Contact - Add a 'Bad Debtor' status flag with invoicing alerts
Would be great to be able to assign a special rate to a particular client so that rate generates each time you invoice that client and also add tick box to mark as bad debtor which flags them up.
Denise McKay
shared this idea
Hi Denise, thanks for sharing this idea! We can see how a “Bad Debtor” flag could be a really useful tool for managing risk. When your business is busy, you don’t want to accidentally extend credit to a customer who’s already significantly overdue.
Right now, the absence of an automated alert means staff often have to double-check a customer’s payment history or risk raising an invoice for someone who should be on a stop-credit list.
As a short-term option, you can use the Contact Notes field. Adding a note to a contact makes it visible when viewing their details, though it doesn’t yet “pop up” during invoicing.
Regarding your idea on default rates, you can already assign a default discount rate to contact records. You can also use the Untrack Items feature to make data entry faster and reduce manual effort.
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Emily Buckland
commented
An option to flag or add a more obvious note to a contact or customer account when they consistently have overdue invoices or consistently pay after the due date. I am aware you can add notes to the contact, but this isn't always super obvious, and can only be seen when you access into the "Contact Details" section of an account. Maybe a little flag appears next to the customer's name to serve as a reminder? Or their account appears a different color?
Alternatively, if possible, and to take manually flagging out of the picture, Xero to automatically flag customers/contacts that pay late or have invoices that consistently fall into the overdue category.
This would help greatly with small businesses like our own with a high number of different customers, and often large amounts of time between when the same customer is invoiced, sometimes it is very difficult to keep track of customers that do not pay consistently, and often they will have had work done and already invoiced again before we have realized that they are unreliable. We rely on customers paying on time or, alternatively organizing a payment plan with us. Having this flagging option would make it so so much easier to weed out the customers that require extra caution or require payment plans to be set up immediately rather than having to chase up overdues from the same people over and over again with each invoice.
Example below of what a flagged account could look like :).