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'

Hi community, we acknowledge the strong feelings in this idea and why you need a feature to flag bills directly within Xero. We really appreciate all your feedback and the detailed explanations of how this would help streamline your accounts payable.
We are dedicated to providing a solution for this over the longer term, but this will take some time requiring changes that sit beneath the face of bills.
In lieu of a direct feature for this we wanted to highlight some of the options discussed by the community here:
- Add a note to the bill: A detailed note on the bill itself can serve as a clear internal reminder of the dispute.
- Utilise tracking categories: Creating a specific tracking category like "Disputed Bills" can help you filter and report on these items.
- Adjust the due date: Temporarily extending the due date can prevent accidental payment while the dispute is being resolved.
- Update the reference to add a notation such as [reference number] - Do not pay
- Adjust the planned date to be very far out in the future
We know these options won't fit all needs here, and we are invested in continuing to develop Purchase and more specifically bills in Xero to suit your needs.
We'll continue to provide updates with any progress that steps closer to enabling you to flag bills that are in dispute in Xero. Thank you for continuing to engage and share insights through this idea.
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PAUL RABEY commented
Absolutely agree with Axis n the need to be able to include credit notes when paying in Find & Match.
An absolute pain in the neck at the moment.
Must be that Xero designers never have to use this feature themselves, otherwise it would have been sorted yonks ago. -
Gemma Foley commented
Agreed, Stuart, 100%. Why will Xero not listen? This is becoming really frustrating now, and you have so many unhappy customers. What will make you listen? When we have all moved to another provider, maybe? That's what it looks like is going to happen here unless you pull your fingers out and address our issue!
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Stuart Isbister commented
What would be transparent and informative Kelly is some insight into why 'bills list views' (which seems fine to me) and 'updating add/edit bill pages' (which again seems fine to me) should be prioritised over this much wanted but missing feature.
What I guess we'd love to know is if there is a TECHNICAL issue regarding it that we may not be aware of or something else. Given that we've all had to wait so long for this surely we deserve this? -
Antoinette Micallef commented
I have previously posted a review on Trustpilot listing everything that is not working, including the lack of customer service.
e.g. waiting a day for a response only to have to reply with a question, then waiting another day for a response. Asking for a call back and not receiving one.
I also mentioned the basic features that are missing.I have also placed a review on Product Review
https://www.productreview.com.au/listings/xero
This is an Australian-based, independent review site. -
Gemma Foley commented
Amazing Kerry! Hopefully, we will see some response. Solidarity works best!
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Kerry Ramsden commented
My Trustpilot Review:
Requests not being actioned by Xero.
I appreciate things take time however, requesting simple tweaks such as being able to flag Bills as in dispute/query are not being action despite numerous requests. Pointless having a request page if Xero do not action any!!! -
Axis Electrical Ltd commented
I would add that this is not the only issue that should be mentioned on Trustpilot if people are creating reviews. Another glaring issue is not being able to process Credit Notes in the Find & Match window or as part of a batch payment, they have to be manually allocated to invoices, before the Find & Match reconciliation option works. They simply don't show there...
It's been years since this was first flagged up, and no movement whatsoever from Xero.
Xero has been great at gaslighting us when there were compaints about the new invoicing ("we appreciate that sometimes change is hard, but we're confident that with the how-to guides everyone will be able to learn to use them". I'm paraphrasing but that was the gist of the response we received when the issues were flagged up. Not great!), but there have been no changes/progress to these requests for development which have hundreds of upvotes/comments on the forum... -
Gemma Foley commented
If you can all spare a moment to leave your own words on Trustpilot, it may have some impact. Currently, there are lots of positive reviews and no mention of this issue. C'mon Xero, the ball is in your court now!
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Kerry Ramsden commented
Well done Gemma
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Gemma Foley commented
My TrustPilot Review .....
Basic features not available!
A basic feature of accounting is to be able to flag bils (purchase invoices) to show they are in dispute and prevent them from being paid accidenty. For some reason, Xero doesn't have this. I have been involved in a thread on Xero's support pages for over a year with hundreds of comments from Xero users requesting this basic feature and Xero just doesn't respond. We can't operate a business without this feature, it makes life so difficult and tasks are so much longer. If this doesn't improve quickly, I will be moving to an alternative provider as they all offer this feature! Xero, listen to your customers before you lose them. Existing customers are just as important new ones! -
Gemma Foley commented
Ok so I am going to leave my comments on Trust Pilot. I think if we all do this, surely they will have to respond.
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Terri Williams commented
I can not understand why this was not part of the original build, business need to be able to flag items, invoices, bills.
Xero if you want to keep your customers you need to keep up with requests from them, there a few features missing from Xero that could massively help business keep better track of their finances.
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Kerry Ramsden commented
I totally agree with Chris Curlett, Xero will lose customers if they don't keep up with requests. We are already looking at other software.
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Antoinette Micallef commented
It seems that Xero will only respond to comments made on the Trustpilot website.
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Gemma Foley commented
How do we get a response from XERO???
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Clair Chapman commented
I would like to add my support for this idea. As we grow this becomes more of an issue, we want invoices posted to the ledger with the ability to flag as in dispute so that they don't accidentally get paid. At the moment we are working with 2 systems, one those invoices approved on xero and then separately a spreadsheet of invoices not yet posted as they are in dispute. Not ideal! We need an accounting system that can cope with this basic function please. i would suggest that this operational issue would be more important than improving the bill list view
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Fiona Mallion commented
Came on to add this as an idea only to see it's here already. Unbelievable that this isn't available having moved recently from Sage. Thank you for the work-arounds which I've just read through to help for now.
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Chris Curlett commented
With 1,100+ supporters, you would have thought XERO would be falling over themselves to get this done.
As usual, they ignore their customers' requests.
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Sara Martin commented
so i asked JAX how do i put a bill in query, and got back ...
Could you please clarify what you mean by "put a bill in query"? Are you looking to dispute a bill, record a bill, or something else?i responded with...query a bill and stop it being paid.... and got back ....
I can't complete the task as it's beyond my current capabilities. For more
details, visit About Just Ask Xero.it would seem it will always remain beyond Xero's capabilities as they just don't want to address this no matter how many complaints they get
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Gemma Foley commented
I resorted to commenting on their social media adverts yesterday. Nobody bothered to reply to my comment though :-(