- List organizations and use organization IDs for accounting API calls
- Create and manage customers, vendors, invoices, estimates, and sales orders
- Read bills, expenses, purchase orders, and projects for dashboards and reports
- Build approval, reporting, and bookkeeping workflows through the connector gateway
Common use cases and example apps
| Example app | Example prompt | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Invoice operations dashboard | Use Zoho Books and build a dashboard that shows invoices by customer, due date, and payment status. | Track invoice status from Zoho Books in one focused view. The app reads invoices from the connected organization, groups them by status, and helps finance teams follow up on overdue payments. |
| Customer billing portal | Use Zoho Books and build a customer portal where customers can view their invoices, estimates, and payment history. | Give customers a self-service view of billing records. The app fetches customer, invoice, and estimate data from Zoho Books and displays the records tied to each account. |
| Expense approval tool | Use Zoho Books and build an expense approval app where managers can review expenses by project and vendor. | Review Zoho Books expenses in a structured approval flow. The app reads expense records, lets managers filter by project or vendor, and records approval decisions in your app. |
| Accounts payable tracker | Use Zoho Books and build a tracker for bills and purchase orders that flags upcoming due dates. | Help operations teams stay ahead of vendor payments. The app reads bills and purchase orders from Zoho Books and highlights records that need review or payment. |
| Project finance dashboard | Use Zoho Books and build a project dashboard that shows expenses, invoices, and profitability by project. | Connect project work to financial outcomes. The app reads project, expense, and invoice data so teams can monitor budgets and margins without exporting spreadsheets. |
How to connect Zoho Books
Workspace admins and owners can connect Zoho Books. You can create multiple Zoho Books connections using different Zoho accounts, regions, OAuth apps, or organization IDs, which is useful for separating production and sandbox environments or managing multiple legal entities. When the connection is created, Zoho Books becomes available across all projects in the workspace. Anyone building in a project can ask Lovable in chat to link their project to it.Prerequisites
Before connecting Zoho Books, make sure you have:- A Zoho Books account
- Access to the Zoho API Console to create a Server-based Application
- The data center where your Zoho Books account is hosted, such as United States, Europe, India, Australia, Japan, Canada, China, or Saudi Arabia
- The Zoho Books organization ID you want to use, if you want to pin the connection to one organization
- Lovable workspace owner or admin role
All API requests made through this connector count against your Zoho Books API limits and your Zoho Books plan. Billing and quota are handled directly by Zoho Books, not Lovable.
Step 1: Create a Zoho API console application
Zoho Books uses OAuth to authorize third-party access. Create a Server-based Application in the Zoho API Console to get the Client ID and Client Secret for Lovable.Open the Zoho API Console
Sign in to the Zoho API Console with the Zoho account you want to connect.
Create a Server-based Application
Click Add Client or Get started, then choose Server-based Applications.
Enter application details
Fill in the application details:
- Client Name: for example,
Lovable Integration - Homepage URL: your app or company website URL
- Authorized Redirect URIs:
https://api.lovable.dev/workspaces/connectors/standard/oauth/callback
Step 2: Connect Zoho Books to Lovable
Enter your connection details
Fill in the connection fields:
- Display name: name the connection, for example
Zoho Books Prod. This name is only used inside Lovable to identify the connection. - Data center: choose the region where your Zoho Books account is hosted. Check your Zoho Books URL, for example
books.zoho.eumeans Europe. - Client ID: the Client ID from your Zoho API console application.
- Client secret: the Client Secret from your Zoho API console application.
- Organization ID (optional): enter a numeric Zoho Books organization ID if you want the connection metadata to include it. If you leave this empty, your app can fetch organizations after connecting.
Review scopes (optional)
Expand Advanced settings to review the Zoho Books permissions Lovable requests. Default scopes are selected for common accounting workflows.Settings: read is required because the connector verifies the connection and lists organizations through Zoho Books settings APIs. You can remove optional scopes if your app does not need that accounting area.
For full scope documentation, see Zoho Books OAuth scopes.
| Scope | What it allows | Default |
|---|---|---|
Settings: read (ZohoBooks.settings.READ) | List organizations and read settings data such as users, taxes, currencies, and items | Required |
Contacts: full access (ZohoBooks.contacts.ALL) | Create, read, update, and delete customers and vendors | On |
Invoices: full access (ZohoBooks.invoices.ALL) | Create, read, update, and delete invoices | On |
Estimates: full access (ZohoBooks.estimates.ALL) | Create, read, update, and delete estimates and quotes | On |
Sales orders: full access (ZohoBooks.salesorders.ALL) | Create, read, update, and delete sales orders | On |
Purchase orders: full access (ZohoBooks.purchaseorders.ALL) | Create, read, update, and delete purchase orders | On |
Bills: full access (ZohoBooks.bills.ALL) | Create, read, update, and delete bills | On |
Expenses: full access (ZohoBooks.expenses.ALL) | Create, read, update, and delete expenses | On |
Projects: full access (ZohoBooks.projects.ALL) | Create, read, update, and delete projects and project tasks | On |
Choose who can access this connection
Under Who can access this connection, decide who in your workspace can use the connection:
- Only you (default): only the person creating the connection can use it and its associated data.
- Invite specific people: only you and explicitly added workspace members can use the connection and its associated data.
- Invite entire workspace: click Invite entire workspace to make the connection available to everyone in your Lovable workspace.
Connect to Zoho Books and authorize
Click Connect. The Zoho Books authorization window opens, so make sure your browser doesn’t block pop-ups. If it does, Lovable redirects you instead.Sign in to Zoho Books if prompted, review the requested permissions, and click Accept or Allow.Lovable redirects you back with a confirmation.
Working with organizations
Most Zoho Books resource endpoints require anorganization_id query parameter. If you enter Organization ID when creating the connection, Lovable includes that value in the connection metadata so the app can reuse it.
If you leave Organization ID empty, ask Lovable to fetch organizations first through the connector, then pass the returned organization ID on calls for records such as contacts, invoices, bills, expenses, and projects.
Limitations
The Zoho Books connector cannot:- Support per-end-user Zoho Books login. Each connection represents a single Zoho account shared across all projects linked to it.
- Receive Zoho Books webhook events through the connector.
- Bypass Zoho Books API limits, rate limits, or plan restrictions.
- Remove the need for
organization_idon Zoho Books resource calls. Apps need to use the configured organization ID or fetch it from/organizations.
How to unlink projects from a connection
Editors and above can remove specific projects from a connection without deleting the connection entirely. The connection will remain available for other projects. To unlink projects:
When unlinked, those projects will no longer have access to through this connection. If a project needs again, you can link it to any available connection.