Batch payments - Ability to include credit notes
Allow the inclusion of Credit Notes in Batch Payments where the total to be paid to a supplier is still positive. This would allow a single batch for a Supplier to match their Statement, particularly where credit notes are not related to specific Bills.

Hi everyone, we appreciate wanting to hear from us on this idea and apologies for not commenting sooner. I can assure you this has not gone unnoticed and internally there have been reviews and discussions for how batch payments can be improved. We have the appetite, but as with all developments this must be weighed up and considered against many other important changes needed in product.
We want to be upfront that developing the ability to include Credit notes in Batch payments has not been planned at this stage.
As some may have seen, we do have work going on around being able to include Credit Notes as part of the reconciliation process. We understand for many on this idea the timing of including credit notes when you’re creating the batch payments is crucial, however we hope that when delivered at least being able to reconcile these more efficiently may improve the process for some customers.
We appreciate wanting to see developments, and while this update doesn’t signal the movement you’re hoping for right now, if there is any progress to share we’ll definitely update all of you through the idea here.
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Lisa Winchester commented
Timely, just as I'm about to pay the suppliers for the month and waste my time allocating credits to random invoices so I can do a batch payment 😡 what a joke. This is a critical accounting feature, sort your priorities out Xero!!
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Mel Fenemore commented
Well this was an expected response!!
Maybe if a little less money was invested into making already functional areas of the programme substandard (lets not get onto a rant about the new invoicing!) then this wouldn't actually be a drama to arrange.
Remittances are all but useless! I guess with the credit notes being part of the reconcilliation process you could wait until the next day when transaction has been pulled through from the bank, reconcile with the incorrect date, then raise a remittance from there? Far from perfect and I am so fed up of trying to find work arounds for a so called accounts package that can't provide the simplest of functions!
Thankfully unlike Kelly has suggested in other responses I have no issue with changes and the only improvement change I can see right now is considering another package - Sage are proving to be incredibly helpful and whilst they were always behind on cloud accounting they appear to have really upped their game!
Inflated costs for a worse product - no thank you! -
Chris Curlett commented
XERO Product Development team must have a KPI of how many customers they drive away because of them! If so they will be doing very well to meeting there KPI.
Don't blame you Shev. Also have a look at Infusion Business Software if you are in NZ or Australia.
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Shev Lizzard commented
I can't believe this still hasn't been implemented. Remittances are always being queried as underpayments because they can't be included in the batch process.
Seriously might go back to Sage at this rate!
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Chris Curlett commented
Andrew, you should be running the Product Development Team or perhaps organising a training session for them.
Certainly, there current manager is well sub-par!
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Andrew J commented
Xero team, you could fix this quickly by allowing a negative value on an invoice.
Then a credit can be processed as a negative value invoice - allowing perfectly acceptable batch payments.
Or you could allow a negative invoice to be called a something a little more normal, like perhaps 'a credit'.
Allowing negative value invoices (aka credits... shhhhh.) would take a fairly short time. If you made this an option that had to be manually turned on in settings, it might take a bit longer... maybe 30 days and 180 cups of coffee. -
Alison Langdon commented
Yet another great reason to look for a proper accounting package. If we just wanted a cashbook, we would have purchased a cashbook!
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Karen Power commented
Why have batch payments at all, if you cannot use them to their fullest, ie applying credits as well? There is no point in having my suppliers Invoices synced with Xero if I cannot pay them in one batch, with credits applied!
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Cindy How commented
This would be a great feature and save a lot of time. Especially when the credit notes do not apply to any of the outstanding invoices.
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Adrian Soden commented
It seems to a complete waste of time logging these ideas, for example, the idea for the ability to include supplier credit notes within a supplier payment (a basic requirement) has been on this board since 2020 and has 680 votes, yet not one response from Xero.
Xero, can you comment on why this is being ignored, or will you just ignore this? If you keep ignoring your customers you are going to lose them. I suggest you spend less on TV adverts and more on software development.
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Paul Berry commented
Thanks Anita,
That looks a really useful link!
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Anita | Botham's of Whitby commented
Yes, Paul Berry, we have moved to using Nook for our batch payments, as in Xero you couldn't bulk send a remittance to all the suppliers in the batch. Clicking each one was just silly. Nook has helped us a lot - but haven't tried it for adding credits yet.
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Adrian Soden commented
Does anyone from Xero even read these messages? I suspect not. We have literally been waiting years for this to be fixed without a single comment from Xero - appalling service.
As an aside,, some of you may want to take a look in the the plugin allocat.io (I am in no way affiliated) - this allows you to automatically apply credits with one click, being in an industry with high volumes of supplier credits this has saved me hours. It works the same as Xero, ie clears down the credits and invoices they have been applied to so not perfect, but just speeds up the manual process in Xero. Ideally Xero would allow you to pay invoices and credits in one batch but this is the best workaround I can find for now, hope this helps some of you. -
Paul Berry commented
The other issue is now Xero have rolled out this ‘super duper’ batch payment feature where you can pay all suppliers in one go and their physical payments, it doesn’t work if the supplier has a credit note. You have to go through and allocate every credit note first.
But hey ho, what do we all know?! AI q&a is clearly more important and changing the invoicing system for something not fit for purpose.
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Alison Kiddier commented
I have been waiting for this to happen since starting with Xero in 2020. All other accounting systems have this enabled. For our company not being able to include Credit notes in a payment run and having to take each one separately can add valuable time to what should be a quick and easy execution of allocating and making payments. This is in my opinion a critical service.
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Adrian Dirks-Pinto commented
We need this feature. It would save so many hours. It is crucial for our business.
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Anthony Haworth commented
Just thought I would share with others on here, the other way of taking credits that we have to do, because allocating the credit to random invoices and how that appears on the remittance has caused us lots of issues with suppliers, also sometimes we get a massive credit and are unable to allocate it to a single invoice. Applying it to several is messy and confusing for the suppliers.
1. On Bill payments we runs the batch we want to pay and export that to Excel. When you do this we some times find that in this process invoices or credits can be duplicated so you need to check. When we have our batch of invoices and credits, we edit/delete columns we don't need and make this our remittance. Pay off all the invoices as normal in that batch leaving the credits.
2. Credits, From the remit, I go to each credit individually as you would if allocating the credit, but instead of allocating the credit to an in invoice, we pay the credit off in the "Make a Payment" section underneath the credit detail. We complete the 4 fields, "Amount Paid", "Date" , "Paid From" and "Reference", this pays the credit off and then becomes available to allocate to one the payment has been made.
3. Pay all the credits in this manner using the same reference for each one and the batch payment of the invoices. When allocating the payment search the Ref you used in "Find and Match" making sure you have "show received items" ticked. This will then bring up all your credits paid and the batch invoices too. Select all of these and that should match your payment.
We have to do this for a big suppliers as allocating 30-50 credit notes to random invoices does not work with the remittance and ends up causing issues. The Excel sheet becomes the remit for them to work from.
I wouldn't say this saves time. But if you are dealing with bigger batches of invoices and credits, it may be better if you are find your suppliers are having issues. Its a work round I wish we did not need.
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Anthony Haworth commented
This has to be a critical implementation, our business works in retail and deal with a huge amount of credit notes. For some off our suppliers 40/50 a month and it takes so much time to either apply the credits to an invoice (which is confusing for the supplier on the remit) or to individually take each invoice and apply it to the payment after. Honestly its the worst aspect of Xero, any other accounts software i have used you could pay Credits and Invoices in the same batch. If you are aiming to keep scaling Xero up for bigger businesses this has to be a key change and as it is it probably works fine for self employed or small businesses, who dont handle the volume of invoices and credits of larger businesses. I cant stress how much time we spend dealing with credits when it comes to making payments!
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Lexi Chassiotis commented
Xero support - please listen and fix. Any other accounting program has this ability as they understand credits can come after.
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Sandi Bluck commented
Fully support this idea!
In my business I often receive a credit note well after I have paid the invoice it relates to. I then have to apply the credit to a current invoice, which reduces its amount to be paid, and does not therefore match the supplier's statement details. Wonky accounting!
It should stay as a negative on the supplier account and be selected in the Batch Payment stage.
Would be great to see this developed. Many thanks.