Bills - Option to unapprove
Bills: unapprove option
Have the option to unapprove a bill so it can revert back to draft/awaiting approval rather than having to void a bill and re-enter it.
Hi team, thanks for staying engaged with us here. From your feedback our product teams clearly understand there are legitimate use cases and scenarios in which you’d like to be able to simply unapprove a bill.
While seemingly simple there is a bit of underlying work that needs to be done within Bills to enable us to build this functionality - As you’ll have experienced within the Bills list view - we’re in the process of uplifting the pages in Bills with updated technology that’ll unlock our ability to develop features like unapprove.
So, while it’s not in our roadmap atm, we’re tuned in here and will continue to assess how we may solve this as we plan our future roadmap. I’ll make sure to share any progress with everyone here.
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Nicola Martyniak
commented
Its not the actual voiding of the bill that is so much of the issue as we can all do the work around its having to do each bill individually thats the issue. If the option was available to unapproved more than one at a time and moving them back to draft they could then be deleted from here. Ive had a few occasions where someone has imported a bill CSV and approved (as you can approve them by ticking them all) but they have been incorrect so had to void them one at a time!
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Natalie Everitt
commented
Agree with others that this work around is just another cumbersome way of fudging things. It makes more sense to be able to return to draft than create a new copied transaction with no history. Not really seeing this as an option...but thank you for looking into it.
Please also look into the 'Xero Mail - Log of mail sent via Xero'
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Pelham Bartlett
commented
It's the history of the bill that is important and cannot be lost. For us, bills come through Dext or ApprovalMax and we need the history to tell us who has approved the bill. If it's been approved by the correct person we can process it for payment.
If someone accidently approves the bill in Xero, who shouldn't have approved it, it must be voided and then processed via Dext/AM again and correctly approved by the relevant person so that we have the correct history behind it.
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Sally Lane
commented
That solution is acceptable if there is no other option.
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Alicia Anderson
commented
No, creating a one-click option of the pre-existing work around is NOT a desirable solution. The "unapprove" option would be helpful for me as we run a labour hire business and some of the labour is sub-contractors. I enter their invoices but I don't approve them until I receive a copy of their approved time sheet. As I have quite a few invoices to add it's very easy to press the approve button before I realise what I've done. If you're not ready to add the "unapprove" button why not have a pop-up that comes up when you press approve that says "Are you sure you want to approve?" Or a green "OK" that when you click it all the options come up ie: "What would you like to do?: save, approve, revert to draft, delete?
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Antoinette Micallef
commented
I don't think this would be the best solution.
In most cases, we need to keep the history that is associated with the invoice.
We may need to also keep the invoice number. This may be because it is associated with an add-on program.If there is a small error with the invoice or just approved in error, it would be much more useful if we were able to revert the invoice to a draft.
The ability to revert to a draft will also enable us to manually calculate interest for non-payment and add it to the invoice it applies to while Xero works on the ability to automatically add interest to late payments on invoices.
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Shelly Stevens
commented
If simply reverting to draft is not an option, then yes I believe what you're offering to implement will be acceptable.
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Grace Occleshaw
commented
Thank you for looking into this idea Kelly & the team.
As others have mentioned, this is saving only a couple of clicks in the workaround we are currently doing. It would be worth pursuing if history & notes could be copied over so we can keep the information.
A lot of businesses use Xero Add-Ons, which have links from Xero bills to that add-on. In the suggested solution above, would these links still be active on the new bills?
I would suggest investing the time in a solution that will add significant value, instead of automating a workaround. Myself and other partners are usually happy to wait for a great feature if we know it is on the roadmap and being invested in fully.
Thank you again for reviewing this highly anticipated product idea.
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Denise Wilson
commented
It's yet another work around we have to do.
Provide solutions.
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Anna Wilson
commented
We do not believe that this is an ideal solution.
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Margaret Wales
commented
Would rather unapprove with all the details attached such as notes that might be attached to the invoice as these are important. If more than i to be unapproved why can't you have the option to tick every one & choose unapprove at the top the same as you do to approve
Thanks for looking into
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Diane Mathers
commented
This creates a continuing mess, and is already available as a 2 or 3 step process, so does not save much time. Particularly if they still need to be "fake unapproved" individually.
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Stephen Camilleri
commented
No not really, this work around is already available and we use it. It is exactly why we would like an “unapprove” workflow, because the workaround is so “beautifully” cumbersome!
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Krishna Peesapati
commented
It would be really helpful if there is an option to "send the approved bills back to drafts section" .
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Adriane Sant'Ana
commented
It would be great if we could void multiple bills and invoices in one go.
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Leah Shangrow
commented
Yes please! We have a multi-step approval process as our organization handles money that does not belong to us. If a payment is accidentally marked as approved instead of being submitted for approval (which is incredibly easy to do considering the strange button placement on bills) we MUST be able to change the bill status back to "awaiting approval" or "draft" so that our clients' money isn't accidentally sent out somewhere before all the critical review steps have been completed. If you can't easily make the bill stages revert, can you at least make the save as draft/submit for approval buttons more obvious, and put the approve button in the dropdown instead? Such a silly problem with such dangerous implications that could be so easily avoided!
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Andrea Robb
commented
Please, please make this a feature. It is such a time waster to have to copy and then delete the approved bill or invoice that needs to revert back to draft or waiting approval. It is a part of standard procedures that a bill or invoice is sent back to waiting approval if details need to be changed and the bill or invoice re-approved.
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Margie Murphy
commented
it would also be great to be able to 'unapprove' an invoice too.
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Jacqueline Hobbs
commented
Would be such a time saver as it's so easy to hit the Approve button by mistake.
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Kerry Mitchell
commented
have new client so all entered invoices I want to unapprove so the correct steps are followed for payment procedures but makes it impossible to do this.