Integrate Zoho Books with Twilio

Twilio is a cloud communication platform that allows businesses to communicate via phone calls and SMS using it’s web service APIs. When you integrate Zoho Books with Twilio, you can send notifications to your customers via SMS.

Benefits

Send SMS notifications to your customers regarding invoices, payments, and payment reminders.
Configure SMS notifications at customer and contact person level.

Prerequisites

An existing Twilio account, if you do not have one, create a new Twilio account.
Account SID(Security Identifier) and Auth Token from Twilio.
An active phone number that works with Twilio. If you do not have such phone number, you have to purchase a phone number from Twilio.

Note: This feature is available only in certain plans of Zoho Books. Visit our pricing page to know more about each plan.

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Connect with Twilio

To set up this integration:

Go to Settings.
Select SMS Notifications under Reminders & Notifications.
Click Configure near Twilio.
On the SMS Integration page, click Connect next to Twilio.
In the next page, click Connect near Twilio.
In the pop-up that appears, enter the Account SID, Auth Token and the Phone Number from your Twilio account.
Click Connect with Twilio.

Twilio is now integrated with your Zoho Books organization. You can view the templates for SMS notifications by clicking Configure below the integration.

You will be redirected to the SMS Notifications page, where you can configure the SMS templates and also enable or disable the SMS notifications for different notification types.

Enable or Disable SMS Notifications

The SMS notifications will be disabled by default. You can enable the required SMS notifications and send SMS to your customers. To enable SMS notifications:

Go to Settings.
Select SMS Notifications under Reminders & Notifications.
Click Configure near Twilio.
In the next page, click Configure below the integration.
Slide the toggle near the required transaction to enable the SMS notifications.

Similarly, you can slide the toggle to disable the SMS notifications that you’ve enabled.

Configure SMS Notifications

You can choose a template for the SMS notifications and also configure the message in it.

To configure the SMS templates:

Go to Settings.
Select SMS Notifications under Reminders & Notifications.
Click Configure near Twilio.
In the next page, click Configure below the integration.
Click Change Template near the required SMS Template.
In the Choose a Template pop-up, click Customize Template.
You can select an SMS template and insert placeholders from the respective dropdowns if required.
Click Save.

Enable SMS for Primary Contacts

To enable SMS notifications for a primary contact:

Go to Sales on the left sidebar and select Customers.
Click the customer for whom you want to enable SMS Notifications.
In the Overview section, click Enable SMS Notification.

The SMS Notifications will be enabled for the respective primary contact.

Enable SMS for Contact Persons

To enable SMS notifications for the contact persons:

Go to Sales on the left sidebar and select Customers.
Click the required customer to enable SMS notifications for their contact persons.
Scroll down to the Contact Persons section in the Overview tab.
Click the Gear icon near the contact person and select Enable SMS Notification from the dropdown.

The SMS Notifications will be enabled for the respective contact person.

Enable SMS Notifications for Customers in Bulk

You can enable SMS notifications for customers and contact persons in bulk in two ways:

All Primary Contact and Contact Persons

To enable SMS Notifications for all the customers and their contact persons:

Go to Settings.
Select SMS Notifications under Reminders & Notifications.
Click the Gear icon in the Twilio section, and select Update Communication Preference from the dropdown.
In the following pop-up, select the default recipients to whom you want to send the SMS notifications.
Click Save.

The SMS Notifications will be enabled for all the primary contacts and their contact persons, based on the chosen preferences.

Specific Primary Contact and Contact Persons

To enable SMS Notifications for specific customers and their contact persons:

Go to Sales on the left sidebar and select Customers.
Select the customers for whom you want to enable the SMS Notifications.
Click Configure Communication Preferences at the top of the page.
In the following pop-up, select the default recipients to whom you want to send the SMS notifications.
Click Save.

The SMS notifications will be enabled for the selected primary contacts and their designated contact persons, based on the chosen preferences.

Disable SMS for Primary Contacts

To disable SMS Notification for a primary contact:

Go to Sales on the left sidebar and select Customers.
Click the customer for whom you want to disable SMS Notifications.
In the Overview section, click Disable SMS Notification.

The SMS Notifications will be disabled for the respective primary contact.

Disable SMS for Contact Persons

To disable SMS Notifications for the contact persons of a primary contact:

Go to Sales on the left sidebar and select Customers.
Click the customer for whom you want to disable SMS notifications.
Scroll down to the Contact Persons section in the Overview tab.
Click the Gear icon near the contact person and select Disable SMS Notification from the dropdown.

SMS Notifications will be disabled for this contact person.

Disable Notifications in Bulk

To disable SMS Notifications for customers in bulk:

Go to Sales on the left sidebar and select Customers.
Select the customers for whom you want to disable the SMS Notifications.
Click Configure Communication Preferences at the top of the page.
In the pop-up that appears, select None from the Default Recipients dropdown.
Click Save.

When the default recipients for customers are selected as None, the SMS notifications will not be sent to any contact persons.

Send SMS Notifications

Based on your configured SMS preferences, you will be able to automatically send SMS notifications to your customers and their contact persons in the following cases:

When you have configured Create and Send Invoices, or Create, Share and Send Invoices preferences for recurring invoices, an invoice creation message will be sent.
When you receive online payments from your customers, a Payment Thank You SMS will be sent to that customer.

Apart from sending automated SMS to your customers, you can also send manual messages to them. Here’s how:

Go to the left sidebar and select a module (say, Invoices).
Click the invoice for which you want to send SMS.
Click Send at the top of the invoice’s Details page and select Send SMS from the dropdown.
In the pop-up that appears, click Send SMS.

The SMS Notification for the invoice will be sent to your customer.

View sent SMS Notifications

To view the SMS Notifications sent to your customers and their contact persons:

Go to the left sidebar and select a module (say, Invoices).
Click the invoice for which you want to view the sent SMS notifications.
Click Comments and History in the top-right corner of the invoice’s Details page.

You can then view the details of the SMS Notifications sent to your customers.

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