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Xero has the facility to look up UK addresses by postcode when entering new contacts etc.

Unfortunately it usually makes a such a mess of the address, I end up editing it all again anyway!

• UK Postcode lookups can return a Company Name (e.g. if there are multiple companies registered at the same address.) Xero adds this company name again to the address. In our case, that is a duplicate of the Contact name, so we take that out to avoid it appearing twice.

• UK Postal counties are obsolete and should no longer be used in postal addresses. Royal Mail stopped using counties years ago, and stopped providing it in the postcode data. If you use their postcode/address finder today, https://www.royalmail.com/find-a-postcode - the address returned never includes a county. (Their idea of what a county is, and the "actual" county were often two entirely different things: over the years, the boundaries of various counties changed, some counties were abolished, but good old Royal Mail never updated the counties for their purposes!)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_counties_of_the_United_Kingdom

• Examples:

1. IG11 7BB : Xero returns "Essex" as the "State", duplicates the house number in the Road name, puts "GBR" in the Country. All this has to be fixed up.

(Barking, IG11 is in Greater London and has not been in the county of Essex since 1965!)

1. EC1V 2NX , E14 3JB, many others... Xero returns City: London, State: "Middlesex"

Greater London isn't really a county. Middlesex was abolished in 1965 - most became part of London with other towns going to other counties.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Government_Act_1963

Although people sometimes still like to write the county in their addresses, they are no longer needed, and the post counties were just adding to the confusion, hence why they were dropped.

1. KT5 8LS - SURBITON. Xero returns "Surrey". It used to be in Surrey before 1965, but is today in the borough of Kingston (Greater London). No Surrey needed! Again duplicates the flat/house name in the road name. So we get: "Flat XX, 121 Chiltern Drive, Flat XX"

2. KT6 5JE - SURBITON. This IS in the administrative county of Surrey, but you don't need the county on the address. No Surrey needed! (Sorry, Surrey!)