How to Import Books Invoice to Zoho Books (2026 Guide)

Log in to your Zoho Books organization. From the left sidebar, go to Sales and then select Invoices. Click the More icon (three dots) in the top-right corner of the Invoices list page and choose Import Invoices from the dropdown.

Click Choose File and select your invoice CSV file. Zoho Books accepts CSV, TSV, and XLS formats with a maximum file size of 10 MB. If you need a reference for the expected column format, click the sample file link on the upload page to download a template.

Tip: Download the Zoho Books sample file first and use it as a template to format your own data.

On the Configure tab, set the Character Encoding field. The default is UTF-8 (Unicode), which works for most files. If your invoices should link to existing Sales Orders, check the Link to Sales Orders option. Enable Customer Address Mapping to update matched customer addresses or create new customer records automatically for unmatched names.

On the Map Fields tab, Zoho Books attempts to auto-map your columns to its invoice fields. Verify that Customer Name, Invoice Date, Item Name, Quantity, and Rate are mapped correctly. Set the default date and decimal formats if they differ from the defaults. Click Edit next to a field to customize the mapping.

Warning: Tax names in your CSV must match existing tax entries in Zoho Books exactly. A slight mismatch (e.g., 'Sales Tax' vs 'Sales tax') will cause the tax to be ignored on import.

If you plan to import invoices regularly, check the option to save your field mappings. This preserves your column-to-field assignments so you do not need to re-map every time. Saved mappings are available the next time you use the import assistant.

On the Preview page, Zoho Books shows a summary of how your data will be imported. Review the field values, check that multi-line invoices are grouped correctly by Invoice Number, and confirm amounts and dates look accurate. If anything is wrong, go back and adjust your mappings.

Tip: For invoices with multiple line items, ensure every line shares the same Invoice Number, Invoice Date, and Customer Name. Zoho Books uses these fields to group lines into a single invoice.

Click Import to finalize the process. Zoho Books will process your file and create the invoices. Navigate back to Sales > Invoices to confirm that all invoices appear with the correct line items, amounts, and customer associations.

Open several imported invoices at random and verify that amounts, line items, taxes, and due dates transferred correctly. Check that new customers were created if you enabled that option. If any invoices have issues, you can edit them directly in Zoho Books or delete and re-import with corrected data.