Billing project time from Zoho Projects to Books: the short answer

Billing project time from Zoho Projects to Books works when you fix three things before anyone logs an hour. You choose the billing method, decide where each rate lives and agree who approves time. With those settled, a project's hours can be billed from the linked project in Zoho Books, and each hour is billed once.

Project billing is the process of turning time logged against a project into invoice lines for the client. In the Zoho setup, people record hours in Zoho Projects as timelogs. A timelog is a single entry of time spent on a task. The invoice is then raised against the matching project in Zoho Books.

The Zoho community forum shows where this breaks in practice. Users report three weak spots:

rates set in a place the billing method does not read, so a project shows zero
projects that never sync to Zoho Books, so their hours are never billed
time invoiced outside the project link, so the same hours can be billed twice

Each of these has a fix you can put in place during setup. The sections below take them one at a time and end with a worked example you can copy.

How logged time moves from Zoho Projects into Zoho Books

Logged time reaches Zoho Books through the integration between the two products, which links each project in Zoho Projects to a project in Zoho Books. Once a project is linked, the timelogs recorded against it become available for billing. One Zoho One user on the forum reports that any time associated with a project in Zoho Projects can be bulk billed through Zoho Books.

The experience is not identical for everyone. Another community user reports that, with all integrations enabled, they could only bill from Zoho Projects and not directly from Zoho Books. Before you design a process around either route, test it on one real project in your own account. Note which application actually lets you raise the invoice.

A project also has to sync before any of this works. According to a forum post, the integration requires every Zoho Project to have a Primary Client before it will sync to Zoho Books. A project without one stays in Zoho Projects, and its hours never appear for billing. A later section covers that requirement and the workaround.

Keep one rule in mind from the start. Hours billed through the project link carry their billed status with them. Hours billed any other way, for example by typing quantities onto an invoice by hand, do not. That difference is the root of most double billing.

Billing methods in Zoho Projects and Zoho Books compared

A billing method is the rule that decides how a project's invoice amount is worked out. A user post on the Zoho community lists four billing methods in the Projects feature of Zoho Books: fixed cost per project, based on project hours, based on task hours and based on staff hours. Zoho Projects uses its own names for the hourly options, such as Hourly Rate Per User and Hourly Rate Per Task.

Billing method	What sets the amount	Fits work where	Watch for
Fixed cost per project	An agreed project price	Scope and price are settled before work starts	One user asked whether Zoho Projects can bill a fixed cost regardless of hours. Confirm it in your account before you quote that way.
Based on project hours	Hours logged across the whole project	You sell the hour itself, not a person or an activity	Check how the rate is set before you choose it for a mixed team.
Based on task hours (Hourly Rate Per Task)	A separate hourly rate on each task	Prices differ by type of activity	Per hour is the only option. A user notes there is no per-session or flat-rate task.
Based on staff hours (Hourly Rate Per User)	Each person's own hourly rate	People of different seniority work on the same project	A forum post states it is not available for projects synced from Zoho People.

One forum poster says most of their customers use Hourly Rate Per User. That way several people can work on the same project at different costs. Another user notes that the Projects feature in Zoho Books seems to cater mainly to time-linked billing. If your work is never priced by time, test whether the fixed cost method gives you the reporting you need.

Hourly rates per user or per task, and why the choice matters

Where a rate is stored decides whether a project bills correctly or shows zero. The billing method only reads rates from one place. If your team enters rates somewhere else, the invoice comes out empty.

A forum post about projects synced from Zoho People shows the problem clearly. Zoho People is Zoho's HR application, which some firms use for timesheets. The poster states that the only billing method for projects synced from Zoho People to Zoho Books is Hourly Rate Per Task. Their rates sat on each assignee rather than on the task, so the project came up with 0.

The workaround they describe is to create one task per assignee. That is manageable for a small team. Their own example had 4 tasks with over 40 assignees, which would mean a large task list kept up by hand. In Zoho People, by contrast, they could keep one task and give each assignee a different rate.

Keep each rate in one place

Pick the rate source that matches your billing method and keep every rate there. Do not maintain a second copy in another application. A user on the forum states that Zoho does not sync price books between Zoho CRM and Zoho Books. A rate changed in a CRM price book therefore will not reach your project invoices. Name one owner for rate changes and record the date each new rate applies.

Per User reads rates from people and Per Task from tasks, so store each rate where your method looks. Hourly Rate Per User / Hourly Rate Per Task. Where the rate is stored: On each user in the project / On each task; Matching Zoho Books method: Based

Approving timesheets before anything reaches an invoice

Timesheet approval is the check a named person makes on logged hours before they can be billed. Without it, every typo, wrong project and internal meeting can land on a client invoice. Approval is a process decision first and a software setting second.

A useful review looks at each timelog for four things:

the right client project, not a similar one
the right task, so a task-based rate applies correctly
billable work only, with internal time logged elsewhere
a description the client can read and recognise on the invoice

Set a cut-off that everyone knows. Time logged after the cut-off waits for the next billing run rather than slipping onto the current invoice unchecked. The person approving should be close enough to the work to spot a wrong entry. That is usually the project lead rather than the finance team.

At Svennis we set a fixed weekly cut-off at clients, and the project lead reviews that week's timelogs before finance opens the billing screen. Only reviewed time is allowed onto a draft invoice, so finance never has to judge whether an hour is real.

Approval also protects your margin. Rejected or moved hours still show you where effort went. They simply do not reach the client's invoice.

The Primary Client requirement that blocks projects from syncing

A project in Zoho Projects will not sync to Zoho Books until it has a Primary Client, according to a forum post on the Projects and Books integration. The Primary Client is the external client user attached to the project. A project without one never reaches Zoho Books, so its hours cannot be billed there.

This catches client projects that were set up in a hurry. It also catches internal projects. The poster describes many internal projects with no external Primary Client. They still wanted to track profitability in Zoho Books and attach bills and invoices to those projects.

Their workaround was to add a "dummy" client to each project. In their case that meant going through 50 projects by hand. The poster argues that projects should sync whether or not an external client has access.

How to handle Primary Clients at setup

Make the Primary Client a required step when anyone creates a client project. Run a regular check for projects that have hours logged but no link to Zoho Books. If you need internal projects in Zoho Books for profitability, agree one clearly named placeholder client for them. That stops anyone invoicing an internal project to a real customer by mistake.

Double-billed and never-billed hours, and how to prevent both

Hours get billed twice when an invoice is raised outside the project link. They go unbilled when time is recorded somewhere the project link cannot see. The forum shows three common routes for both.

Invoicing against a sales order

A sales order is a confirmed order recorded in Zoho Books before invoicing. One user reports that partially invoicing a sales order from Zoho Projects does not work well. They check the hours worked, create the invoice from the sales order, update the quantity and then mark the timelog entries as invoiced by hand. If that last step is missed, the same hours still look unbilled and can be invoiced again. The same user notes that the Order Number field on project invoices is free text and does not connect to the sales order.

Time logged on Zoho Desk tickets

Time logged in Zoho Desk sits outside project billing. One user reports that, with the Zoho Books and Zoho Desk integration installed, they could not find a way to bill ticket time through Zoho Books. Zoho support kept advising them to bill the tickets in Zoho Desk, where invoices are created one at a time. Pick one home for billable time per client. Then nobody bills it twice and nothing falls between the two products.

Packs of hours and retainers

A community user asked whether a pack of hours can be invoiced in Zoho Projects, with invoiced hours deducted as work progresses. Another reports there is no way to apply a partial payment to a retainer invoice in Zoho Books. Test both before you promise a client either arrangement.

A worked example: one project, mixed rates, one monthly invoice

A worked example shows how the choices above fit together. Take a design studio running a project called Brand refresh for a client. A lead designer, a designer and a project manager all work on it, and each has a different hourly rate.

Choose the billing method. The rates differ by person, so the studio picks Hourly Rate Per User in Zoho Projects, which matches based on staff hours in Zoho Books.
Set the rates once. Each person's rate goes on their user in the project. Nobody keeps a copy in a CRM price book.
Add the Primary Client. The client's contact is set as Primary Client so the project syncs to Zoho Books.
Log time against tasks. The team logs timelogs against tasks such as Discovery, Concepts and Artwork, with a short description on each.
Approve before the cut-off. The project manager reviews the month's timelogs and moves any internal time off the client project.
Bill from the project. Finance bills the unbilled time on Brand refresh, from Zoho Books or Zoho Projects depending on what the earlier test showed.
Check the lines. Finance compares hours per person on the draft invoice with the approved timelogs, then sends it.

Because the invoice came through the project link, the billed hours carry their billed status. Next month, only new approved time appears. Had the studio worked from Zoho People timesheets instead, it would have had to use per-task rates, as the earlier section explains.

What this means for a UK company running Zoho Books

For a UK company, the main questions are where the data sits, what support you can reach and what a setup costs beyond licences. A Zoho One listing on the UK government's Digital Marketplace, under the G-Cloud 14 framework, answers some of these. The listing states that data on www.zoho.eu is held in the EU, in the Netherlands and Ireland. It also lists other locations for storage and processing. Ask Zoho which locations apply to your account before you rely on this for data protection purposes.

The same listing gives phone support from 9 to 5 UK time, Monday to Friday, and web chat 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It also states that implementation, training and data migration are charged on top of the licence fees. Budget for setup time when you plan project billing. For licence costs, our post on Zoho Projects pricing and when Zoho One is the better buy sets out the options.

Two practical limits are worth knowing. The listing states you can export up to 2000 records at a time in .xls format for each Zoho application. That matters if your accountant wants a full year of timelogs. Separately, a sticky post on the Zoho Books forum states that from 15 May 2024, Zoho Books no longer supports Firefox, Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge versions older than 100. Check that shared or older office machines are up to date before the first billing run.

Next steps for setting up project billing

The next step is a short setup review before the next billing run. Work through these points in order:

Test on one live project whether your account bills time from Zoho Books, Zoho Projects or both.
Choose one billing method per type of project, using the comparison table above.
Move every rate to the single place that method reads, and name an owner for rate changes.
Set a weekly cut-off and name the person who approves each project's timelogs.
List projects with logged hours but no Primary Client, and fix them.
Decide where billable time lives for each client, Zoho Projects or Zoho Desk, and stop logging it in the other.
Write down how sales order invoices are handled, including marking timelogs as invoiced.

If you want help with the accounting side after go-live, our guide to Zoho Books partner services beyond the initial setup explains what ongoing support covers. If you are new to working with an implementer, read what a Zoho partner is and does first. When you are ready to plan the project side, start with our Zoho Projects page for UK teams.

Sources

Looking for a Zoho partner in the UK? Svennis has been a Zoho Premium Partner since 2011, with more than 200 implementations delivered. See how we work as a UK Zoho Partner.

Billing project time from Zoho Projects to Books without losing hours