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We are an ERP provider that integrates with Xero and this is causing grief and confusion for our customers that use Xero when over time they will inevitably receive 2 Bills from different suppliers that have the same reference number.

This is a no brainer. This is the simplest of fields required and they need to implement it without delay. Do we have an idea when this will be implemented?

Agree the comments below, this will help our organization greatly.

As per the comments below - we need this to be able to report on costs per vehicle.

As a bookkeeper that specialises in motor trade we deal a lot with vehicle registrations as our reference in invoices and supplier bills. At the moment, this is fine for invoices but there is nowhere to put our reference in a searchable field for supplier bills. It would be helpful to have "Supplier Reference" and "Our Reference" so that we can search by the client company's reference as well as the supplier reference. This is the only downside to bills for me at the moment - my clients use Xero to look back and have to currently go through every bill round about the date they are looking for (if they even have the date) to find the bill they need.

Unless I'm missing something else, the second reference field is necessary for me as currently there is no ability to have a separate invoice date and posting date on bills. What if the invoice date is in a closed period? I then have to change the invoice date to be a date outside the period and now have incorrect information when trying to search up the invoice details in Xero (invoice date now shows a different date than is on the invoice). At least with a customizable second reference field I can add the invoice date in there.

Yes it would be good to have two ref numbers for the Bills, just like we have for Invoices. The first ref number as the offical bill number listed on the supplier's bill, and then another field for our own reference. Just like with Invoices, there is the official Invoice Number, and then there is the Reference Number which can be used our reference.

We are also in need of a second reference number on our Bills as we import our Bills from a Third Party app and it is critical to be able to verify the PO number attached to each bill.

Please add me to the list of users requesting a second reference input box on the invoice to record the customer's purchase order number.

One can only hope, but it was many years of frustration before I posted this and now many years since, and Xero have still not made any progress in this area. I wander how many customers they have lost because Xero does not have a secondary reference number field available when recording a suppliers invoice directly

We should not be restringed to have only one reference cell when recording bills. The importing system gives us a unique number, but the original invoice has another number which we are not able to add.

This is something very common in accounting and now that xero is leading accounting software, should resolve this issue.

In the bills section, would it be at all possible to add an additional input block for a second reference. We work with external order numbers and it would be great if we could enter this at the top as a second reference. We use the original reference number as the original invoice number from the supplier.
We have tried using Purchase orders, but it isn't practical in our setup. We work on a farm and go to town once or twice a week for purchases. We give a order number to the driver for the days' purchases, which are at different suppliers. if we had a field where we can enter and search on this number it would make our lives a lot easier.

Having just changed to Xero from my bespoke system, at my accountants suggestion, I am amazed that there is only one reference field in the purchase ledger and no ability to change it!

10 Years?! Honestly this idea has been floated about for 10 years and nothing has been done about it! Yet time and money has been spent changing the invoice system (to no improvement - actually it's a lot worse!)

How many price increases in 10 years? Yet a simple basic requirement can not be implemented! A second reference for purchases is not a new thing - it's how we tie our purchases to the relevant sale and have done for years. Our very outdated Sage system managed this beautifully!

XERO's lack of response to these product ideas demonstrates that it's just a gimmick to make us feel like our imput matters - it doesn't!

For me ability to add actual date of invoice when having to date the invoice into our open period eg) 18/3 invoice i have to date 1/4 as March numbers are closed reported and now locked.

Is this ever going to get implemented? In the API code for PHP you have setInvoiceNumber and setReference for Creating Invoices of TYPE_ACCPAY which are bills. UI wise tho setInvoiceNumber sets the reference feild and setReference is hidden which makes no sense. Also both feilds should be searchable when using the Reconcile Matching tool as well.

This is mainly a UI visual issue. Just make the feild visible and rename them to their match feilds. Invoice Number is Invoice Number and Reference is Reference. Seems pretty easy, and clearly there are lots of people requesting this.

When sending a report to my customers they request information from 2 reference fields so I have to manually go in to every sales invoices (extremely time consuming) to add the 2nd reference to the report. Surely something as vitally important as this should be easy enough to do ... given Xero seem to manage to change things that don't need changed!

It is a Critical need for the second reference field in Bills, this would replace the reference field in the Supplier Financial details as this is useless if you have multiple bills.

Adding my vote to the many before, please Xero, make this happen.

Why does Xero have a reference box in Invoices, but does not have one in Bills to Pay.

There are a number of reasons to have a reference in Bills.
1. You send an invoice from Xero with a reference, but you cannot receive that same invoice into Bills with a reference.
2. I have paper Purchase Orders but nowhere to quote this number on Bills.
3. I have bills for contracts and projects and I would like to include the name but nowhere to quote this on Bills.

It seems a simple feature to add this field to Bills, why hasn't this happened?
Why have you included it in Invoices but not Bills??
I have been using Xero since 2009, and this has always annoyed me.