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Problem
There is currently no way to mark a task as Completed in Xero Projects. Tasks stay permanently open, which means staff can continue adding time even after the work is finished. For businesses like ours, where jobs can span multiple years, this becomes a major issue — we cannot reliably tell which tasks are complete versus still in progress.

Impact
Because tasks can never be formally closed, long-term project reporting becomes unreliable.
We can’t accurately measure progress, profitability, or WIP because tasks that were finished months (or years) ago still appear “open”. A single late time entry can distort costing.
This also affects our external reporting: the Project Time & Expenses report does not include any clear task completion status, which makes it impossible to build reliable Power BI reports or other long-term analysis.

Outcome needed

1. Add an option to mark a task as Complete/Closed, which prevents further time entries.


2. Include the task’s completion status in the Project Time & Expenses report, so that the exported data can be used effectively in Power BI or other reporting tools.



This would give clear progress markers, protect data integrity, and make long-term reporting possible.

Why it matters
Without a task completion state — and without that status included in the Project Time & Expenses export — Xero Projects isn’t practical for organisations managing long-running jobs. We need a reliable way to confirm when a task is done and to have that reflected in reporting and external analysis tools

This would be so good especially as you can't change a rate on a task. As rates change you need to set new ones up but the old tasks stay there.

Yep - just started using projects and it definitely needs the concept of task status - e.g. draft/inactive, active, completed/closed, archived etc.

I want to record all tasks for a given project, but we don't want users to book time to certain tasks until they become active. Likewise we don't want users to book time to completed/closed tasks.

Agree! Really need the ability to keep but remove from view completed tasks while keeping the remaining tasks within the project

Agree! Really need the ability to archive projects without deleting but remove them from the 'active' tab so that you only see your current projects on the go!

Agree! Once we complete a series of tasks in a project, we don't want to close the project or delete teh tasks, but it's a real pain having to scroll through a long list just to find active tasks in timesheets to allocate time to!!!

Xero project tasks - Ability to file away old tasks you no longer use within a project. You cannot currently delete or hide these once an invoice is attached to it.

I think Belinda's proposal makes sense. Operational / uninvoiced tasks and expenses have their own tab. Completed / invoiced tasks and expenses serve little purpose other than to reference standardised wording etc, which would not be lost if an archive tab is provided. Rosemarie's concerns about tasks being deleted has never been part of this proposal.

The amount of time added to invoicing is significant for complex long running projects with 15-20 site visits / tasks and associated reporting and expenses every month.

It is quite sad that community forums are the only place these matters seem to be discussed. It would be nice to hear some feedback from a Xero developer as to why something seemingly so simple cannot be implemented or even considered. Particularly in light of their wllingness to implement price increase whilst costing me productivity.

We are changing the structure of our reporting and don't want to loose the data associated with (now) redundant tasks which we would if we deleted the tasks.

I need to edit the hourly charge rate of some tasks but because they have time invoiced against them I can't make any changes. I could create a new task with a similar or same name but because I can't archive the old task this would get confusing.

Projects that have many tasks & expenses which are invoiced at different times of the project (Architect) It would be helpful if a task is done & invoiced/paid that it could be added to a different freeze heading (tab) such as completed. So that all listed under the heading Tasks & Expenses are still 'active'

The ability to archive individual tasks within a complex project is essential so should be looked at ASAP

Agreed, CHEC Account. I use the Projects platform in Xero for more modest projects - tracking writing assignments and client meetings. If I had 100's of lines in one I'd surely want completed lines archived also. For more lengthy projects—like white papers—I break up them up into natural 'chunks' to avoid issues with many tasks, although I know it isn't always possible for others.

whilst I like Tammy's idea - I still see lines ARCHIVED as Critical. Scrolling through completed lines by the 100s is completely idiotic for such a Worldwide platform !!

Check boxes on each line would be helpful. When the task is checked as completed, the contents still display, but have a strikethrough over the text.

Agree, I have the same issue. I don't want to have to create a new project each time a price changes. It would also make the project screen less congested if completed tasks could be archived.

Ongoing projects/clients: Our hourly rate has changed after 3 years so the task needs to be changed, but can't change it or archive it.

Or perhaps a quick change might be to Freeze pane the top section, timer/add/quote/invoice tabs - this will negate having to navigate to the top and bottom all the time - Surely this will be a simple fix? Really is a pain !!

I would like to keep open tasks only for timesheeting in projects.

This would be ideal. As projects can be "closed" during the financial year, and then "archived" out