Short answer: bills reach Zoho Books in five ways: typed in, uploaded or emailed to the Documents inbox and read by Autoscan, imported from a file, created through the API, or registered by a capture tool. Automation only helps if the tax side is set up first. In the UAE that means the vendor's VAT treatment, TRN and place of supply. In India it means GSTIN, GST treatment, source of supply and HSN/SAC codes. Get those right per client organisation, then automate the intake.
How do bills get into Zoho Books?
| Route | How it works | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Manual entry | Type the bill into the bill form | A handful of bills a month |
| Documents inbox and Autoscan | Upload, drag and drop, photograph in the mobile app, or forward to the organisation's unique email address. Autoscan captures date, amount, vendor name and line items, and you create the bill from the document | Small volumes on one organisation |
| Import | CSV, TSV or XLS file, mapped to Zoho's fields, maximum 1 MB per file, with the option to link bills to purchase orders | Migrations and bulk loads |
| API | Zoho Books API has a "create a bill" endpoint | Your own scripts or integrations |
| Capture tool | A separate service reads the bill and registers it in Zoho Books | Firms and higher volumes |
All of this is per organisation. Each client company in Zoho Books has its own Documents inbox, its own forwarding address and its own scan allowance.
Autoscan, briefly
Autoscan is included on every plan, reads 15 languages and pre-fills the bill from the document. It has two limits that matter to a firm: a monthly scan allowance per organisation, with add-ons in blocks of 50, and no coding. Account, tax and project are still chosen line by line. We cover the numbers and the workarounds in Zoho Books Autoscan limits explained, and set the options side by side in Zoho Books Autoscan vs Invoreg.
UAE: what VAT adds to every bill
The rate. The standard rate is 5%. Zoho Books UAE also offers zero rate, exempt and out of scope, and its domestic reverse charge works only with the 5% and 0% rates.
The TRN. A UAE tax invoice carries the supplier's Tax Registration Number, a 15-digit number. A business that is not VAT registered has no TRN and cannot charge VAT, so a bill with VAT and no TRN is a question for the supplier, not a bill to book.
The vendor's VAT treatment. In the UAE edition every contact has a VAT treatment: VAT registered, non-VAT registered, GCC VAT registered, GCC non-VAT registered, or one of two designated zone variants. The treatment, together with the place of supply (one of the seven emirates, or a GCC state), decides which tax options appear on the bill. A mainland business buying from a VAT-registered UAE supplier can choose standard, zero, exempt, out of scope or domestic reverse charge.
Reverse charge on imports. For a vendor outside the GCC, Zoho Books offers out of scope or reverse charge on goods, and exempt or reverse charge on services. Under reverse charge you account for the 5% yourself instead of paying it to the supplier, so the bill shows no VAT but your return does.
E-invoicing from 2027. The Ministry of Finance has set the go-live for businesses with revenue of AED 50 million or more on 1 January 2027, and for businesses below that on 1 July 2027. Larger businesses must appoint an accredited service provider by 30 October 2026 (extended from 31 July), smaller ones by 31 March 2027. Invoices will travel through the Peppol network in the PINT AE format. Zoho says Zoho Books is an accredited service provider. For your clients' purchase side, that means a growing share of bills arriving as structured data instead of PDFs.
India: what GST adds to every bill
GSTIN and GST treatment. Each vendor has a GST treatment in Zoho Books India (registered regular, registered composition, SEZ, unregistered, consumer or overseas) and, if registered, a 15-character GSTIN.
CGST and SGST, or IGST. A purchase within the same state is taxed as CGST plus SGST, a purchase across states as IGST. Zoho Books decides which applies from the source of supply on the bill, so a wrong state code produces the wrong tax split even when the total is right.
HSN and SAC codes. Goods carry an HSN code and services a SAC code. Under Notification 78/2020, suppliers with turnover up to ₹5 crore print 4 digits and those above ₹5 crore print 6.
Input tax credit and GSTR-2B. Rule 36(4) of the CGST Rules allows credit only for invoices that the supplier has reported and that appear in your GSTR-2B. GSTR-2B is generated on the 14th of each month. Zoho Books India fetches it from the GST portal once API access is enabled and sorts bills into matched, partially matched, missing in Zoho Books and missing in GSTN. Missing in GSTN means you have the bill but the credit is not yet safe: chase the supplier before filing GSTR-3B.
E-invoices you receive. Suppliers above ₹5 crore turnover must register B2B invoices on the Invoice Registration Portal, so their invoices carry an IRN and a signed QR code. According to the e-invoice system FAQs, the QR code holds the supplier and recipient GSTIN, invoice number and date, invoice value, number of lines, the HSN code of the main item and the IRN, and anyone can verify it. If the IRN or QR code is missing from a bill from such a supplier, ask why before you book it.
A setup for a firm with many client organisations
- List your clients by edition. UAE and India organisations have different tax settings and different checks. Note the filing frequency of each.
- Clean up vendors first. UAE: VAT treatment, TRN and place of supply on every vendor. India: GST treatment, GSTIN and source of supply. Automation copies whatever the vendor record says.
- Set up items and tax codes. India: HSN or SAC on items, the right GST rates for intra- and inter-state purchases. UAE: the rates and reverse charge treatments the client actually uses.
- Choose one intake route per client. Usually one forwarding address. Tell the client's suppliers and staff, including the ones who send bills as chat photos.
- Capture. Autoscan for low-volume clients, a capture tool for the rest. If you are comparing tools, see a Dext alternative for Zoho Books.
- Review against the checklist below before anything is saved.
- Approve. Someone at the client confirms the business owes the bill. The firm confirms the tax.
- Close the month. India: reconcile GSTR-2B before GSTR-3B. UAE: review reverse charge and out-of-scope bills before the VAT return. Both: reconcile the bank, see Zoho Books bank reconciliation.
Checklist: fields to capture per country
| Field | UAE | India |
|---|---|---|
| Supplier tax number | TRN (15 digits) | GSTIN (15 characters) |
| Your tax number on the bill | Your TRN, if printed | Your GSTIN (needed for credit) |
| Location | Place of supply (emirate or GCC state) | Source of supply (state code) |
| Tax type | Standard 5%, zero, exempt, out of scope, reverse charge | CGST + SGST, or IGST |
| Tax per line | VAT rate and amount | GST rate and amount per line |
| Classification | HSN (goods) or SAC (services) | |
| E-invoice reference | Structured e-invoice from 2027 | IRN and QR code (suppliers above ₹5 crore) |
| Currency | AED, or foreign currency with rate | INR, or foreign currency for imports |
| Invoice number, date, totals | Yes | Yes |
Where Invoreg fits
Invoreg reads every line of the supplier bill as it arrives, PDF, scan or phone photo, including the tax rate and amount on each line, suggests the account and tax code from that client's history, and registers the bill in the right Zoho Books organisation once a person has approved it. Approvals can run up to three levels, and duplicates are flagged against the workspace and against bills already in Zoho Books. For a firm, all client organisations sit in one queue, which is the point of Invoreg for accounting firms. Invoice content is processed and stored in EU regions only.
Invoreg does not file returns or reconcile GSTR-2B, and the country checks above still need your reviewer: those stay in Zoho Books and with your team. Try it on your own invoices; the first 20 are free.