In the items section, Zoho has the ability to make it a two sided item (meaning it can be a sales item or a purchase item).
This would be great if the concept could be taken to its logical conclusion.
If we think of a single transaction going through all the stages, we see that
A quote can be converted a sales order, and it uses the sales side price.
A sales order can be converted to a purchase order, and the purchase side cost is used
A purchase order can be converted to a bill
But a bill cannot be converted to an invoice - why break the flow here?
OK, each item can be marked as billable, but when I bill it, it uses the purchase side cost!
What’s the use of having two sided items if I have to recalculate the markup?

So, let’s start back at the beginning.
I have vendors with whom I negotiate either a markup, or a margin.
This means that they sell me items with a manufacturers recommended price, and give me, the distributor, a discount. This is usually a percentage. I should be able to enter that percentage somewhere when I create the Vendor contact.
A lot of times, the discount gets bigger with more volume. Zoho should have something for that.
When I create an item, I should be able to link it with the vendor. Or, at least set a preferred Vendor for it. I don’t need the Inventory module, and I don’t want to have my books messed up by inventory items just for that one feature.
When I create the item, I should be able to enter the sales price, then select a checkbox that lets me say that the cost price is discounted at x percentage.
OR,
I should be able to enter a cost price, then check a box for the sales price to be calculated at a markup percentage.
Whether I created items with markups, discounts or just exact numbers, it needs to be carried through from estimates to sales orders to purchase orders, to bills back to Invoices with sensitivity to sale vs. cost prices.
This would of course go hand in hand with lInking of bills with invoices for easy reconciliation and check on margin.
Please consider this. It would save huge amounts of time not just for me, but just about every accountant out there.
Businesses do after all depend on (profit) margins for their very existence!