Bills - Flag a Bill as 'in dispute / query'
Ability to flag individual bills as in dispute
Purpose | To enable review and ensure the business does not make payment for a bill when it's currently 'under query'

We appreciate wanting to see more rapid movement, everyone. Having done a lot of exploration into this area our team have a good handle on the needs to solve this, however we want to be honest that development will be some time away with the team currently focused on improving bills list views and updating add/edit bill pages. For the time being to keep you up to date we're going to move this idea back to Submitted until more active work takes place for this.
I can assure you this idea is the best place to be leaving feedback for this feature, and Xero Product Ideas as a whole is the best place to be sharing where you'd like to see change across Xero products. As a community team we're advocating on your behalf constantly to see where ideas can be worked on, and this site is where our product teams regularly come to better understand and see where they can develop solutions for our customers alongside other priorities they're balancing. You'll see in many places we're beginning to see how we can get our community members more involved in research and testing for ideas early on in the development process.
As soon as there is more news around the teams work in this space we will be back to share this with you all, here.
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Karen Coppen commented
Like others, I can't believe this isn't a function available. A really necessary feature when paying suppliers at end of month be be able to see any bills that are in dispute/waiting a credit so that they do not get paid accidentally. I run an aged payables detail report to pay suppliers and it surely must be fairly straight forward to develop a column showing a bill on STOP .
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Greer Williams commented
The ability to put a flag or star next to a bill within the 'Bills to Pay' list would be so helpful!!
My ideal time for use would be when I'm awaiting a credit note to come in for the invoice - the bill needs to be entered, but I don't want to pay it when it becomes due as I'm waiting for the credit note to arrive. If the credit note isn't here when the bills is due, then it's time for me to follow up with the supplier!
As so many others have said - why isn't this feature already here!? A simple 'flag this invoice' button with an optional notes section is all that's required (in my opinion, anyway). Given the complexity of Xero I feel like this addition would not be that hard... but I don't do software development so what would I know 😂🤷♀️
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Helen Wilkins commented
Does anyone know how to unfollow this idea? I am fed up of all the emails when It doesn't look like Xero will ever respond
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Luke Abbott commented
Unfortunately Yazz, there clearly is no threshold. It is becoming abundantly clear to all users of this forum that Xero have no intention of listening to what their customers want. They develop the "beautiful" things they fancy developing. Why else are there a number of items marked as "working on it" or "under review" that simply only have 4 or 5 votes to them, whilst this one (and countless others) have 100s!
The best part about this whole forum is the daily emails I get from it on all the topics I've voted on, reminding me that so many others are in the same boat, and that if I finally give up waiting for Xero to respond there are hundreds of others who might like to join me in obtaining a group discount from Sage or Quickbooks 😂
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Yazz Bhatti commented
I would like to know the threshold Xero has for votes before an idea is accepted as something they are willing to even consider working on.
There are countless things that Xero could do better, instead they're focussed on beautification projects that do nothing but break the consistency of the software.
Can someone from Xero support answer this simple question?
What is the threshold of votes before Xero deems an idea or feature request as something to be considered?
Do we have to badger your CEO Sukhinder Cassidy's office for a response?
Is your CEO even aware that there are glaring holes in basic functionality that your software should have but doesn't and that can't be solved with a third party plugin?
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Liz Timms commented
This is another function I am surprised is not available in Xero.
I would like to understand the reason behind Xero not planning to develop it at this time, it would be helpful if they could provide more information.
It is important to have all purchase invoices reflected in the accounts from a finanacial perspecitive, but the ability to inadvertently pay a disputed invoice is concerning.
Other accounts packages I use hmanage to handle this. Come on Xero - listen to your users
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Louise Hutton commented
I cannot believe this feature has not already been developed!
I would be interested to see how the voting buttons above have been used - I went for critical.
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Emma Rosenblatt (Accounts) commented
Please update us on the status. It has been a year...
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Yubi Sah commented
Kelly I think is an important feature to have and quite surprised with how Xero is trying to ignore one of the highest-voted thread
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Yazz Bhatti commented
The assumption is that Xero cares what its users want.
For the most part Xero software works, it has a myriad of peculiarities which should have been ironed out and features should be easily added to the system. This also assumes their developers created some modularity in their system in such a manner as to allow these kinds of changes without rewriting whole sections of code. They clearly haven't. This must be why there is often resistance to them making changes.
For example, I recently took one of the Xero support staff on a guided tour of how I have to reconcile payments. I want references on the account sheet - but it won't pull them through. So there is a workaround but it is far from elegant nor is it quick. The advisor then understood that reconciliation can sometimes take half an hour - whereas if the system worked the way it should, it would take maybe 5-10 minutes.
They don't care and until people stop using the software, they won't take notice.
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Vanessa Atkinson commented
It's a basic function which should already be there, critical to be able to identify bills where payment is being withheld.
Being able to check a box for payments by DD would also be invaluable.
I don't understand how they're not there as standard.
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Nicola Boylin commented
This would be a good addition please. I do not understand why this is an option for sales invoices but not for purchase invoices. Acknowledging a bill on the system helps to ensure financial figures are more accurate - but a facility to mark as a dispute would help to ensure bills are not paid prematurely.
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Aktan Hodger commented
what would also be great if this was implemented , is that if the invoice is in dispute or being queried , that from a vat point of view the relevant report can be generated to ensure that these types of invoices this can also be tracked.
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Julie Sutton commented
Users have been asking for this basic functionality for a long time yet Xero choose to continue to blatantly ignore the issue along with other basic requirements despite users asking - really don't see the point of these "ideas" as Xero ignore basically all of them. Even if they gave time frame it would be something .. but nothing!
ANY RESPONSE FROM A XERO EMPLOYEE ??
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Chris Curlett commented
XERO SEEM TO TREAT USERS WITH CONTEMPT. They ask for what the user wants, then when there are 100’s of votes for something, Xero just ignores the request. Their concern seems to be just window dressing.
Users who have shares in Xero should ask about this in General Business at their AGM
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Yazz Bhatti commented
Xero have already stated that they have no plans to develop this at this time. Read that as "Xero will not develop this, ever"
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Rebecca Rotheram commented
Why has no one from XERO commented on this since Nov 2022? It is the third top suggestion in terms of votes. Comments weekly. What is the point in inputting suggestions if xero just ignores them.
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Sandra Hamer commented
PLEASE add this feature, make our lives easier
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Kevin Holland commented
567 people are needing to flag bills and xero's response is a bland " this is not something we have plans to develop at this time." no explanation. Just basically another 2 fingers to the user. Leaving us undervalued and and uninformed. Why not add teh feature? Why not add features that have been left on these logs for 10 years!! Xero as a company are so frustrating
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Julie Sutton commented
Chris Curlett - not in Xero but you may want to look at EzzyBills which has approval workflows in place. INvocie wont be in Xero until fully approved though - Have to pay for it but it does integrate with Xero ....
Invoice wont be in Xero and so not visible though until approved in EB so not so great for reporting