New Invoicing - Reduce number of steps and clicks – Share and support customer ideas for Xero

New Invoicing - Reduce number of steps and clicks

New invoicing has introduced more clicks, taps, steps at almost every level.
Please remove the added friction as it increases processing time.

The "new invoicing" messages are full of comments regarding where these pressure points have been added.
We are paid subscribers, and beta testing/seeking feedback is wonderful, but being forced onto an inferior model is.. suboptimal.

748 votes

Damon O'Keefe shared this idea · Feb 5, 2024 · Report… · Admin →

working on it ·

AdminKelly Munro (Community Manager, Xero) responded · Oct 14, 2024

Hi everyone, some time on since my last update I wanted to give you more of an idea of the work we have going on to help reduce the number of steps and actions in new invoicing. Along with the changes mentioned in my last update, we've since released a change to the view of an invoice to shift details back into their own columns (similar to classic), while a small change we know it's improved visibility for some of our customers.

We also have other work in development atm that’ll further help here like a new line item grid when editing your invoice - wrapped up in this we’ll be introducing changes you’ve been asking for like the ability to create a new tracking option or account code without having to navigate away from the invoice, we’re increasing the number of items that you can view from the drop down, and we’ll be bringing back the ability to view the number of stock on hand.

As mentioned in my last post, our team is developing shortcuts for the drop down actions like Approve and Save so you have more ease of selecting the option that's best for you.

We also have some updates coming to;

The Contact card, so you’ll be able to add more details without having to go to the contact record, like more address lines, ability to look up addresses, and entering an Attention to all items we’ve heard lots of feedback on
Issue and Due date picking where we’ll make it quicker to simply select a calendar date and we’ll be adding more keyboard shortcuts such as the ability to enter +0 for today’s date
Ability to drag & drop files that we’re enhancing so you’ll be able to do this anywhere on the invoice rather than a specific area

Again, thank you all for sharing and continuing to let us know the improvements that make a difference for you when working with new invoicing. We'll update you as items I've mentioned above are released.

Show previous admin responses (5)

working on it ·

AdminKelly Munro (Community Manager, Xero) responded · Jul 11, 2024

Hi team, thank you to those that engaged our team through the research of the new invoicing layout. With help and input from you all we have released improvements to the layout of new invoicing that involves shifting the placement of some fields and buttons which has also helped to reduce white space and condense the view.
Hearing about the differing flows and how many customers enter data when invoicing has helped inform where fields and buttons are now placed, and in many cases helps speed up the entry of your invoicing data.
We’re continuing to explore improvements such as default options, keyboard entry of fields and pathways when adding additional options within the invoicing grid (such as Tracking, or Accounts), and we have individual ideas for these elements that we’d encourage you to join and support, which I’ve listed below.

New Invoicing – Remember default settings ( https://productideas.xero.com/forums/939198/suggestions/47702678 )
New Invoicing – Quick find Address ( https://productideas.xero.com/forums/939198/suggestions/47534831 )
New Invoicing – Select default for ‘Approve’ Button e.g not ’Approve & Email ( https://productideas.xero.com/forums/939198/suggestions/45438514 )
New Invoicing – Add new Tracking option ( https://productideas.xero.com/forums/939198/suggestions/47534477 )
New Invoicing – Move Save button to bottom of invoice like classic ( https://productideas.xero.com/forums/939198/suggestions/47767379 )
New Invoicing – Add Payment details on invoice screen ( https://productideas.xero.com/forums/939198/suggestions/47711537 )
New Invoicing | Files – Drag & drop anywhere on the page ( https://productideas.xero.com/forums/939198/suggestions/47785280 )

working on it ·

AdminKelly Munro (Community Manager, Xero) responded · May 17, 2024

Hi community, thank you for your continued engagement with us on how we can improve new invoicing for you here.

As we keep developing the experience any actions that include steps and clicks are front of mind for the team. Some more updates that help reduce steps since my last post;

You can now tab to select a highlighted contact and move through to the next field – related idea ( https://productideas.xero.com/forums/939198/suggestions/45527797 )
Create a new repeating template from a draft invoice – related idea ( https://productideas.xero.com/forums/939198/suggestions/47452973 )

Further to this our team are currently doing some work and have designs for a new layout that they’d like to get feedback on. We’d like to open this to our community and have created a form that you can sign up through ( https://feedback.xero.com/jfe/form/SV_czQpq8MIdCGEeyi ) ✍️- If you’d like to be involved please add your details and the team will be in touch.

Once the team’s work has concluded, and they’ve confirmed next steps I’ll come back to share more with you, here.

working on it ·

AdminKelly Munro (Community Manager, Xero) responded · Apr 15, 2024

Hi everyone, we assure you that our leadership and those that can make a difference to the new invoicing experience are aware of your comments and all the feedback of how we can improve this space for all our customers.
Product ideas here have been specifically designed so we can ensure we have a channel and are getting our customers feedback to the teams and people to consider, plan and prioritise change to impact and make a positive difference to our users experience in all our products. For example – every week all the feedback (every one of the comments) goes to the new invoicing team and has been read by leadership including our CPTO.

Individual personal details have been removed from commentary in this thread as it goes against part of our Community Guidelines ( https://www.xero.com/nz/support/community-guidelines/ ).

There are really important reasons why we must go forward with sunsetting classic invoicing and investing in the newer version if we want a product that will continue to serve your needs in the future as classic has too many technological limitations. The leadership from our board, through our c-suite and regional leadership teams know this is the only path forward to give you the features you’ve been asking for. We shared more on this in this blog ( https://blog.xero.com/product-updates/xero-invoicing-smarter-flexible-future/ ).

Since my last post there are other changes that have been made to enhance new invoicing, including;

the ability to attach a file from the files library,
being able to view files in a side by side view so you no longer have to click across to another tab,
automatically opening a new tab to take you to areas to add a new account, tracking category or tax rate, and
being given the option to mark an invoice as sent when printing.

All of which help reduce the number of clicks that you’d have to make for these actions.

We are continuing to explore more ways to reduce the clicks and steps required for other actions in new invoicing and will keep updating you on these here. You can keep up to date with ongoing updates and changes to new invoicing on this Xero Central ( https://central.xero.com/s/article/Xero-new-invoicing-releases ) hub.

working on it ·

AdminKelly Munro (Community Manager, Xero) responded · Apr 2, 2024

Hi community, we appreciate the efficiency businesses require in being able to create and enter their invoices. Since we first announced there are a few changes we’ve made to help reduce the steps and clicks involved in some of the actions throughout your invoicing process. This includes;

Adding a ‘bin’ icon to the end of line items so you can now delete a line in one click
Directly downloading an invoice when you click Print PDF, so you don’t have to navigate to another browser tab
Adding the prompt to send receipt to the confirmation note that’s shown once you add a payment to an invoice
Enabling the ability to see branding of an invoice, when viewing an invoice, rather than having to Edit

We know there is more that can be done to enhance this space and there’s more change on the horizon, like improving keyboard navigation and more shortcuts. As this work continues I’ll share more with you here.

submitted ·

AdminPaul Hodges (Admin, Xero) responded · Feb 7, 2024

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Stuart Brown commented · February 7, 2024 11:01 PM · Report

NEW invoicing is not good for me for many reasons. I will be forced to move my invoking away from Xero if you choose to implement only New Invoicing. And if that’s the case, I’ll move my accounting away too (as my Accountant is not a Xero fan). Up to you Xero.

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Mark Larrington commented · February 7, 2024 9:55 PM · Report

New invoicing is awful. 👎

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Caroline Sweby commented · February 7, 2024 9:54 PM · Report

Totally agree with this. Do not make the inputting of invoices and payments so difficult. Classic invoicing works so do not remove it. Listen to your users or I will have to consider changing software for all my clients.

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Julia Berry commented · February 7, 2024 9:34 PM · Report

Please listen to your users. So many people are sounding unhappy with the new Invoicing. User experience is everything and the New Invoicing lacks many critical features, is slower to use, requires more mouse clicks and navigation and slows down what should be a seamless process. Xero please attend to these issues before rolling out the new version.

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Richie Farrell commented · February 7, 2024 11:43 AM · Report

Not having the customers address visible once the invoice is updated has added an extra step for us now as we are having to click on the customer to see if it is the same as the address attended.

Also an extra step in having to click 'send me a copy' for each invoice before it is emailed.

Not a fan of New Invoicing. Let's hope they bring back some of the features from classic. Oh and while I'm at it................an option to charge interest on accounts would be super useful.

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Kreeta Kasempiyarom commented · February 5, 2024 5:37 PM · Report

I would like to add feedback to the new invoicing as well. First of all, this is appearing to be a classic case of over-engineering. Making things more complicated than necessary without adding any immediate benefit for the added complication. Here are a few things I'd like to add specifically:

1. Everything is too huge. I don't know what screen resolution the programmers have (probably some UHD screen), but for most accounts who use standard 1080p screens, everything is massive which results in text getting cut off, or zooming out required. Why?

2. Copy and paste no longer seems to work in the "PRICE" field. WHAT?! For a user base that deals in high amounts of data entry, how can you disable pasting into the invoice? You want to force everyone to manually key in every single number? That's completely unreasonable. I hope that is just a glitch, and not intentional.

3. Can we please get line-item counting. Sometimes we just need to know how many line items are in an invoice and having to manually count 50 lines of entries is such a pain in the butt and often results in errors. Just a simple "1, 2, 3"option at the beginning of the new line item would be tremendously helpful and a feature actually useful.

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