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Contacts - Auto generate Account Number for a New Contact

When adding a new contact if you use account numbers (which is important to use as a primary key for records) it would be really good if a autogenerated number was assigned as a default (like it does with an invoice number etc.). Currently you have to remember/check what the last account number you've used was.

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Harriet Wakinshaw shared this idea  ·   ·  Report…  ·  Admin →
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submitted  ·  AdminHannah G (Admin, Xero) responded  · 

Hi all, we appreciate this idea has picked up a good amount of interest. This has all been shared with and considered by our product teams.

As the Contacts screen interacts with many other parts of Xero, this work can not commence until the modernisation of other, related systems is complete.

Due to this, we do not expect account numbers to be automatically generated for contacts to be delivered in the coming short-term.

In the meantime however, we're keen to continue collecting feedback and votes on this idea, and we will provide an update here when there's more details to share.

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  • Laurel Rieping commented  ·   ·  Report

    Please add this so our new clients can have a database number. Kind regards!

  • Bronwen Boulton commented  ·   ·  Report

    We are currently looking for an new accounting software system and I must say this is the one thing that I would want to add to Xero, it would be FANTASTIC if this could be done

  • Antony Futter commented  ·   ·  Report

    Hi Hannah G,
    As a developer myself - the excuse you have for not being able to provide this basic function is pathetic!
    This function is something that can be done on the database layer - not even the UI or programing level.
    A single call to a DB Stored Procedure will resolve this.
    It has been asked for for nearly 2 years and nothing? Every other accounting software has it but Xero doesn't - it really is becoming a deal breaker in our business - not to mention that you cant auto match on the field in the bank recon!

    Looknig forward to the standard reply... it's not in the development road map because..

    Regards,

  • Trung G commented  ·   ·  Report

    Other Accounting Systems have an auto generated ID field for creation of new contacts. Xero needs to catch up with the times and get this implemented ASAP

  • James Marsh commented  ·   ·  Report

    Auto Generated Numbers when creating an account is a great reference point for businesses to reference customers - this would be a great feature :)

  • Neil Mistry commented  ·   ·  Report

    Please do this as soon as possible, it would be great help to everyone.

  • Ros Pollock commented  ·   ·  Report

    We run two Xero companies and this is a very important update, which is often standard with the competition. Strongly recommend Xero does this sooner rather than later. Understand that this was not part of the original product design, but in the end, maybe bite the bullet and do it. Spending some redesign money now may save customer loyalty in the medium term.

  • Marcus Dodsworth commented  ·   ·  Report

    I agree Kirsten - same with us.
    Hey Xero . . . . .this request has been on here for over a year now!
    Surely it's not true what Gavin Smith says below is it? ("Xero doesn't monitor these requests or listen to their customers feedback anyway")?
    Please get this feature added !

  • Kirsten Thomas commented  ·   ·  Report

    This is much needed feature! We have to maintain a separate spreadsheet just to generate a new number each time we add a contact!!

  • Gavin Smith commented  ·   ·  Report

    Don't know why I actually bothered voting, Xero doesn't monitor these requests or listen to their customers feedback anyway.

  • Fiona Stokes commented  ·   ·  Report

    This would be great - especially if you could identify at the time which ones are paid by Direct Debit to make it easier to run reports excluding Direct Debit suppliers as this is not currently possible without a work-around.

  • Lorna Douglas commented  ·   ·  Report

    This would be a great option, XERO please add this feature, it would definitely save a lot of time

  • Sara Foster commented  ·   ·  Report

    Also we used to be able to sort by Account number and we no longer can. Please bring this feature back ! Thanks Xero

  • Marcus Dodsworth commented  ·   ·  Report

    Xero,
    It's several months since this was raised as a request, and it isn't going away. Please get this done for us.

  • Sascha Lehmann commented  ·   ·  Report

    I never paid attention to this before but obviously know this feature from every other accounting software and im developing a software which needs access to the account number. it should be auto-generated when adding a new customer. Please look at this asap

  • Marcus Dodsworth commented  ·   ·  Report

    Come on Xero - is 50 votes enough to get this done?
    You can see how much trouble this is causing folks, and there'll be a lot more people for whom this is an issue that haven't voted because they haven't seen this tread.
    Please automate the generation of account numbers like you currently do for invoice numbers etc.

  • Scott Vaughan commented  ·   ·  Report

    Also, another feature missing related to account number is when you are doing a bulk import you cannot target the import based on account number. This should be treated as key field as it should be a unique number to then allow for data import.

    I find data import by customer name sometimes has issues with names being clipped and new accounts created due 3rd party system exports messing up the customer's name for longer entries, but when the list is huge no one is going to go through each one to check.

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