact information, financing option of interest, and other important details to know before asking for paperwork.

Using Zoho Survey (Zoho Forms would also work well), allowed us to map all the answers into Zoho CRM. This would create a new lead and create a task for the business owner to schedule a call.

The lead immediately received an automated email thanking them for their interest and letting them know someone from the team will reach out within 24 hours. An automated email was sent to team members each time a survey was completed - notifying them that someone submitted information with a link to the answers.

This step significantly reduces the call time for the team, because they already have the basic information needed to qualify the lead. Instead, they can verify and clarify details before moving forward with the official process.

2. Get Signatures

With a new lead in the system, the next step was to identify the list of forms that require digital signature. We needed a minimal number of fields to be filled in by the potential client on these documents. This would help expedite the process and make it smooth for the lead.

We created a digital signature template with all of the preliminary documents using Zoho Sign. This tool allowed us to decide which fields we could pre-fill (using the answers already collected from the survey and over the phone in the CRM), which fields the lead needs to fill in or sign, and fields we need to fill in or sign.

When it comes time to send these documents, the team member can simply click the “Send for Zoho Sign” from the deal within Zoho CRM. This is great for several reasons. Once the agreement was signed, it was saved in the company’s Zoho CRM account. The completed document and the completion certification were associated with the specific Deal and the Contact (within a related list called Zoho Sign).

3. Collect the Documents

When there are so many different documents to collect, we realized that organizing them into categories is vital (i.e. business information, personal information, project-specific information). The client told us that potential clients often get the feeling of overwhelm from all of the paperwork and it creates a challenging experience. We decided to break up the documents into a series of four requests based on the categories we created., rather than all at once.

Many of the documents our client was collecting were files that their potential client may have readily available (i.e. Last year's tax return). However, other documents may require some digging around or thorough details provided. To collect this variety of documents and information, we used Zoho Forms. The features that were most beneficial in this process included the integration with Zoho CRM, the additional security of encrypting files and fields, and the ability to save your work and finish later.

We created four different forms where the potential client would upload the specific documents. If the user was busy and did not have time to finish his or her work, then he could choose the “Save” option on the form. This prevented the frustration of losing work or having to set aside a long period of time to handle it.

As documents are submitted from the form, they were uploaded to the Contact's record in Zoho CRM. Alternatively, we could have created a unique folder per client in Zoho Workdrive. The team received email notifications as each form was completed. If they have any questions or concerns about the documents, then they can call the client and offer support.

4. Following Up

The last step in the process was quite manual because there are so many possibilities that only a person can manage. Once all of the documentation is collected, the deal management is dependent on many factors. The one thing we did to make things easier for the team and maintain the strong communication channels with clients was to create email templates.

Within Zoho CRM, we created several email templates for the team to use during the process that follows the documentation collection. An email template includes merged fields such as the person's first name, the team member’s email signature, and a few other fields from the contact's CRM record (such as the amount of money involved).

While the team still customizes emails somewhat, having these email templates ready ahead of time significantly reduces the time spent. Previously, the team was copying and pasting from old emails, making edits, and then sending them – also allowing for a higher margin of error in the email content.

Throughout this process, the team was updating the customized Deal stages in Zoho CRM to track the status. This particular project required a simpler way to share status updates about a potential client. When all of your team is actively using the CRM, this is a great way to communicate project updates in a passive way.

What Else is Possible?

For this particular client, we setup Zoho Projects and integrated it with the entire process. Each step in the documentation process and beyond became a task associated with the Deal in the CRM – for one unified experience. This additional setup allowed team members to assign tasks to others when they need support. It also created an easy, open communication channel across the company about the status of a potential client.

Considering this case study is from 2018 and the many updates within the Zoho ecosystem since then, this solution continues to be a fairly strong approach. At the time, we did not have any team members familiar with Deluge. Our team had been using the Zoho suite for a little more than a year.

If we were to do this project all over again starting today, we could make the transitions between the company and potential client even smoother. We would be able to further automate some of the steps and even guide the client's team members who resisted the technology through the process.

Learn More About Zoho Consulting to help your business get started