Bills to Pay - Ability to filter by Contact Group
Xero is very limited by only allowing 200 invoices to show on the page on the awaiting payment screen - a filter to exclude some clients based on the client type would be helpful
e.g. creating a client type for direct debit payments would help reduce the number of invoices.
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Katie Redman
commented
YES!!
We need to be able to add a column to show Contact Groups as well as filter by particular Contact Group(s).
We have a similar situation to the OP - certain suppliers have different payment schedules. We need to be able to filter them out of the bills list so we pay them at the appropriate time & with the appropriate method.
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Accounts Accounts
commented
Hello, yes. The field can also automatically blocked supplier (invoices) for payments so somebody doesn't pay it in error.
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Gemma Clark
commented
Description / Problem Statement:
When reviewing bills under Purchases > Bills > Awaiting Payment, there is currently no way to easily see whether the contact (supplier) belongs to a specific Contact Group.
Contact Groups are useful for organising suppliers (e.g. utilities, critical vendors, IT providers), but this information is only visible by opening each contact record individually. This makes it time‑consuming to identify priority suppliers or segment bills during payment reviews.
Proposed Enhancement:
Introduce either:
An optional column that displays the Contact Group(s) a supplier belongs to, and/or
An additional filter allowing users to filter bills by Contact Group directly from the Awaiting Payment screen.This column/filter would follow the existing pattern used for other contextual information displayed in the Bills grid.
Example Use Cases:
Quickly identify bills from critical or priority suppliers before running payments
Separate utilities or direct debit suppliers from discretionary spend
Speed up internal review and approval processes without opening individual contact records
Improve visibility for finance teams managing a high volume of suppliersUser Benefit:
This would reduce manual effort, improve efficiency, and make Contact Groups more actionable in day‑to‑day workflows — particularly during payment runs and cashflow management.
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emma avia
commented
Display Supplier Contact Group under the Bills to Pay screen is a really useful enhancement—it makes managing vendor communication much more organized and efficient. Having quick access to supplier details right where payments are handled saves time and reduces errors. A small feature like this can significantly improve workflow and productivity.
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Lisa Mulder
commented
We have assigned our supplier contacts into "how they are paid" groups which allows Aged Payables reporting by payment type, it would be so useful to be able to filter by group in the purchases - awaiting payment screen, and also be able to add the column "group" into the screen. This would make filtering by EFT suppliers, and exclude suppliers invoices that are paid by Direct Debit or Credit Cards etc.
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Andy Evans
commented
There's another thread requesting this functionality that's more recent and has a response from Xero dated Jul 30, 2025. It may help if folk would comment on that thread too. Here's the link: https://productideas.xero.com/forums/939198-for-small-businesses/suggestions/50205531-display-supplier-contact-group-under-bills-to-pa
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Fiona MacDonald
commented
In most large ERP's a supplier/vendor group allows a selection of payments to be made. For a number of our businesses, we need to pay Food and Beverage on particular days. We manage everything using Contact Groups, but in the Make a Payment screen, contact group isn't a filter. Would be a game changer if that was a field to filter by.
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Rebecca Milligan
commented
This is pretty usual for accounts payable systems to be able to group suppliers by payment type to eliminate Direct Debit vendors being picked up in an EFT payment run.
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Bex Clark
commented
Yes please, needed for cash planning and cash flow especially with DD groups
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Julie Richardson
commented
"Xero is very limited by only allowing 200 invoices to show on the page on the awaiting payment screen"
Totally agree, I have to split my payment run into several batches due to this....
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Csilla Farkasfalvi
commented
Xero is very limited by only allowing 200 invoices to show on the page on the awaiting payment screen - a filter to exclude some clients based on the client type would be helpful
e.g. creating a client type for direct debit payments would help reduce the number of invoices. -
Paula Banner
commented
Yes it would be very helpful for cash planning and cash flow
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Andy Evans
commented
I just noticed that this product idea was raised over 2 years ago and has only gathered 64 votes as of now, which is really surprising. I would have though all business would need a way to filter bills for payment planning.
As mentioned by others, being able to filter out suppliers that are on Direct Debit for example is really important; We've had suppliers accidentally paid twice because of this. Also, being able to group and filter suppliers that we want to pay by Credit Card, Amex and a whole bunch of other available payment methods would be a massive time saver and reduce the risk of them being paid by the wrong method (which can often result in higher costs or missing out on discounts etc).
This is another example of where it feels like Xero's developers don't really understand or listen to how real businesses operate and the tools and features that they really need, focusing instead on glossy changes to the user interface that don't really add value to the end user.
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Sarah Tulip
commented
We can't get away from managing clients cash in spreadsheets until we can filter out things like direct debits or payments made by card links. These still need to be scheduled but there are always clashes. The payments reports are so much better now but the larger companies have exceptions
The groupings is a fabulous idea, but no use at all for us unless it can be one of the filters in bills payable -
Helen Reid
commented
Yes please, needed for cash planning and cash slow especially with DD groups
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Helen Reid
commented
yes, please this would be really helpful for cash planning
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Sally Bedder
commented
this would help manage the weekly payments / cashflow a lot easier
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Sally Bedder
commented
more filter options would be helpful
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Andy Evans
commented
There's another thread requesting this product idea: https://productideas.xero.com/forums/939198-for-small-businesses/suggestions/46322308-bills-to-pay-ability-to-filter-by-contact-group
The ability to filter Bills for payment by contact group would be really helpful / time saving. In our case, we have a contact group set up for suppliers that will accept payment by Credit Card. It would be so helpful if we could filter by this group when doing our payment runs so we have a list on screen of just those in the Pay by Credit Card group.
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Andy Evans
commented
The ability to filter Bills for payment by contact group would be really helpful / time saving. In our case, we have a contact group set up for suppliers that will accept payment by Credit Card. It would be so helpful if we could filter by this group when doing our payment runs so we have a list on screen of just those bills we are going to pay by card.