Invoice Import - Display warning for new contacts being created
Our practice makes use of Xero's ability to import invoices to do monthly utility billing and have found Xero's feedback notice / confirm import page to be VERY useful.
On this page Xero notifies us if
- any invoices will not be imported due to errors
- invoice number already exists
- any item descriptions and/or prices differ from the Xero org's listed products and services
Unfortunately, it does not notify the user if any new contacts will be created on confirmation, as imported invoices automatically create a new contact if a matching one does not exist.
This sometimes happens unintentionally when a typo exists in the import, or when a contact has been renamed by another user and our importer has not been made aware of the change.
Please add the feature on this notice screen to show if new contacts will be created to help avoid unintentional duplications and contact errors.
Jessica Salmon
shared this idea
Appreciate the feedback on invoice import notifications. Hearing how a prompt for new contacts could help keep your monthly utility billing clean and avoid unintentional duplicates is really useful.
We’ve moved this idea to Gaining support, so the community can now vote and share their own experiences. Any extra context about how this impacts your workflow would be helpful for others reading along.
We’ll share any updates here as the idea progresses.
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Akan Kemal
commented
@davidwatts. For us, definitely let us pick the existing contact initially and if none exist, can then go to Xero and create one.
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david watts
commented
this is exactly the kind of thing that's pushed us to build a google sheets add-on for xero imports - it validates every row against your actual account codes, tax rates, and existing contacts before anything gets pushed, so a typo or renamed contact gets flagged instead of silently creating a duplicate. handles invoices, bills, and contacts. question for anyone watching this thread: when a contact doesn't match, would you rather the import block that row, or flag it and let you pick the existing contact? trying to decide the right default.
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Niamh Gunning
commented
When doing a bulk import on sales import there should be a function to include a unique code to prevent the duplication of accounts. Example:
In the event of an import containing a 'Contact Name' eg. 'AA Locks' but the actual account in Xero is 'AA Locksmith' Xero currently imports the incorrect contact as a new account so I end up with duplicate accounts. If the Contacts Unique ID was part of the import it should match or reject if incorrect....