Enter your idea

really important part of the job assigning POs to projects.

For me it's not so much about attaching a Purchase Order in the System in Xero to a Project in Xero. It's about my client giving me a PO number, and me being able to store that as an attribute of the project. In this way, when I invoice, the attribute auto-populates into the invoice rather than me copying and pasting and introducing human error.

I have given my accountant instruction to migrate to a system that will work for us.

I agree with the comments and believe this feature would be a valuable addition to Xero. While recent updates suggest customer feedback has been considered, it doesn’t feel that this particular need has yet been addressed. As a result, we are beginning to review whether Xero continues to be the best fit for our requirements.

I have also had a response Rebecca Payne posted below.

In reply I have outlined how I would envisage this working. It would be interesting to understand what others would like to see.

"In an ideal world I would like to see the ability to assign purchase orders to projects as a "pending expense" or recorded as an expense so we can allocate to an Estimated Expense (we refer to this as our budget category). When the PO is marked as invoiced, the purchase order is removed from the Project so that the bill can be allocated to the Project Estimated Expense. This will give us excellent visibility on the committed expenditure on a project assuming the data can be incorporated into the reporting.

I hope this provides a bit of clarity over what we require. I do understand that people will use the software in different ways and others may want more or less functionality but I would like my favoured approach to be considered."

Everyone must re-vote against this idea to increase the number of votes so it reaches number 1 in the 'most voted for ideas list'.

I have also had a response from XERO

Hi Rebecca

Thanks for reaching out and sharing your feedback. We really appreciate you taking the time to follow up and explain how important this is for you and other customers using Projects and purchase orders.
We’re promptly reviewing your feedback and are working with the right team to assess next steps. I understand your concerns about the lack of visible updates on the community idea and the impact this has on your confidence in Xero, and I’m sorry for the frustration this has caused.
Here’s what will happen next:
• Our team will review the details you’ve shared in your email, along with the existing community idea and the feedback from other customers, to determine the best course of action.
• We’ll be in touch with an update or to arrange a call if more detail is needed.
We appreciate your patience while we work through this, and we’ll keep you updated.

Kind regards

Cherry

so important for job costing - such a simple solution

Are you saying that the purchase orders section has been rewritten and this wasn't a core part of that? That doesn't give the impression that you have really "heard" how important this is. This is ranked number 6 in the number of votes yet wasn't included in the "75 most requested updates"!

Thanks for response Kelly
Given we have been waiting for almost 10years for this, please can you provide an indication of the timeline
Are we talking weeks/months/years?
That would be super helpful
Many thanks

Crazy that this still hasn't been addressed. You'd think that for one of the world's largest accounting software packages, they'd have done their research and realised that this is a basic function. Let's pile on and try get their attention. Come on Xero!!!!!!

Please note, it's the votes that count, not the comments. Ask everyone you know who uses Xero to vote (critical).

I agree re email to the CEO
I first posted this back in 2017

The lack of responsiveness is disappointing, particularly as in many other ways Xero is a good product

But I fear like many others the time may be rapidly approaching to look for alternatives in light of this basic function not being addressed.

Xero support have just called me and apparently they cannot help. This is the only method of getting our ideas heard so we have to get this upvoted a lot more times for them to even take notice.

I've added my email too.

Thanks Sam - also emailed. Let's sent 500 emails. Might get some notice.

Thanks Sam, emailing now. Hopefully if mass emails get sent, they might look into it again.

Maybe it is time to go directly to CEO. I found this comment at the bottom of a page. Maybe we should all email Sukhinder.

Still need help?
We're listening At Xero, small businesses aren't just customers — they're who we champion. If something's not right and you haven't been able to resolve it through our support channels, reach out directly to ceo@xero.com. Sukhinder and her team personally review these messages.

Agreed, this is really dissapointing. XERO is focusing on areas that are truly NOT useful to their clients and just gimicky. WHO cares about the beautiful dashboard if you cannot even use projects correctly. It baffles me.
Additionnaly, the same issues exists with the dev api not being able to link lines to projects.... so we have to hack it with tracking categories knowing very well that the safe 200 categories will be exploded in no time.... Please focus on what is important. Thanks.

I don't even understand why this needs to be requested as it is basic functionality. I'm in the same boat that if it isn't fixed soon, I will be looking at alternative software. I get the feeling that Xero just want to make a front end and take commission from other parties to write add on software to provide the functionality. The fact that I need the Projects add on to have jobs is ridiculous and then it doesn't even cover the most basic functions.
I just checked and this is has the 6th highest vote count but wasn't included in the 75 most asked for upgrades. Obviously the people writing accounting software can't count.