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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Julia Bastin commented
Arnis - Totally agree and Sage had this flag functionality decades ago!! It's a basic requirement for any accounting package. Why Xero seems to think it unnecessary I fail to understand.
COME ON XERO, WAKE UP AND LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS. -
Arnis Veisbergs commented
Just received price increase notification.... Really Xero?
Will & Lorna - I had used Sage for over 10 years before this and would say it's a far superior product and is also cheaper (even before the latest price hike).
I'm currently looking into moving our 70+ project companies over to Sage -
Stuart Mohamed commented
I was a Sage dinosaur, and came to Xero because my director had his ‘head turned’.
At the time Sage was being left behind in their field, but I think they have done a lot of work on their package recently and I wonder if it is worth another look now.
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Lorna Fraser commented
I totally agree @Will Broome. Xero are way off the mark with understanding their customers. Charging more, reducing the functionality, making our lives more and more difficult each day!
I would also like to know any good package that also handles multi currency.
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Will Broome commented
Well there's your answer if you're in the UK : Check your email.
Xero pricing changes in the United Kingdom
They have to pay for their coffees - s**t advertising and World Cup sponsorship somehow.
Anyone know a good package out there that can handle :
Accounting
PO's
Quotes
Products in to a database in order to create quotes.I would rather pay more now than stay with a company that clearly doesn't value it's customers - the only way they will listen!
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Nicola Wilson commented
I am absolutely amazed that Xero want our opinions but at the same time ignore our needs. All programs I have worked on have the ability to put purchase invoices on hold except Xero.
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Krish Thiya commented
Very Very Important- We must record the cost for monthly accounts, but it's essential to hold off on making the payment until the issue with the subcontractor is resolved. This is particularly important when dealing with multiple subcontractors. Keeping the payment as a draft can lead to inaccuracies in our books, and it may affect the accuracy of our monthly accounts
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Gill March commented
Please add this as a matter of urgency. So important.
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Will Broome commented
Collis - exactly what most long term users have been saying for 5 years or more... there is no two way communication or listening exercise with Xero. It's their way or no way.
The truth of the matter is we're all mugs for continuing to pay monthly for a sub standard product...
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Collis Marrett commented
After reading the comments on this thread, what I don't understand is why Xero even bothers with this forum. It's very clear they don't want to listen to their customers. Time to start looking at alternative suppliers methinks.
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Janice Mcgrother commented
Why Xero are you not going to develop this? It is a fundamental part of the purchase ledger procedure. We need to be able to see bills on hold or under dispute with a reason code or something. As per previous posters comments, it is all too easy, especially for a larger company with several staff to pay bills under dispute if there is nothing there to indicate they are! There seems to be no comment from Xero since November 2022. You asked for a clearer understanding. Surely the amount of comments and explanations would sway you to actually take action on this!!
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Melanie Sullivan commented
Arnis - total agree and posted following on your thread:
I am struggling to understand why when requested by so many that XERO does not even think it is worth investigating being able to dispute bills, a very basic requirement of an accounting system. Today this has caused problems with a supplier, when a junior accounting person promised payment for a bill that is in dispute. Fortunately long standing relationships have resolved this, but what if this was not the case? I'd be interested to know on what basis it has been reviewed, analysed, and deemed not a priority by product team. -
Andy Aplin commented
At the moment, the only way to track all bills and recognise ALL liabilities is to add the bills/credit notes in draft and send them for approval, and then post a journal at the time of preparation of accounts, i.e. monthend or yearend..
("Send for Approval". That's a joke as nothing is sent, not even an email to the approver to advise them that a bill is awaiting approval.)
The bill then sits in Awaiting Approval, but no posting is made to the P&L, Balance Sheet or VAT Return. It is fundamental to ALL good accounting practice to recognise liabilities as they arise, not as they are approved.
I wonder how Xero account for disputed bills in their accounts. Maybe they use another accounting package!!!
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Julie Sutton commented
I've commented too - and also mentioned about not being able to include credit notes in a payment run and having to allocate credit notes to totally random unrelated invoices
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Chris Conroy commented
Good idea, Arnis, I've added my comment, think we should all do it!
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Arnis Veisbergs commented
I'm wondering if Xero now has a "clearer understanding" of this.
Looks pretty clear to me. You have 326 votes on the old thread and 471 on the current saying that this is a highly required feature.I have added a comment on LinkedIn in hope that it might attract some positive traction.
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7082476364972363776/
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Louise Fletcher-Jones commented
Please can you add an "on hold" function in bills, as others have said, this is a fundamental basic requirement in AP.
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Lorna Fraser commented
Elre - very good idea!!
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Elre Woods commented
Maybe we should all take to social media and see what Xero does then?
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Lorna Fraser commented
No update on this from admin even though everyone is making so clear how important this is! Xero seem to be way off the mark with understanding their customer base/ users needs.