I'll explain with a typical scenario.

We had issued a post-dated cheque to one of our vendor before corona lockdown. The amount was more than a lakh. And we recorded the payment against the bill. But due to corona lockdown, the vendor did not present the cheque for clearing. So what happened here was in Zoho Books the payment was entered but the amount was not debited from the bank.

Now when you look at our bank statement and Zoho books, they do not match as well.

As a startup services company we have more expenses to be met. Since there is excess amount shown in the bank, we keep spending. And finally the cheque that was issued earlier to the vendor when they present it for clearing, it will fail.

To avoid this - when we record payment for a bill by selecting "Cheque" as the payment mode, it must only block that amount from the "available balance of that bank as per Zoho entries". And when the amount gets debited from the bank, we should have an option to "mark as payment completed". This will make the bill balance 0.

So when a cheque payment is entered this way, Zoho will keep memory of the fund blocked from the bank account as per the Zoho entries of the bank. And when you try to enter another cheque or cash payment, if the fund is less, Zoho will alert the user "Less fund as there are funds blocked for cheques issued".

This I believe would be a nice-to-have feature for all startup companies who do not have a dedicated accountant to manage the funds.