In India, SMS messages have become a common tool for businesses to communicate with their customers regarding payments. After all, text messages have a 98% opening rate, which is much higher than emails, so the chances of your customers missing your messages are slim. Moreover, customers tend to respond faster to SMS than to an email. And that is why we have introduced the SMS add-on to Zoho Books and Zoho Invoice (India edition). Now you can reach your customers with just an SMS.
What can you do with the SMS add-on?
Once you enable the SMS feature, you can configure when you want to send a message to your customers. Currently, you can send SMS for three pre-defined situations:
1) Notify customers about invoices
In the age of instant information, your customers expect to be notified the moment an invoice is created for them. Moreover, the sooner your customers view the invoices, the better chances you have of being paid on time.
With the SMS add-on, you can send an SMS each time you create an invoice, or automatically send an SMS for the recurring invoices. Your customers can not only view the invoice details, they can also make payment instantly, right from their mobile, by clicking the payment link in the invoice.
2) Remind customers about payment
Did you know that an average person checks their phone 52 times a day? When that is the case, what better way to remind your customers about a pending payment than by sending them an SMS?
In Zoho Books/Zoho Invoice, you can easily send SMS payment reminders to your customers. All you need to do is configure the payment reminder once. Later on, an SMS will be sent automatically according to your set reminder preferences. If you have set up multiple reminders, then an SMS will be sent for each of them. These reminders help you collect payments on time, which in turn will help you maintain a healthy cash flow.
3) Send thank-you messages
A small act of gratitude can go a long way in building rapport with your customers. Thank your customers for their payment by sending them an SMS, which also serves as an acknowledgment that you have received their payment.
Once you set up the SMS service, messages will be sent to your customers automatically, each time they make an online payment. If you record an offline payment, you can send an SMS manually.
To whom can you send the messages?
You can send SMS messages to all your customers having valid Indian phone numbers. But, you may have some customers who wish to stick to the conventional email method of communication. You can simply disable SMS notifications for them. Or, if a customer wants someone else to receive their notifications, you can easily enable SMS for their contact persons.
How do you get started?
This SMS feature is available as an add-on in all the plans of Zoho Books and Zoho Invoice. So all you need to do is buy some SMS credits, and you’re all set to notify your customers. Check out the pricing page to know more about the SMS credits.
Our help document will guide you through the process of setting up and using this feature. Check it out, try the SMS feature, and don’t forget to share your thoughts about it in the comments below. As always, if you have further queries, we are here to help you out without fail.
SMS notification is an efficient feature that Zoho provides but if you dont have to option to Change the sender ID to our company name its pretty useless, I have been using this feature for the past week and when i ask my customer about the sms which we sent towards payment updates, the simple answer from the customer is "we haven't recieved any sms from your company" that is purely true because the sender ID for every sms i send is "jx-zohobk" and the customer doesn't even care to open the msg.
Hi Ajith, We really understand your concern. The option to change the Sender ID is on our roadmap and we'll definitely let you know when we've made progress on this. Until then, we hope you'll bear with us.
Hi. We purchased 5 SMS credits today and later we came to know that it will work only for premium plans. We are currently having Standard plan. Is there any possibility of refund or integration to standard plan?
Hi Chethan, The Zoho Books' SMS add-on is available in all the plans, including the Standard plan. Go to Settings and choose SMS Notifications. Here, you can view the remaining SMS messages available. To know how to send a message, you can check our help document. Do let us know if you have any further queries.
Hi. Thanks for the reply. But while Integrating with Twilio, it is mentioned as it is applicable for only premium plan and we are not able to connect with Twilio. Kindly suggest.
Thank you for writing to us Chethan. Twilio is a third party service provider that we have integrated with Zoho Books. The Twilio integration is available only in the Premium plan. However, the SMS add-on mentioned in this blog is Zoho Books' native SMS service where you have to buy SMS credits to send messages. You do not have to integrate with any other third-party services to avail this. This SMS add-on is available in all the plans. Hope this clarifies your doubt.
Hi, I already have a SMS gateway. Can you configure that to your Zoho books and deliver me ?
Hi Nagababu, In addition to Zoho Books native SMS add-on, we support other third-party SMS gateways as well. You can read about them in the help document of the same. For any further clarifications or help, feel free to write to our support team at support@zohoinvoice.com.
SMS NOTIFICATION ALLOW
Hi there, You can set up the SMS add-on for your Zoho Books/Zoho Invoice to allow SMS notifications. Our help document will guide you through the process. Feel free to reach out to us for further queries.
Hello sir /Madam, I want to add on this feature in my zoho book. I need help for this. Thank you!
Hello Vaibhav, To enable SMS add-on for your Zoho Books organization, you need to buy SMS credits first. Our help document will guide you through the process of setting up and configuring SMS notifications. Do feel free to write back to us if you have any further queries.
Very good move but long awaited
How to add hundreds of phone numbers of parties? Do you have any feature to bulk update phone numbers of parties in the system?
Hello Amisant, We do not have an option to bulk update phone numbers. As a workaround, you can export the contacts, enter the phone numbers of parties, and then import the contacts back into your organization. You can refer our help document on how to import and export.
Thank you madam
Hello, thank you for this amazing feature. I wish to edit the sender ID. Is is possible?
Hello Harshad, Thank you for your feedback and we're glad that you like it. :) As of now, you cannot edit the sender ID. But, we will definitely look into providing this option in the future updates.
hi offered SMS service is very costly , can we able to integrate our own SMS service ?
Hi Nishit, Apart from the SMS add-on from Zoho Books, we do have other integrations to SMS services. You can read about them in the help document of the same.
I am unable to find edit options for SMS notification message. I want sms sent with my own msg. Kindly help
Hi Sachin, As of now, you cannot edit the SMS messages being sent. But, we have taken note of your requirement and will look into how we can implement it in further updates.
Dear Sir, Regarding the payments received,Normally we receive the payments in a rounded figures but not on bill to bill basis. On such cases how the SMS alerts will be sent, we appreciate your new method and reply us how it will help us in the above situations.
Is this available in United Arab Emirates? If not when it will be?
Hi Tharish, The SMS add-on is currently available for Indian edition users only. We will look into the options for expanding to other editions, but we cannot promise on a timeframe.
Thanks for Add SMS features. I was waiting for a long time for this feature. How i can change sender id
Hi Amit, Thank you for writing to us. We are glad that this feature has helped you. As of now, you cannot change the sender ID. However, we will check on the possibilities of providing it in the future updates.
Hi, Quote me about SMS notifications for Sales , Collection & Overdue
Hi Satish, The SMS feature currently supports Invoices and Payments only. We will be enhancing this feature one step at a time. We have taken note of your request to provide SMS notifications for Quotes, and will keep you posted about the same.
Sms for estimate will be very helpful feature
Hi Dhruv, Thank you for writing to us. We will definitely look into the option to provide SMS notifications for Estimates in the future updates.
Amazing!
very interesting! I'm from Argentina and I can not find the option to configure sms below the email template or anywhere else. Is this option only enabled for India? hay plan to do the same thing via whatsapp? I'm waiting for news. Thanks, regards,
Hi Ariel, This feature is currently available only for the Indian edition users. However, we will look into the options for expanding to other editions as well.
Hello Zoho Books Team, We want SMS notification for Estimate, Invoice and Payments. Please do write us mail, or can call back at +91-9901069696
Hello Vijay, As of now, you can enable SMS notifications for invoices and payments. You can read our help document to know how to set it up.
iS THIS FACILITY AVAILABLE TO SUPPLIER FOR" PAYMENTS DONE" when his payment is done as per the purchase bill ?
Hi Vilas, The SMS facility currently does not support vendor payments. You can send thank-you messages for invoice payments only. However, we will consider this for future updates.