Enter your idea

So why can we do this on the current invoice system and not the new invoice templates? If you put a . in the description box of the say the parts you want to enter and not show the client how much the parts were, this works perfectly ok? You do not see the parts price on the invoice. It is only happening on the new invoice templates you have created?

I would definitely take advantage of being able to group line items on an invoice. Or be able to hide/combine so that the customer doesn't see certain admin fees I'd like to include in pricing, that need to be taxed or recorded differently. Seems complex, but I don't write software. Would love to see this functionality in Xero invoicing!

This has been around since 2012, or 11 years. I don't expect that this will change.

Because of changes in how we invoice for contract items, we're going to have to move away from Xero. I've been a staunch supporter of Xero for over a decade, because A) it's not Quickbooks, and B) it had the features we wanted/needed and C) it's included in almost all web based SaaS apps integration lists. Oh and it's not Quickbooks.

But now, it seems we'll be forced to move to Quickbooks just because Xero won't entertain the idea of having "combos" or "builds" that are a single item made up of various other items/accounts so that your chart of accounts, and balance sheet/profit and loss, all make sense.

Oh well. I guess it's time to move on.

Hi Hannah,
Are you able to provide a link or instructions on how to set this up?

Hoping by adding a comment, this will bump this issue up a bit. It seems like there are a lot of people in the same situation given the number of votes and comments.
It is something offered on other software, so I can't imagine it would be a difficult thing to look at implementing.

@Tom David

Appreciate the comment but doing a journal entry is what we all have to do at the moment - and we are desperately wanting Xero to come up with a solution which is simple coding for them enabling multiple line items on an invoice which are hidden on the invoice issued to the client

Sadly Xero are not interested in helping us

@Tom David Nice idea but as we have hundreds of monthly invoices and it is fluid (regular scope reviews and annual fee reviews etc) getting the journals to balance and balance a clearing account would be extremely time consuming. What we are doing is posting all to our general fees account then doing one journal to estimate splits between other sales accounts - not ideal but better than nothing.
It’s such an obvious product feature I can only assume the reprogramming is the stumbling block!!

Hello all, regarding hiding lines on your invoice from your client, and still having all the backend of your invoice allocating to all your different accounts, this CAN be achieved using the manual journals feature in xero - woot.

Our accountant told us to create a simple invoice for full amount and allocate all line items to a “sales clearing account”, rather than all the usual accounts you would create allocations to.

Then, create a separate manual journal item that allocates the new invoice total amount from the “sales clearing account” to accounts exactly as you would as if you were building a more detailed invoice that you wouldn’t otherwise want your client to receive.

Then just send and reconcile your invoice from xero as you always would - the journals item handles all the accounts distribution rather than the invoice item. As long as the journals item adds up to the amount on the invoice (before gst or vat etc) then the “sales clearing account” should always tally zero once the invoice has been paid and reconciled.

So this is possible in xero - just ask your accountant about manual journals in xero on how to achieve this if you don’t use these already (they are an advanced accountant feature, but straight forward once you’ve made your first invoice in this fashion).

We have manufacturing components as part of our sale products and it would be helpful to get a full idea of the costs involved for the full job. At present we have to keep a separate system to do this. We are having to double handle everything which is not cost effective at all. In Myob you have this function. Can't believe I'm saying this but it is one of my regrets in moving over to Xero.

is this feature addition in the technical development queue yet?

Agree with all the other comments.

This appears to be something Xero users have been screaming out for, for years with requests dotted all through the Community posts.

Xero came out all guns blazing in the beginning, but sadly it's fallen into the pattern of so many other software packages ... all about revenue, no customer service and not listening to important feedback from users.

Oh well, leaves a gap in the market for some new techy software to steal the limelight!

That's a pity xero has been a leader in the past now it's in catch up mode. So sad that you don't listen to your subscribers

Thats a shame because Quickbooks can do this. It's so important that to us we are looking to move. If this is critical for your business, I would advise moving to QuickBooks.

every invoice we write needs to not show our cost items and just our task items but have the reporting ability at the end of a job..

Sadly Xero continue to ignore this really important request and don't even have the courtesy to make a comment

Makes this notice board forum farcical

I usually have lumpsum item lines that are handled by 2 different departments so I will require my line items to be split accordingly without needing to show my client the details.

We use a summary line quote which is then made into an invoice.
We track our inventory, so when the customer has paid we have to go back in and put all the stock in to take this out of inventory.
This is very time consuming and should be able to be noted in the quote and then taken out of the inventory when the invoice is created, including adding billable items (not showing to the customer) so that the customer still gets the one liner and we have our stock taken out at the time.
The only problem I see is that the stock would need to go out at zero dollars therefore making our average price null and void, but still better than nothing.
Please help, I am getting desperate, 4 months in to my new job.

This feature would make a huge difference to the manual workarounds our team are doing as we similar sell bundled services that we breakdown for cost and revenue internally but only charge the customer as a single fee.

I have clients, and I assume this would be standard practice in the industry, they have dockets for delivery of products, and get invoiced for several dockets at a time. Client has always subtotalled as this was a feature in Reckon and MYOB. I have tried to come up with a work around using the price column and zero quantity but doesn't look good. I have seen so many posts in the Xero community where this is a wanted feature.

Well raised Amanda, this will be an excellent tracking tool, Xero if so many users over so many years have requested this feature -what seem to be the problem? Can you please give us all some feedback, or are we asking too much?