New Invoicing - Reduce the amount of empty space on screen
Have less white space on new invoicing as it fills screen. The notes section which is in contacts 4000 chars make visable and editable on the new invoice page so we can see it whilst creating and invoice. We dont then have to keep jumping from one page to the next.
Thanks to everyone that participated in and shared back on the team’s research in the new invoicing layout. Taking your feedback on board our teams have made some improvements to the layout of new invoicing, including changes to the layout of fields and buttons.
By rearranging and condensing space between fields, you’ll find there is less white space than previously shown, making it easier to navigate and tab through fields when entering your invoices.
We’re actively looking into changes within the invoicing grid that’ll go further to condensing information on the screen and reducing actions when entering your invoices. We’ll update as there is more information to share on this.
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Emily Aspden commented
Old invoicing worked just fine, allowed for speedy working, was intuitive and efficient.
New invoicing is clunky beyond belief.
I echo my comment on a previous suggestion - have the product development team actually sat down and created an 80 line invoice?I dread the day we no longer have the option for classic invoicing. How can something so good be made so bad in the name of development? I embrace change, but there needs to be a positive improvement in work flow.
- Online payment box. Please give us a tick box that allows us to untick it, so it no longer shows up as an option to 'set up' every time I create a new invoice. We don't need the upsell. For companies using invoice finance this is completely irrelevant. Yes we know it's there to go into the settings and set up if needed. Get off my invoice.
- Talk about blank space... the item lines are way too wide (in both directions) and spread out. Our invoices contain 70+ lines and it takes forever to drag and scroll through, it's inefficient.
- If I want to add another line in the middle of the invoice, I can't drag it up until I've entered information into it. This also creates inefficient working. I want to drag the lines up into their place first, then enter the data. This worked fine before.
- When you do drag item lines up and down, the lines you're not dragging move about. This is incredibly distracting, especially when they move whilst you're trying to read them. This adds to the clunk. And also adds risks of human error.
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Gary Young commented
I see all this comments about the white space involved in the new entry - but has no one else noted that what is entered is not what is stored.
I do not know how to get across to everyone that the descriptions entered into the invoice entry screen is altered before it is stored into the database.
This is not something that should ever be allowed.
The entry is removing carriage returns and spaces before any printable characters - this does not allow you to format the way you want to display your invoice. (This applies to description only lines as well as invoice lines.)
This seems to be the only idea that continues to report comments - so once again I shall raise it here, even though it has nothing to do with the terrible new screen layout. -
Sarah Jacobs commented
On new invoicing:
We can see the 'to' column contains customer name and address, so if both are populated then there is always going to be wasted real estate under issue date etc. a good way to use this would be to allow the reference, branding them and currency fields to text wrap.
Also why is 'online payments' column so wide when the only possible responses are 'None' and 'Yes' (I'm guessing as I don't use online payments).
Also, why does the 'repeating' information take up a whole row? surely that could be condensed and moved into the row above it.
There's still a lot of different font sizes on this screen which makes it a) jarring to read & b) difficult to zoom lower than 90% as some fonts are large and some are tiny -
Sarah Jacobs commented
More new invoicing wasted space feedback:
1. the sent box takes up a whole row, but could be moved up next to the 'paid' box.
2. why is the 'paid' font tiny, but the 'sent' font huge? they should be the same size.
3. when viewing a currency invoice on a narrower screen, the currency gets wrapped to under the customer address, when it should get wrapped to under the issue date.
4. Listing the currency code and name takes up a lot of real estate. Why isn't this field wrapped, as there's so much empty space below it.
5. Why does the 'amounts do not include tax' note take up a whole row? We know this already if we show the tax rate in the line columns. If we have to show this at all, why isn't it included either a ) next to the currency field, or b) at the bottom under the total
6. on currency invoices, after an invoice is paid, why does the currency loss/gain take up a whole row, just move it up next to the exchange rate
7. why are the font sizes for exchange rate so tiny? This means that I can't zoom this screen to fit it on one page -
Sarah Jacobs commented
Hi Xero, there's still a lot of unused real estate on the new invoicing which needs to be condensed so that a user can see more line items on one screen without having to scroll ... see attachment.
Please note that the screenshot shows the screen already zoomed to 90%; the scrolling issue would be even worse at 100% -
Adell Rose-Leigh Fox commented
New Invoice screen layout - Inefficient & Frustrating
Echoing Claire Annals comment 5 Sep 2024 - The new invoicing layout seems to be designed for widescreen monitors and not for those working on laptops (for example, self-employed bookkeepers, small businesses etc.) resulting in lots of scrolling to enter details into the invoice and can't see the whole thing at once as can be viewed in the previous version. This is very frustrating and time-consuming. Please make the layout more accessible for laptop users.
Attaching screenshots for reference.
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Sarah Jacobs commented
Why are there only 2 options for issue date in new invoicing, but 6 options for due date? I would like issue date to have the last day of the previous month and the first date of the next month as options
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Maggie Kavanagh commented
The cut off date for removal of the original layout must be postponed to give the developers time to fix the glitches. I regularly try the new layout and it's definitely not yet good enough for hard launch. The builders don't actually use these layouts in practice, so they need much more testing time to understand the necessary functionalities - then the new layout can be an improvement on the original, as it was intended.
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Claire Annals commented
The new invoicing layout seems to be designed for widescreen monitors and those of us working on laptops (for example, self-employed bookkeepers, small businesses etc.) have to do a lot of scrolling to enter details into the invoice and can't see the whole thing at once. This is very frustrating and time-consuming for us and our clients. Please make the layout more accessible for laptop users.
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Tropical Waste commented
How long will Xero Take to get this one right? "working on it" flagged on July 11 people. You mob are worse than a Government Department!!!!!
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Tim Sneller commented
"New Invoicing" - A possible explanation for the changes....
Because people have been asking for extra functionality for invoicing, such as different addresses/email addresses etc etc for invoices, statements, and other documents, a lot of extra data fields and probably extra data files have had to be added to the system. These additions mean that the OLD invoicing screen (PROGRAM), will not work in the future, and still allow access to existing data.. The developers have therefore had to write a new program, which will allow historic AND future invoices to be accessed.
Unfortunately, they have somewhat failed in the implementation, and some old features are still not available. The layout is awful, the implementation timeline keeps slipping, and we all feel that we are not being listened to.
UNFORTUNATELY - Without a new invoicing module, the other desperately needed changes probably cannot happen.
There is one really horrendous issue with invoicing, where a historic invoice is altered if the company address is changed. Is this ever going to be fixed, as it is probably illegal in many jurisdictions. If we are asked for a COPY invoice from a long time ago, we cannot be certain that it is an IDENTICAL copy. Once an invoice has been printed and SENT, it should be impossible to edit it, or change it in any way.
If I am wrong, perhaps someone at Xero could treat us like the ADULT CUSTOMERS that we are, and offer us a FULL EXPLANATION as to why Classic Invoicing needs to be deprecated, as all that users see, is that the new program does not work nearly as well as the old one.
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Finance Department commented
The text should be wrapping. When trying to enter invoice information the old invoice wrapped the information in the account and tax field. You have kept this still in the item field so I am not sure why it is not the same in the other. Makes it very hard to put accurate information on the invoice making sure it is going to the correct charge of account and the correct tax code
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Annie Thorne commented
@Claire Parker, I don't know that they are focusing on tiny sole trader businesses - I mean, I'm just me in my business and I absolutely loathe the changes they are implementing. It's awful to use, not fit for purpose. No idea which small business would want this inflicted upon them, truly.
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Julie Sutton commented
Why oh why is nothing happening with regards to the display ?
with the way it is set out now, I have to scroll across just to see the full digits in the total amount columnThe whole page is in way too large font whereas in classic, everything is clear, precise and easy to read.
Attachment shows the same view comparing new and classic - classic is so much more useable. Time is running out to make these view changes that so many are asking for
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Claire Parker commented
It is clear Xero is focusing on the tiny sole trader businesses and not listening to bookkeepers or finance professionals in larger established businesses. They are dumbing down everything so that AI can do the work or untrained persons can shoot out ****** and legally dubious invoices. A subscription to them is a subscription. Loyalty means nothing. How sad that the vision of a beautiful accounting software has been forgone and replaced by the ugly duckling we have now. Xero is telling us finance professionals take it or leave it. I will be leaving it just as soon as I can figure out the best alternative.
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Kathy Skinner commented
They're too busy forcing unwanted changes, seems they're now ignoring everyone and just suggesting links to help when they do respond.
The new invoicing is still hideous in general to look at and use. I switched straight back to classic only you have to do that every time you log in as it only remembers it for 24 hours.
It seems they really don't care now about getting this right and the fact their users are telling them everything that is wrong with it. Yet they are putting the price up for something that is now not as user friendly as the old version was. Not sure who they're listening to when they say they're taking in the feedback since most of the requests aren't being implemented that should have been there in the first place when it was switched.Bad customer service and any one else would loose customers if they treated theirs this way.
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Sarah Jacobs commented
Either Xero needs to fix the column widths or allow the user to determine the column widths. The price and amount fields are sooooo wide they can fit this number of characters 2222222222222.00 , yet the account and tracking code fields are so narrow you can only see 17 characters. This is not user friendly. At the moment the account field and tracking fields are text wrapped, but in the new invoicing they aren't, so the user can't see the whole field - why is this?
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Dave Hyndman commented
C'mon folks. The information density changes to this screen are a joke. This isn't a usability improvement; it's some designer's idea of a prettier screen. This is a massive usability setback (and probably a preview of a new design language that will make its way through the entire app). Your users are shouting and you're not listening.
People are posting screenshots clearly showing that the new layout takes about 30%+ more screen real estate to display the same info. Why?
This isn't wreck-the-company Sonos bad, but it's really tone-deaf and bad.
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Pyroclassic Fires commented
Still cant see the whole invoice on my laptop. and then tried it on my phone as i often have to approve etc when out of the office. what a pain this is. Just made my job 10 times more difficult and take longer than ever. Why the old invoicing worked amazingly well on desktop, laptop and Phone.
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Kathy Skinner commented
Xero really don't care it seems. The new invoicing should not be implemented fully until such time as it actually works and has the same features as Classic has now. It's inferior in so many ways and I am not looking forward to using it and will stay with classic until the end.
If this has been in the development stage for so long then your programmers can't be that great as they should be able to move over everything to the new platform and adjust accordingly so it works the same as Classic.I suspect you are going to lose a lot more customers in the coming months because you don't listen to your current ones.
Everyone works differently so you can't assume what you have implemented is going to work for everyone, stop with the generic answers and admit you have actually gone backwards in this case.