You sign in to Zoho once, and Naarvin reads every Zoho Books organization you link, in whichever Zoho data centre holds the account. It reads the ledger account by account, invoices, bills, credit notes, payments on account, contacts and reporting tags, plus Zoho Books' own Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet. Approved journals can go back as drafts or published once an admin grants write access and turns sending on.
How does Zoho Books connect?
Through Zoho's own sign-in, with nothing to type first. The sign-in tells Naarvin which Zoho data centre holds the account, for example .com, .eu or .sa, and every later call goes there. Zoho CRM and Zoho Billing use the same Zoho sign-in if you connect them too.
- Start the Zoho Books connectionYou are sent to Zoho to sign in and allow Naarvin to read Zoho Books.
- Choose the organizationsEvery organization the Zoho user can see can be linked. Each is a company.
- Link each to a company in NaarvinNew or existing, in the same base currency.
- Set the schedule and confirm the mappingFrom every 15 minutes to once a week, or on demand. Then confirm where each account sits in the finance model.
Sign-in connectors like Zoho Books are switched on for your installation during onboarding, and our team connects your systems with you on every plan.
What does Naarvin read from Zoho Books?
| Area | What Naarvin reads |
|---|---|
| Accounts and ledger | The chart of accounts, and every account's transactions grouped back into balanced entries in the base currency |
| Sales | Invoices with the balance still due and the last payment date of settled ones, and credit notes |
| Purchases | Bills with the balance still due, and vendor credits |
| Payments | Customer and vendor payments with an unused amount, shown as money on account |
| Contacts | Customers and vendors with VAT number, e-mail and phone |
| Reporting tags | Tags named for a department, project or cost centre become those dimensions; the first other tag fills the cost-centre slot |
| Statements | Zoho Books' own Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet per account, for checking the load |
Ledger lines are shared out by the reporting tags on the line items of the document or manual journal behind them, so reports by tag add up to the ledger.
How does the Zoho Books ledger sync?
Naarvin reads the ledger account by account and groups it back into balanced transactions. A full sync reads the last three years. Each later sync re-reads the last two months and marks anything that vanished there as deleted, so back-dated changes are caught.
Document lines take one request per document, and Zoho limits how many requests an organization may make. So each sync reads the lines of at most 300 documents: changed ones first, then documents loaded earlier without lines, newest first, until every document has them. The sync says how many are still waiting. A document or journal not read again keeps the tag split it was loaded with. When Zoho asks Naarvin to slow down, it waits and carries on.
Zoho Books' statements are stored for twelve months on a full sync, then the current and previous month. If an organization was connected before Naarvin asked for a permission it now uses, such as reports or credit notes, the sync warns you to reconnect rather than fail.
How do approved journals go back to Zoho Books?
The first sign-in is read-only. To send, an admin renews the connection's Zoho sign-in to grant write access, then turns sending on and chooses drafts or published journals. Each journal still needs its own approval in Naarvin.
- The journal is created in the organization's base currency, with a reference number that starts with "naarvin:". Naarvin looks for that reference first, so a retry never creates a second journal.
- A line with a customer names that customer. A supplier, and any cost centre, are written into the line description.
While sending is off, approved journals can be exported as a CSV file to import, and a month signed off in Naarvin takes no new journals. More on the month-end side in Close AI.
What should you know before relying on it?
- Exchange rates are not read from Zoho Books. Documents in other currencies keep their own currency and rate; translation uses the rates kept in Naarvin.
- Right after the first sync, some documents may show without their lines until later syncs fill them in.
- The layout of Zoho Books' statement reports is read with care: a layout Naarvin cannot match to its accounts is reported, not stored.
- The connector is built and is checked in a first sync with your own organization before you rely on it. Try sending on a Zoho Books trial or sandbox organization first.
Questions people ask
Does it work with Zoho accounts outside the .com data centre?
Yes. The sign-in says which data centre holds the account, such as .eu, .in or .sa, and Naarvin calls that data centre from then on.
Why are some invoices loaded without their lines at first?
Each document's lines cost one request, so Naarvin reads at most 300 documents' lines per sync, changed ones first. Later syncs fill in the rest, and the sync says how many are waiting.
Can Naarvin publish journals in Zoho Books, or only leave drafts?
Either, as the admin chooses when turning sending on. Write access is granted separately by renewing the Zoho sign-in; until then the connection only reads.
Do we need a separate sign-in for Zoho CRM?
Zoho CRM and Zoho Billing use the same Zoho sign-in, but each is its own connection in Naarvin with its own purpose: contracts and subscriptions rather than the ledger.