Migrate from Zoho Books to SimpleERP

Export six lists from Zoho Books (customers, vendors, items, chart of accounts, unpaid invoices and open bills) as CSV or XLSX, then drop them on Settings → Import data in SimpleERP. It matches Zoho's column names, reads tax numbers and tax names, and checks every row before writing. The steps are the same in every country's edition of Zoho Books.

What do you export from Zoho Books?

Export one file per list. Choose CSV or XLSX: the Import data page refuses the older .xls format. Each Zoho export holds up to 25,000 rows.

1. 1

   Customers

   Sales → Customers → ⋯ → Export (CSV).

2. 2

   Vendors

   Purchases → Vendors → Export.

3. 3

   Items

   Items → Export.

4. 4

   Chart of accounts

   Accountant → Chart of Accounts → Export.

5. 5

   Open invoices

   Sales → Invoices → filter Unpaid / Overdue / Partially paid → Export.

6. 6

   Open bills

   Purchases → Bills → filter Open → Export.

Or take everything at once: Settings → Data Backup (Data Management on some editions) emails you a link to a zip of all CSVs, usually within half an hour, and can be run once every 15 days. Unzip it and drop the files you need; the page shows which card each file belongs to, and you can set a file to Ignore.

How do Zoho's tax columns map?

Each contact's tax registration number becomes its tax number in SimpleERP, checked against your country's format. Each item's tax name becomes a rate: VAT20 or Standard Rate 20% is read as 20. A treatment column, if your edition has one, becomes the party's tax treatment.

Some editions use their own treatment words, such as vat_registered. Check lists any word it does not know as a row error; replace it in the file with one of the five above, or clear the column. In India, Zoho's GST treatments such as business_registered_regular are understood as they are, and the Place of Contact code becomes the state.

Zoho's invoice export repeats the invoice header on every line. SimpleERP groups the lines by invoice number, leaves out paid, void and draft invoices, and takes the pending amount from the Balance column. If there is none, it uses the Total, else quantity times price, and the card says which it used.

Opening balance or open invoices: how do you avoid counting twice?

A customer's balance must come across once. Zoho's own guide warns that once a party's opening balance is entered, its open invoices must not be added again. SimpleERP lets you bring both and settles the overlap for you.

• The customers card posts each contact's Opening Balance as of the day before your start date.
• The open invoices card then posts each unpaid invoice with its own number, date and pending amount.
• For every customer in that import, SimpleERP reduces the opening balance by the total of its open invoices. If the two are equal, the lump sum disappears. If they differ, only the difference stays.
• Check shows this per customer before anything is written, for example: Opening $1,368, open bills $1,140; $228 stays as an opening balance.
• Suppliers and open bills work the same way.

One Zoho detail matters here. The Opening Balance column holds the figure entered when you started Zoho Books, not what the customer owes today. Before importing, replace it with each customer's current balance from Zoho's customer balances report, or clear it if everything owed sits in an unpaid invoice.

How do you import the files?

1. 1

   Choose Zoho Books

   On Settings → Import data, choose Zoho Books and set Books start in SimpleERP on.

2. 2

   Drop the files

   The page lists each file, the card it fills and the row count. Change a card or set Ignore if it guessed wrong.

3. 3

   Check, then import, top to bottom

   Chart of accounts, customers, suppliers, products, opening balances, open invoices, open bills. Each card imports in one go.

Worked example: Harbor Supply Co. on Zoho Books

Suppose Harbor Supply Co., the fictional business on this site, kept its books in Zoho Books and starts in SimpleERP on 1 October 2026. It exports six files on 30 September.

The accountant fixed the phone number in the file and checked again. Customer opening balances had been replaced with current balances, so for five customers the open invoices cleared the lump sum. Northside Retail owed $1,368 against $1,140 of invoices, and $228 stayed as its opening balance.

What do you check after the import?

• The trial balance as of 30 September equals Zoho's trial balance for the same day
• Receivables per customer match Zoho's customer balances; the total here is $5,498
• Payables per supplier match Zoho's vendor balances
• Stock value equals $13,080 and the Inventory account balance
• Opening Balance Equity is zero

If a figure is off, undo that card from Previous imports, fix the file and import it again. See how the two products differ on SimpleERP vs Zoho Books, and read the opening balances guide for the accounting behind the checks.