Enter your idea

This feature is urgently needed, as for our case, where we need to present our files also to a Foreign Tax Department, where the local backup off all bills and invoices is mandatory. It is not enough for us to presnt them the accounting files.
Please include this feature as soon as possible, as it critical for us to be able to use xero.

I get my clients to provide receipts/invoices for every transaction to be attached to the transaction in Xero. It seems absolutely pointless if these documents can't be exported. A client of mine is being investigated by HMRC and has hundreds, if not thousands of receipts that I've now got to download one by one! This feature should be definitely be on the road map!

It is absolutely apparent that Xero has been developed and continues to be developed for business owners that do not know what they are doing regarding finance and accounting. When professionals ask for the most basic and required functionalities expected of a financial system, we are given a watery, unknowledgeable and pathetic response. Get your basics right, Xero!

Without this feature, the expenses function is nearly useless.
If I can’t save all these files for the tax authority, I’m doing things twice. Exactly why I am investing in software, to not do things twice.
Paying a third party app/website to do this is not acceptable.

I totally agree this would be a very useful addition to Xero and would love to see Xero implement this soon

This feature is essential and I cannot believe this is not something that is considered standard in this kind of software. Not having this feature as we grow is going to result is us ultimately finding an alternative software that can provide this - as this is a key feature we require each month. To download invoices individually is cumbersome and time consuming!

Xero you really should consider implementing this feature ASAP.

I agree with a lot of the comments, this is an essential feature and that the "This isn't on our roadmap" reponse is very tiresome from Xero... I wonder if the senior management team are even aware that there's this level of gatekeeping in getting features and requests from users through to the Dev team.

The lack of this feature is one of the things thats making me look at other accounting solutions... Literally trapped in XERO because of the expense of migrating but its that or Spending 100s of manhours doing stupid repetitive tasks that could be solved if Xero implemented the features users were requesting.

this 3rd party app allows you to bulk export the attached files: https://www.backupmybooks.com/

The purple&pink software lets you access the files even if the subscription is suspended. (i.e. read only file)

This says a lot about Xero's approach to customer service and has completely changed my opinion on this company. I can only assume this is an intentional omission to ensure you are locked into their ecosystem. The harder it is to get your data and leave, the less they have to spend on maintaining and supporting their product. Xero disrupted the marketplace like no other, but now they have us they can go forward giving us the absolute bare minimum, knowing how difficult it is to get away. A real shame, I used to tell our clients how much better Xero was over Sage and actively encourage them to switch, but now I can tell people how they are all as bad as each other.

I don't know of any accounting softwares that offer this feature so I'm not that surprised Xero isn't going to make it happen. In case it's helpful to anyone, you CAN do bulk downloads from Hubdoc or Dext or BILL if you are using those for document collection.

Agree this is an essential feature.
How complicated is it to migrate to another platform such as Quicbooks?

Meanwhile Xero is gingerly increasing its prices...

Kelly, I disagree. This feature is not "handy", it is essential. On the basis of your response I certainly would not recommend Xero to anyone. I regret moving to Xero in the first place and also making the assumption that an essential accounting requirement would obviously be part of an accounting system - and finding it isn't - and then finding that Xero only consider this "handy". Luckily we use Hubdoc for some invoices, which has a PDF download, but for all Bills that go directly into Xero - and annoyingly, Xero subscription bills as well, there is no function to download these. This now means that EVERYTHING will have to go via Hubdoc, negating some of the selling points of using Xero in the first place! How disappointing.

This is an important issue to me and not having a clear direction will probably lead to moving away from Xero

Looks like we will be moving on, after spending ages printing off the files of course. Well done Xero put your customers last.

Thats a big issue!! - looks like we have to migrate to another provider then.

We're glad to have contributed to the "accounting systems regulatory" discussion indeed triggered by our "certified fiduciary company" / "official Xero partner" (the reason why we took them). That Swiss advisory company greatly disappointed us by favoring the state against us hence the deeper look into the state of play in this software field which, as a matter of fact, "sucked". Since then, we have migrated to Gimbla with great satisfaction. If that fiduciary company ever dares to send a bill for a Xero subscription we have a counter-attack ready. It's good they get free travel & expenses paid out by Xero but their job is to focus on the PAYING customers. Schmuck The Bozos!

Kelly,
Thanks for responding to all the pleas on this subject. To be honest, this is a deal breaker for our company and also makes it impossible for me to ever recommend Xero to any other company in the future. I'm not sure what Xero exists for if not to solve basic issues that are this important to its customers.

Sigh.
I guess it's just my bad luck that every single request to bring Xero into line with legal and audit requirements hangs around ignored by the developers for 10 years, and then Kelly Munro pops up to advise that no, despite all our years of investing in Xero, Xero isn't going to fix this major problem either.
Not a single idea I follow has been met with a "yes".
Doesn't breed confidence that Xero will be able to meet new requirements in the future, given it apparently doesn't have resources to "prioritise" requirements that are ten years old.