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I just can't help thinking, if a small third party company can intergrate the email address solution so easily and simply (but at a cost of course) why can't Xero do it? Hello Xero!! Wake up.

This might be one of the worst things about Xero.

This is really important for us as the generic email address the letters come from is often rejected by clients email servers. This is not the first time this has happened, however, this time around there has been significantly more clients affected resulting in more work for us phoning clients who have not paid.

This is causing headaches and significant amount of downtime sorting out. Needs to be addressed ASAP

XPM - need ability to change email address that system emails are sent from e.g Tax payment letters

We have been caught for Terminal Tax letters where gmail has either filed client terminal tax letters to Junk or rejected them completely and now clients have overdue tax payments. This has created a lot of unnessary work for the team, clients phoned etc and the clients are unhappy as they have received penalties and interest.

We’ve successfully integrated with this( https://www.calcvat.uk ), and everything is now working perfectly. The developers were fantastic to work with, and the solution is simple, elegant, and effective. Return mail paths are functioning correctly, and no emails are being sent from the generic Xero addresses anymore. The pricing is reasonable for us, and clients who send hundreds of invoices each month are also integrating this solution. This issue with insecure email had been a frustration for years, and Xero’s lack of response made it even more challenging.

Hope this helps!

Alex

If this is not resolved I think you will see a decline of subscriptions, Please take note of your customers needs not your profit margins. A company the size of xero cannot be marked as spam,
imagine if every google search of your business came up at potential unsafe are you sure you want to proceed.

"That being the case, this is why we need Xero to climb down off the fence, and start writing some code....."

Exactly. Third party add-ons are NOT as solution. We pay $560/year for Xero and this is totally basic web service functionality. Nobody should have to rely on paid third party apps or browser extensions to make this work.

@David Nabarro

I presume that your Browser extension is not going to work with automated Invoice Reminders.

That being the case, this is why we need Xero to climb down off the fence, and start writing some code.....

After experiencing the same spam issues, I built SendIQ (https://sendiq.co), a simple browser extension that sends Xero documents from your actual company email with delivery, opens and click tracking.

It works directly within Xero's interface, requires no technical setup, and maintains all Xero functionality including payment links.

Currently in early access with a free trial if anyone wants to try it while we wait for Xero to implement this natively.

We integrated with https://www.xeroemail.com and it now works perfectly. The developers were great to deal with, it's simple and elegant, return mail paths are working and nothing now goes out from the generic xero email addresses. The pricing for us is good and for clients who send hundreds of invoices per month are also integrating. This had frustrated us for years and XERO constantly did not respond to a massive issue with insecure email.

Hope this helps.

David

Lack of mail authentication support (SPF/DKIM/DMARC) is significant enough for me to strongly recommend against Xero to anyone considering it.

We now use https://xeroemail.com and it integrates easily and works perfectly, where all mail goes out from our domain with replies coming back to our domain. The developer KALPVAIG has been awesome explaining everything and it is now in production with our first batch of email going out as we always wanted them to work and XERO never developed this ability in-house. It was deemed too costly and inconvenient to move away from XERO currently and the XEROEmail alternative was setup in 15 min. It's got our vote !

I'm just adding another alternative to Xero that supports custom domain emails for those that need it: Quickfile. So far, I've confirmed the following products support this feature

Sage
FreeAgent
Quickbooks
Quickfile
Zoho books

So there's at least five alternative options.

" and even if they DID, they would not know how to talk a client through REMOVING the address from the Spam list."

And that assume they can even do that. We have institutional clients (universities, schools, museums, libraries), where that can only be done by IT. If they've decided you're spam good luck getting them to change that. Especially when actual spammers have used post.xero.com to send phishing emails that purport to come from legitimate companies. I've received some of these myself.

Most people do not know why their invoices are being ignored by clients. They won't realise that they have been marked as Spam, and even if they DID, they would not know how to talk a client through REMOVING the address from the Spam list.

Bear in mind that Xero is only really suitable for small companies, because of a lack of multiple delivery addresses, dept email addresses. and MANY other functions.

Most invoices are therefore going to private individuals, who could be using multiple different email providers , Gmail, Yahoo, Apple, OutLook, Virgin, TalkTalk, etc etc . I have NO IDEA how to De-SPAM an address on any of these platforms.

Domain email is supported by most other accounts offerings out there. Xero - You need to catch up FAST.....

For me, this should be a critical part of the system.

A fair number of Xero users wouldn't even know that the reason their invoices / statements are hitting recipients' junk folders is down to SPF/DMARC/DKIM.

For that reason, I would say that gauging user interest here won't help, because most users won't know what they need. It's only those "in the know" who would end up on this forum post.

Prioritising this in the development cycle would be very helpful, for Xero themselves as much as their customers.

This is by far our biggest pain point in Xero and it's ludicrous that this isn't an immediate priority for development. Close to 1/3 of our invoices from messaging-service@post.xero.com get marked as spam, so we're constantly having to chase customers for payment. We use outside services for automatic reminders and statements, but by the time the customer receives those emails, the invoice is already overdue. We are seriously looking at moving to Sage. We've been with Xero for 15 years, but we are completely fed up with the huge longstanding holes in the product. Their developers spend all their time on things that nobody asked for and didn't need fixing. Beyond frustrated.

I see some recommendations for Zoho books below.

If you're looking for alternatives that support the ability to send invoices from your own domain, take a look at
Sage
FreeAgent
Quickbooks

They all have SPF, DKIM and DMARC support.

Part of the problem is that Xero's sales strategy is to sell through accounting firms. They get accounting firms to switch over and take their clients with them. So they only care about requests from accounting firms.

So if you're looking for an accountant, try to avoid ones that only offer Xero support if you can and explain why to any accountants you choose not to do business with. If you're not up for the hassle of switching accountants, put pressure on your accountant to support other platforms.

FreeAgent offers this functionality for users who are confident editing their DNS settings. It also provides the option to use the default @freeagent sending address for those who aren’t. Stripe invoicing via their platform offers the same.

Why are we still waiting for this, Xero?