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When sending statements Xero is adding automatic commentary on the associated email about "overdue invoices". In my examples the Xero feature claims that the customer is "Overdue $535" is 100% wrong - customer only owed $39.

I fully understand why this is. There are unallocated cash payments (overpayments) in the mix.

There can be a lot of reasons why this is - invoice queries, partial payments, customer terms, errors being resolved, a customer payment that is not easy to reconcile etc etc. but the point is, that these transactions (overpayments) are totally legitimate as far as Xero is concerned.

Not taking them properly into account is a real and serious problem because this sort of bad information can damage customer relationship and even result in a lost customer. Typically credit control and a customer's financial relationship, especially in small businesses, is personalised and can be different for each customer. Xero has no way of knowing the intimacy of these arrangement. Bad information in this area is very bad for business.

What needs to happen

a) ideally we would just like to be able to turn this email "feature" off or on.
b) you have to urgently change your code that controls these "overdue" email messages to properly take into account the presence of any unallocated or partially allocated payments received and unallocated credit notes etc. If there are ANY of these line items for any $$ value on the statement - STOP do not produce the message. Xero has no idea what is going on and why and should not try to interpret the situation = no message on the email.