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🛡️ Enhancing Document Integrity and Business Continuity Platform

Thank you for raising these critical points regarding the immutability of historical documents and the need for greater address flexibility. We understand that accounting documents are legal records, and their integrity is paramount for audit and compliance purposes. We specifically acknowledge that changes to the **Contact Name, Billing Address, and Delivery Address** all pose the same retrospective update risk.

We are proposing two significant enhancements, bundled as part of our 'Business Continuity Platform', to directly resolve the issues you've highlighted:

1. ⏳ Immutable Document Snapshots (Time-Lock Solution)

We recognize that the key identifying details on an approved invoice or bill must be a static piece of data, reflecting the reality at the time of the transaction.

The Solution:
Using a mechanism we call a "Time-Lock", the moment an invoice or bill is approved and issued to the customer, we will automatically create an immutable, time-stamped snapshot of that document.

Temporal Concept:
The term "Time-Lock" invokes a **temporal** concept—the idea of preserving data as it existed at a fixed point in time. This is critical because it treats the invoice as a **historical event record**, not just a dynamically linked display.

What this ensures:
- The 'Contact Name', 'Billing Address', 'Delivery Address', and all other key header details on this snapshot will be **locked in perpetuity**.
- If you subsequently change the Contact's name or any address details in the main Contact card, the original legal document (the snapshot) will remain **untouched**, guaranteeing audit trail compliance and historical accuracy.

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2. 🗺️ Unlimited Delivery Addresses per Contact

We acknowledge the operational challenges faced by businesses, particularly those in supply chain and logistics, that deal with multiple delivery locations for a single customer.

The Solution: We will introduce the capability to store an **unlimited number of designated delivery (shipping) addresses** under a single Contact card.

How it Works:
- You can label these addresses (e.g., "Main Depot," "Warehouse B," "Head Office").
- When creating a new invoice or bill, you will select the required delivery address from a simple dropdown menu tied to the Contact.
- Crucially, once the document is created and the Time-Lock snapshot is taken, the selected addresses will be **permanently fixed** to that specific document, regardless of future changes to the Contact card.

These enhancements are designed to improve data integrity, eliminate the need for creating duplicate Contact records, and ensure your business is fully protected during any tax or financial audit.

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This solution is 'soon to be released' in a pilot program. If you would like to be one of the first to try out these powerful new features, please 'sign up now'! Have your data ready, including examples of contacts with changing names or multiple addresses, to fully test and evaluate our solution. Control-C - find us in the Xero App Store

I totally agree with the comments below, this is extremely important in our business especially given we moved to "Xero" from "Reckon Accounts" which actually had this feature.

Product Idea: Support for Multiple Addresses per Contact in Xero DO NOT CHANGE ADDRESS DETAILS OF APPROVED INVOICES

Problem Statement:
Currently, Xero only allows a single set of address fields per contact. When users update a contact's address—such as for delivery purposes on an invoice—it retroactively updates all past documents associated with that contact. This behavior is problematic for accounting accuracy, particularly for supply chain customers, because:

Historical Integrity: Invoices and documents are legal records that must reflect the address used at the time of issue. Retroactively updating the address compromises the legal and audit trail.

Operational Disruption: Supply chain businesses often ship to multiple delivery locations for the same customer. Without address flexibility, users must choose between creating duplicate contacts (which leads to data clutter) or losing historical accuracy.

Proposed Solution:
Introduce multi-address support per contact, with the following features:

Default Address Types: Allow users to store multiple addresses under a contact—e.g., Registered, Billing, Shipping, Custom Labels.

Per-Document Address Selection: When creating invoices, bills, or quotes, users can select the relevant address from a dropdown tied to the contact.

Immutable Document Addresses: Once a document is finalized or approved, the address on that document becomes locked and preserved as part of the historical record—even if the contact’s addresses are edited later.

Audit Trail Compliance: Ensure that changes to contact details are versioned or logged for audit purposes, without affecting past documents.

Benefits:

Aligns with proper accounting and legal documentation standards.

Reduces the need for duplicate contacts for customers with multiple delivery addresses.

Enhances usability for businesses in logistics, distribution, and supply chain sectors.

Preserves historical accuracy for reporting and compliance.

Thank you for considering this enhancement. It would have a significant positive impact on the integrity of accounting data and user efficiency within Xero.

This is an important missing feature to avoid creating numerous contacts especially for "Cash Sales" where the address changes for each one.
There are some workarounds by emailing yourself the PDF invoice each time which retains the original invoice, but this is still extra work and storage.

We sell globally and have people that move from the US to the UK/EU and back again. Where the customer address record is updated how do Xero suggest we use their product to display the invoice as an official record for where tax is payable? Sure, we can download the invoice when it's created and keep it somewhere else, but this isn't conducive to effective business practices.
The tax is fixed at the point of sale for taxation under the "tax rate" column in the invoice. Surely the address on the corresponding invoice can also be static as at that point in time the customer is at that address and should be billed as such.

Again one of those issues where I cannot wrap my mind around the laisser-faire attitude in the way Xero deals with historical information. The moment I open the invoice again for reprint - the address changes. And unless I make a note each time I send out an invoice regarding the address ... the original information is lost. Or I have to create several contacts for the same contact when the contact person changes. This is really not good thing, guys.

The delivery address on an invoice should be a static piece of data. When creating a new invoice in the new invoicing module, not the 'classic invoicing' you can amend the delivery address. This should then be created as the delivery address for THAT INVOICE ONLY. I currently have a client with multiple sites who is complaining that they cannot see the individual depot address on each invoice. We have to add it as an additional invoice line of text.

This is so important to keep a trail of where the invoice was sent. We still have a number of clients who are not accepting digital copies of their records. The alternative of keeping an outgoing mail log with address details is such a waste of time.

This would also be ideal for the use of 'Miscellaneous Sales' or 'Cash Sales' customer card. We have a lot of individual one off sales that I don't want to add a customer card for. In myob you can change customer details on each individual invoice without it changing in the customer card. I believe this would be very helpful to a lot of trades.

Completely agree with comments below regarding tax audits.

My suggestion would be to implement the new address on new invoices moving forwards only. However, on occasions when a customer has delayed notifying a change, allowing more recent invoices to be edited and re-sent on an individual basis to keep records on both sides as accurate as possible.

Ensure that the integrity of data is kept by keeping a record of how the original invoice was sent and not changing it - even if the customer name or address changes

I believe this is essential for good bookkeeping and can cause serious problems in case of a tax audit if not changed.

Completely agree that this is not something that we want done automatically. We have customers who want the address changed temporarily and this feature removes the other address which is annoying. Having the option to update or not would be ideal.

This would be great if you can choose to not update old Invoices. As stated above the old Invoices prior to the address update are then incorrect. On QuickBooks's this is only altered in the new Invoices. You are also able to go back into the old Invoices and change contact details if required.

Currently, if you change the address of a contact, old invoices and bills will show the new address and not the old address.

It would it be good if the old documents can keep the old address. It is because having the old address is a piece of evidence to show where the goods have been delivered to. It is important to show that to the tax authority and auditors where the goods are delivered to determine the GST/VAT type, etc.