Help Center
Open app
Help CenterIntegrationsConnect Zoho Books

Integrations

Connect Zoho Books

How to connect Zoho Books so Doow can track your software-related expenses, subscriptions, and billing data.

Connecting Zoho Books lets Doow pull your chart of accounts, transactions, and invoices to automatically identify software spend. Doow requests read-only access and never creates, modifies, or deletes any data in your Zoho Books organisation.

What Doow reads from Zoho Books

When you connect Zoho Books, Doow pulls:

  • Chart of accounts — to identify accounts where software and IT spend are categorised
  • Expenses and bills — vendor payments, recurring bills, and one-off purchases
  • Invoices — accounts payable entries used to detect subscription charges
  • Vendors and contacts — names linked to transactions, used for application matching

Doow does not read: payroll data, employee details, bank account numbers, tax returns, or estimates.

Before you start

You need:

  • A Zoho Books account with Admin privileges in the organisation you want to connect
  • Access to the Zoho API Console to generate an OAuth client
  • The organisation ID from Zoho Books (found in Settings → Organisation Profile)

Step 1 — Create an OAuth client in Zoho

  1. Sign in to the Zoho API Console.
  2. Click Add Client and select Self Client.
  3. Enter a name (e.g. "Doow integration").
  4. For Scopes, add: ZOHOBOOKS.contacts.READ, ZOHOBOOKS.settings.READ, ZOHOBOOKS.expenses.READ, ZOHOBOOKS.bills.READ.
  5. Click Create.
  6. Copy the Client ID and Client Secret.

Step 2 — Generate the grant token

  1. In your browser, visit (replacing {client_id} with your value):

    https://accounts.zoho.com/oauth/v2/auth?scope=ZOHOBOOKS.contacts.READ,ZOHOBOOKS.settings.READ,ZOHOBOOKS.expenses.READ,ZOHOBOOKS.bills.READ&client_id={client_id}&response_type=code&access_type=offline&redirect_uri=https://app.doow.co/integrations/zoho-books/callback

  2. Sign in and select the organisation you want to connect.

  3. Approve the requested scopes.

  4. You are redirected to Doow with a code in the URL. Copy the full URL.

Step 3 — Enter the details in Doow

  1. In Doow, go to Settings → Integrations.
  2. Click Connect integration and select Zoho Books.
  3. Enter your Zoho Books Organisation ID.
  4. Paste the Client ID and Client Secret.
  5. Paste the full redirect URL (with the code parameter).
  6. Click Connect.

Doow validates the credentials and starts an initial sync. The first sync typically takes 3–8 minutes and pulls the last 12 months of transactions.

Step 4 — How Doow categorises Zoho Books transactions

Doow scans your Zoho Books transactions and tags those that appear software-related using:

  • Account codes — transactions in accounts typically used for software, IT, subscriptions, or online services in your chart of accounts
  • Vendor names — Doow's vendor-recognition engine matches vendor names to known SaaS providers
  • Amount patterns — recurring identical amounts at regular intervals are flagged as likely subscriptions

Transactions that Doow cannot categorise are left unmatched. Match them from the Expenses page — see Tracking expenses.

Step 5 — Verify the data

After the sync completes, go to the Expenses page. You should see transactions from Zoho Books with a Zoho Books source badge. Verify:

  • The amounts match your Zoho Books records
  • Vendors are mapped to the correct applications
  • Recurring bills are identified as subscriptions

Data refresh

Zoho Books syncs once every 24 hours. To force an immediate sync, go to Settings → Integrations → Zoho Books and click Sync now.

Token expiry

Doow automatically refreshes Zoho OAuth access tokens. If the integration card shows Reauthorisation required, click Reconnect and repeat Step 2 to generate a new grant token. This typically happens after months of disuse.

Disconnecting Zoho Books

  1. Go to Settings → Integrations.
  2. Find the Zoho Books integration card and click the menu (three dots).
  3. Select Disconnect and confirm.

Historical expense data already synced is preserved. New transactions from Zoho Books are no longer imported until you reconnect.

To revoke from the Zoho side: go to the Zoho API Console, find the Doow client, and click Revoke.