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This is an essential feature for accrual accounting. I think where the frustration is coming from is that this feels like a very simple change.

The current 'date' field is operating as the 'posting date' and is linked to the lock dates feature.

The additional feature required is a 'document date' field so that if an invoice is dated December but not received until January (very common) it will still be 'posted' into January but with a 'document date' of December - we could then filter by document date to identify expenses captured following the lock period.

The metadata will already be there - if I enter an invoice in January but date it December then somewhere there will be a record of the January entry date.

Possibly muddying the water a little is many users requesting a billing period feature to effectively automate accrual and prepayment journals - whilst this would certainly be a neat feature - I can understand that this would need further development.

The fundamental need here is an extra field to record the invoice date - this will then be used for accurate creditor aging and enable accurate accounting.

We need this so badly but with an amend: not just posted date, but a Billing Period?

Then a quarterly bill could be set as being across three months, and all we would need the system to do is auto-create journals to make the full invoice cost spread across the three months in question.

All I think people are asking for is that the system can create the journal for you on creation of the invoice, to speed up the process. It should be possible to have a journal created to put an invoice cost in a previous period, so then its no different to create 3 or 12 journals.

Could have drop down options for last month, last quarter, this quarter, this year or manually select.

It would mean that the Xero P&L would actually be useful, instead of always wrong.

This would make month end process so much simpler. I would say this basic "feature" as mentioned, a critical feature of any accounting system. Manipulating invoice dates makes the accrual process so much more clunky and only delays financial reporting. As suggested a posting date/period field, and then maybe if you'd like to really compete having the ability to lock these periods by AP/AR/GL

Recently moved from sage to xero but didn't ask if this would be a feature - because of course it would. Am now trying to figure out best way to deal with having invoices posted with incorrect dates as they can't be posted with the actual month of the invoice if received after month end has closed. Just wrong, especially with the VAT implications at quarter end

It can be quite common for an invoice to 'miss' the reporting period as the invoice isn't received by the Accounts Department by month end close off (where we have reporting deadlines and have to close the month for posting a few days after EOM date). As such, in Xero, you can't record the actual invoice date anywhere as that period has been closed, meaning a 'fictitious' invoice date is used (ie. 1st of the next month) to ensure it is posted in an open period. This is misleading and requires you to actually open the invoice to see the real date. Please add a field for this.

You have had this requirement for 2 years and still you are prioritising useless stuff like bulk void features when your standard invoice does not have the basics.
Really Xero all this "beautiful" nonsense is a waste of your developers time.
Look at your competitors and get the basics right.
Xero is clunky and shows its DOS origins

Very important so as we know how old the invoice is, and how long we have had them for if in a dispute

The addition of an accounting period feature on Xero will be an essential enhancement that significantly elevates the usability of the platform. it will allow users to enter invoices dated in the previous month into the current period without changing the invoice date, eliminating the time spent on solving queries from suppliers. Please do something about it!

Any good ERP/Accounting system has this feature. This is infact a critical feature to have as we often get supplier invoices related to previous months after we close that month so we need to have separate fields to include invoice date and posting date. I think Xero should have studied proper ERP/Accounting systems before designing their system so that at least we would have these BASIC critical features.

For Xero Admins, to answer your question why two date fields might be needed: the most common reason for two separate date fields for supplier invoices would be when a supplier invoice is received late, after the month that it relates to has closed. (Perhaps that supplier invoice was expected and an accrual has been raised but potentially not. If an accrual has been raised, it may be for a different amount.)
E.g. The Jan-24 month has been finalised and reports sent out to managers by 10/0224. On 11/02/24, a supplier invoice comes in that is dated 31/01/24.
While that invoice cannot be posted into the closed Jan-24 accounts because it will change the reported numbers, it is still due on the 20th of the month following the invoice date. That is, the 31/01/24 invoice is due on 20/02/24.
Processing the invoice with a Posting Date of Feb-24 will ensure that it is reported in the correct month and won't throw out the Jan-24 accounts. Entering an Invoice Date of 31/01/24 will ensure that the payment date of 20/02/24 appears correctly and would also ensure that the data on the supplier card is correct. Should there be a need to go back to the "Jan-24 invoice" in the future then it can easily be found if the invoice is showing as being dated Jan-24, regardless of when it was posted into the accounts.
I hope this helps.

find it strange why xero didnt have this feature. Sales are supposed to be posted to the month that services/goods are delivered according to most accounting regulations (accrual basis) . Without any posting date, my sales are recorded in Xero in the next following month as that is when i issue my invoices after completing the whole month. So now in xero , i have to keep reversing my sales to manually enter into the correct month when my services was delivered. its a lot of work with so many invoices. if this is not implemented, ill need to move on to another system that provide such feature as i dont have the time to always doing the reversals

Any good accounting system has this, it also affects third party systems such as Lightyear. Speak to them and see what they say about the importance of having this feature.

Stop wasting your time changing reports, and invoice templates and concentrate on this.

Hello in response to "our team is interested in better understanding this idea" I am available to discuss the concept of this and why it holds significant importance for proper reporting, record keeping and control.

Best regards

Basically Xero we would like as in sage a posting date (data invoice physically entered on system) so we can see if we received the invoice in a different month to the invoice date.
This enable's us to accurately report our accounts.

This response from Xero is a total waste of time - the ideas 'being worked on' have absolutely no bearing on this issue and show a total misunderstanding of what is being asked for here. The issue is always that the product and tech team have no accounting understanding and those using the system and giving feedback which truly matters on a day to day basis to them are being ignored for aesthetic and ux changes which we don't actually need.

For the sake of giving the product team more info it is a very simple concept - there should be the option to add two date fields on any invoice in the system, the change would be a relatively simple one. There is of course a document date on all bills and sales invoices, which is the date which xero currently uses. This is the invoice date, the VAT date and is the first and standard date to be recorded, so far so good...

What the community are then asking for is a way for xero to record a second date which allows them to change the effective period for reporting on the document. For example, you may receive an invoice in January with a Jan date on it for VAT and document purposes. But the content on the invoice may very clearly relate to either February (billed in advance) or December (billed in arrears). Currently as there is no functionality to add an effective period so that we can report that cost into a different period. Instead senior users have to accrue and defer costs using journals every month so that when they run their management accounts the costs appear in the right places and not simply controlled by the date the paperwork was generated by the third party.

My suggestion would be to implement a simple 'effective date' to all documents, which defaults to the document date automatically as standard. But if that could be editable by users for new documents, this field could be applied on reports to move costs to the right period. For example almost all users would have their P&L and Balance sheets generate using the 'effective date' as a tick box option and so they would save significant time and effort every month when generating their accounts.

If effective dates could be applied at line level within a bill or invoice that would likely be amazing too (allowing users to record quarterly invoices for example split out to be effective over the 3 months). But I am realistic that this would likely be a request too far.

The product team should take a basic tour of other accounting software functionality to review 'effective periods' as this is a standard function in all accounting software and xero is an outlier for not having something which allows us to adapt the reporting period for costs at the document level.

When working with bulk repeating invoices for schools or rent invoices, it is important to ensure that all ad hoc items for a particular month is captured. When the drafting date of invoices is a few days prior to the invoice date, it may give enough time to ensure that everything is correct before approval and sending. This is a crucial feature for task planning in a practice as well as the debtor function of a larger business.

I get a lot of invoices which are either coming in the month after the product/service was supplied or which are invoiced in advance. To ensure the value is posted to correct month need to create a lot of manual journals and to reconcile balance sheet account balances. This really needs to be fixed and is usual for accounting systems.
Of course if an invoice can be split to several months even better (eg for rent biled quarterly in advance) but I recognise that may be pushing things. It may however be useful to take into account when designing this functionality.

This idea was flagged about two years back. Totally surprised that Xero haven't implemented it so far, given that it's a basic requirement and available in most of other accounting software in the market.

Completely agree, needs updating asap!

Is it possible to have a selection area for the posting period for invoices getting posted to Xero? At the moment, the period is automatically selected based on the invoice date. it would be great if the posting period could be selected in the draft section before posting it.