- Industry: Construction
- Area of Expertise: Custom Apps Development
Background
Our client for this project rented products and tools in the form of “kits” that are packaged together. However, Zoho Inventory does not natively have the functionality to build an estimate for “kits” like those sold by our client, comprising a collection of items. Our objective in this project was to develop these structures in Zoho Inventory, leveraging the Zoho Suite.
Solution: Estimate Creation
CRM
The process flow for this solution began in Zoho CRM. We created a “Create Estimate” button accessible from a Deal Record. A user would press this button from within a Deal Record for which they wanted to create an estimate, triggering an automation to open Zoho Creator, pre-filling the Deal ID.
Creator
We developed an Inventory Management App developed in Zoho Creator. Part of this app was a cache of Zoho Inventory items stored locally in Creator to speed the retrieval process. The cache was made up of multiline JSON fields that were used in the process of estimating rental costs.
We then created a form to “Create Estimate,” enabling the user to select an Item Group, and have the needed kit components pulled from the cache. It used kit IDs, which were processed by the app to find all the relevant line items, pulling them together and creating an estimate.
Books
On submit of the Zoho Creator form, an Estimate Record was created in Zoho Books, with line items matching the items chosen on the form. This estimate was now located in the “Zoho Finance” related list in the Deal Record from which the client started.
Solution: Convert Estimate
CRM
We created a button in the Deal Record to enable the conversion of Estimates into Sales Orders. From the CRM, the client confirmed the Estimate and pressed the button to Accept it. This triggered the opening of Zoho Creator.
Creator
On opening of the Zoho Creator app, the user was shown a dropdown of all estimates. The user selected the relevant estimate and submitted it in order to trigger automations in Zoho Books.
Books
Following submission of the Creator form, the accepted estimate was converted to an Open Sales Order in Zoho Books.
Inventory
The submission of the Creator form was configured to simultaneously trigger the creation of a Sales Order in Zoho Inventory. From this point, the package was drafted, carrying over Inventory Line Items. In inventory, we configured the items to be grouped by warehouse to ensure that all needed items were in the right location for this step.
The user then updated Package status to Shipped in Zoho Inventory, before using Aftership, an external tool, to ship the package. We employed a webhook with Aftership, such that following the delivery of a package, the Sales Order was converted to an Invoice. In addition, a delivery success email was sent to the BPMA team.
Subscriptions
In addition to the rented products, our client also offered subscription products to their customers. They wanted these subscriptions to begin on receipt of materials. As a result, the same Aftership webhook showing package delivery simultaneously created a Subscription record in Zoho Subscriptions.
Outcomes
- Created “kit” functionality for Estimates and Sales Orders in Zoho Inventory
- Caching enabled faster response times from the app, instead of having to pull from Inventory.
- Automated creation of records in Books and Inventory, linking to the client’s system in the CRM
The implemented system facilitates inventory tracking at both the Kit and component levels. This added much needed functionality to the native Zoho Finance system by leveraging connections with other apps in the Zoho One Suite.