Bills - Flag a Bill as 'in dispute / query'
Ability to flag individual bills as in dispute
Purpose | To enable review and ensure the business does not make payment for a bill when it's currently 'under query'
We appreciate wanting to see more rapid movement, everyone. Having done a lot of exploration into this area our team have a good handle on the needs to solve this, however we want to be honest that development will be some time away with the team currently focused on improving bills list views and updating add/edit bill pages. For the time being to keep you up to date we're going to move this idea back to Submitted until more active work takes place for this.
I can assure you this idea is the best place to be leaving feedback for this feature, and Xero Product Ideas as a whole is the best place to be sharing where you'd like to see change across Xero products. As a community team we're advocating on your behalf constantly to see where ideas can be worked on, and this site is where our product teams regularly come to better understand and see where they can develop solutions for our customers alongside other priorities they're balancing. You'll see in many places we're beginning to see how we can get our community members more involved in research and testing for ideas early on in the development process.
As soon as there is more news around the teams work in this space we will be back to share this with you all, here.
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Ben Linker commented
I'm lost for words....after all the requests for this feature, you don't actually have any plans to implement it!!!! why bother asking us then.....
So here's a question for you: why was this not implemented in Xero at the outset? It's not as if this isn't a standard part of any other accounting system - at least in every one I have used over the past 30 years or so. Perhaps you thought everyone else had got it wrong, and this isn't an essential feature every business with more than one accounting person needs.
I defy you to give a sensible answer to that one -
Roger Withinshaw commented
After 25 years of using Sage I recently switched to Xero, sadly not everything in Xero is an improvement, Not being able to mark purchase invoices as disputed is one glaringly obvious disadvantage over Sage. Whilst a workaround is currently possible it's not ideal nor pretty. Xero don't seem to understand how important it is to ensure bills aren't mistakenly paid when a bill or invoice is disputed/queried. Xero - please reconsider this request, it really shouldn't be too difficult or onerous to add a check box or flag!
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Sara Martin commented
why is this something you have no plans for????????
it's fundamental to be able to stop invoices being automatically paid. i do not understand why this isn't a standard feature and it needs to be implemented asap
why ask our opinions if you are not willing to listen. there are hundreds of comments on the original post asking for this, all saying the same thing but you have no plans for it, are we wasting our time asking?
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Lisa Lines commented
"We'd like to confirm from a bills side of things that this is not something we have plans to develop at this time.
We're still interested to get a clearer understanding of users that'd like to see this developed for bills"
So you want our feedback but you aren't bothered about actually listening to it because you're too busy changing the look of the bills screen to a god awful blockey piece of eye pain that no-one asked for, got it.
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Tracy Packman commented
I'd like to see this. At present, if I enter a bill and someone outside the accounts dept raises a query on it, there's nothing I can do within Xero to make this immediately obvious. A flag would be a great help when I pay a month's worth of bills - some suppliers provide 3-400 bills per month.
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Katie Kent commented
This really is an essential feature. My company used this regularly on Sage when we were a much smaller business, and now we are larger it is a vital part of streamlining processes as the company expands. We cannot leave invoices as Awaiting Approval as they do not appear in the ledgers, therefore misrepresenting our accounts to the Exec Board, but we risk paying disputed invoices once they have been approved. In addition, we lock our accounts each month so that previous periods do not change, so if an invoice is left in Awaiting Approval, we have to amend the date as once the accounts are locked they will not drop in once approved if the date is prior to the lock date. This makes the tax date wrong in the accounts and the 'solution' of amending the references is not ideal as you cannot then change this again once you have locked the accounts.
It is baffling that something that is crucial to businesses maintaining accurate accounts and managing cashflow, is not seen as an urgent area for development. -
Daniel Clay commented
"But to give clarity, currently we do not have plans for developing a flag for bills, or sales invoices."
Why not!?!?!
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Lisa Goold commented
This is such a basic request to be able to add a 'flag' against a bill - lots of apps/software provide flags why can't Xero? I upload ALL supplier bills into Xero, code them and send for approval. However, as bills sat in draft and awaiting approval DO NOT show in the ledger for accounting purposes I often have to submit for awaiting payment to have them added to the ledger - this is where I have an issue as I dont want them paid if they are in query. Another scenario is, they are in awaiting approval and some may have a query and if the latter are flagged I wont have to keep opening them to find out "Oh that's in query" and move on - the same goes for INVOICES as well - FLAGS FLAGS FLAGS please!
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Dorcas Rixson commented
Disappointed to hear that Xero are not developing the 'in dispute' for sales and purchase invoices
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Sarah Green commented
This is an essential feature. As with others, unimpressed that you have moved this to a different thread to restart the counter on interest in this feature.
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Arnis Veisbergs commented
Here's a Linked in group - perhaps taking this to the social media will help Xero to reconsider.
Xero Discussions (27K members) https://www.linkedin.com/groups/1415817/
Xero is actively posting about how great and wonderful they are - which is just an insult to the user community. -
Lesley Christian commented
What is stopping Xero from being able to do this?
In real world scenarios, sometimes supplier bills cannot be approved because they are incorrect. Sometimes suppliers make genuine mistakes and charge the incorrect price. We then have to dispute this with them and somehow have to track it to ensure that the wrong amount isn't paid.
Why shouldn't we expect that our accounting software can do this? That's where the bills awaiting payment are generated from.
It just makes a lot of common sense that this should have been a feature a long time ago.
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Paul Wakefield commented
Despite the new thread, this remains a critical requirement. Invoices have to be booked for all sorts of reasons (recovering VAT for example) but may need to be held for payment. I do find it extraordinary that Xero have no plans to introduce this.
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Jacqui Sanwell commented
Totally agree with Andrew Finnie. It's an organisation that has become arrogant towards its client base
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Andrew Finnie commented
so despite the numerous comments that this is a feature desperately needed by your cusotmers 'this is not something we have plans to develop at this time.'
What is the point of us voting/commenting if you are already telling us you are not going to do this?
Maybe it's time to vote with our feet and switch to one of your competitors that does offer this basic accounting feature.
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Melissa Ilston commented
Completely agree with Arnis. Don't know why you've reset the counter on this. Why ask for ideas then ignore them when they get enough support?
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Arnis Veisbergs commented
Outraged! I have to agree with Claire and the other contributors. What is the point of this communication? You have effectively just reset the counter on a function request that has been around for years and as soon as we have managed to drum up some support - you have killed it.
This really is no rocket science - literally every other accounting software has this function and it is an important function to have.
We have a team of around 20 bookkeepers and Finance managers which provides financial management services to around 80 entities. Without the ability to flag bills we run a risk of paying bills which are in dispute. Having these not recorded or keep them as drafts is not an option as this does not provide a true and fair view of the company's financial position. -
Heather Lane commented
This really is a critical feature that Xero lacks.
1 it’s good accounting practice to put all invoices on the ledger so that they’re reflected in the accounts - holding invoices for lengthy times in an unapproved state means extra work in creating accruals and inaccuracy creeping in.
2. Sometimes invoices are approved, then issues come to light which put the invoice back in query. Xero has no efficient way of holding these invoices back from payment runs which is a risk. to Xero’s own clients cashflows.
Xero team, there’s a reason why your clients are asking for this feature to allow them to manage their finances and cashflows. I don’t understand why you would not add flags or other marker when this is clearly recognised as a critical weakness by so many.
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Stuart Mohamed commented
Xero: " We're really interested to know if this is important to you, so please take the time to read this status update, click this link and add your vote/voice"
Also Xero: "We have got no plans to develop this idea anyway"
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Clare Grain commented
this is critical on the sales and bills side, I don't understand the point of the email as this has been going for a year to get this added and you have put on the email that you have no plans to add this to either side so it seems you are ignoring your customers regards a function that is so basic that even Sage has it?