Bills - Flag a Bill as 'in dispute / query'
Ability to flag individual bills as in dispute
Purpose | To enable review and ensure the business does not make payment for a bill when it's currently 'under query'
Hi community, we acknowledge the strong feelings in this idea and why you need a feature to flag bills directly within Xero. We really appreciate all your feedback and the detailed explanations of how this would help streamline your accounts payable.
We are dedicated to providing a solution for this over the longer term, but this will take some time requiring changes that sit beneath the face of bills.
In lieu of a direct feature for this we wanted to highlight some of the options discussed by the community here:
- Add a note to the bill: A detailed note on the bill itself can serve as a clear internal reminder of the dispute.
- Utilise tracking categories: Creating a specific tracking category like "Disputed Bills" can help you filter and report on these items.
- Adjust the due date: Temporarily extending the due date can prevent accidental payment while the dispute is being resolved.
- Update the reference to add a notation such as [reference number] - Do not pay
- Adjust the planned date to be very far out in the future
We know these options won't fit all needs here, and we are invested in continuing to develop Purchase and more specifically bills in Xero to suit your needs.
We'll continue to provide updates with any progress that steps closer to enabling you to flag bills that are in dispute in Xero. Thank you for continuing to engage and share insights through this idea.
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Emma Rosenblatt (Accounts)
commented
Both the Bills flagged as dispute and Sales invoice flagged as dispute would be handy options!
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Accounts Charlton Haynes
commented
It is a basic accounting requirement to be able to dispute an invoice.
Especially under these difficult financial times it should be given priority.
If the development team can look into this asap.
Other accounting packages like Sage allow you to do this. -
Findex Software Support
commented
Hi Xero
This option is essential IMO for companies with large numbers of creditors to track. Please lift the priority on this feature.
Thanks -
Sharon Evans
commented
Really need this to flag an invoice as disputed. Once an invoice (say purchase in my case) is approved by another member of staff and then ready to issue a payment - i sometimes can flag an issue with it as im ready to pay it - there is no quick click of a button to transfer this back to drafts (not ideal but better than in awaiting payment) so to flag it as disputed with a comment would be ideal. Sage used to offer this - cant see why Xero dont offer it.
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Teresa Snell
commented
We also set a due date for bills that are in dispute a long way into the future, but it's not a foolproof way of dealing with this since someone still managed to batch them for payment :(
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Neil Phillips
commented
Hi Joan
We had the same issue but rather than deleting the invoice, we set the due date far into the future so if selecting bills for payment based on the due date, it wouldn't be selected. Then once dispute settled, can either reset the due date, change the amount or apply a credit note.
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Joan Collins
commented
If a bill has been approved for payment then an issue arises and we want to make sure that it doesn't get paid, it's essential to be able flag it as in dispute.
Otherwise, we have to delete the bill then put it on again and not approve it.However, this option is very flawed because now we don't know which ones are awaiting normal approval and which ones are in dispute.
This has led to bills being deleted and redone on more than one occasion. -
Miranda Gager
commented
This is a business-critical function as others have said already.
I am surprised you are not considering it when it is so clearly wanted by your customers. Come on Xero, would it be too much to ask to add it to the contact summary page where the drop-down menu is on each transaction? Or a tick box within the transaction screen to put the transaction on hold/disputed?? -
Lucy Graham
commented
Both are as important as each other. It is a must to stop payments to suppliers accidently when a bill is in query/dispute
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Emma Rosenblatt (Accounts)
commented
Having both the option to highlight either a bill or invoice as 'in dispute' would prevent a lot of errors and help with communication across staff.
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Debbie Bradley
commented
This is CRUCIAL! both for bills and invoices.
Thank you for starting a new thread - again.....
This wipes out all 000's of comments on all previous threads, and starting again is ignoring all our previous requests - Why is such a thing not even in development ideas for bills? i have been following this request since early 2019!
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Ben Linker
commented
I'm lost for words....after all the requests for this feature, you don't actually have any plans to implement it!!!! why bother asking us then.....
So here's a question for you: why was this not implemented in Xero at the outset? It's not as if this isn't a standard part of any other accounting system - at least in every one I have used over the past 30 years or so. Perhaps you thought everyone else had got it wrong, and this isn't an essential feature every business with more than one accounting person needs.
I defy you to give a sensible answer to that one -
Roger Withinshaw
commented
After 25 years of using Sage I recently switched to Xero, sadly not everything in Xero is an improvement, Not being able to mark purchase invoices as disputed is one glaringly obvious disadvantage over Sage. Whilst a workaround is currently possible it's not ideal nor pretty. Xero don't seem to understand how important it is to ensure bills aren't mistakenly paid when a bill or invoice is disputed/queried. Xero - please reconsider this request, it really shouldn't be too difficult or onerous to add a check box or flag!
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Sara Martin
commented
why is this something you have no plans for????????
it's fundamental to be able to stop invoices being automatically paid. i do not understand why this isn't a standard feature and it needs to be implemented asap
why ask our opinions if you are not willing to listen. there are hundreds of comments on the original post asking for this, all saying the same thing but you have no plans for it, are we wasting our time asking?
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Lisa Lines
commented
"We'd like to confirm from a bills side of things that this is not something we have plans to develop at this time.
We're still interested to get a clearer understanding of users that'd like to see this developed for bills"
So you want our feedback but you aren't bothered about actually listening to it because you're too busy changing the look of the bills screen to a god awful blockey piece of eye pain that no-one asked for, got it.
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Tracy Packman
commented
I'd like to see this. At present, if I enter a bill and someone outside the accounts dept raises a query on it, there's nothing I can do within Xero to make this immediately obvious. A flag would be a great help when I pay a month's worth of bills - some suppliers provide 3-400 bills per month.
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Katie Kent
commented
This really is an essential feature. My company used this regularly on Sage when we were a much smaller business, and now we are larger it is a vital part of streamlining processes as the company expands. We cannot leave invoices as Awaiting Approval as they do not appear in the ledgers, therefore misrepresenting our accounts to the Exec Board, but we risk paying disputed invoices once they have been approved. In addition, we lock our accounts each month so that previous periods do not change, so if an invoice is left in Awaiting Approval, we have to amend the date as once the accounts are locked they will not drop in once approved if the date is prior to the lock date. This makes the tax date wrong in the accounts and the 'solution' of amending the references is not ideal as you cannot then change this again once you have locked the accounts.
It is baffling that something that is crucial to businesses maintaining accurate accounts and managing cashflow, is not seen as an urgent area for development. -
Daniel Clay
commented
"But to give clarity, currently we do not have plans for developing a flag for bills, or sales invoices."
Why not!?!?!
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Lisa Goold
commented
This is such a basic request to be able to add a 'flag' against a bill - lots of apps/software provide flags why can't Xero? I upload ALL supplier bills into Xero, code them and send for approval. However, as bills sat in draft and awaiting approval DO NOT show in the ledger for accounting purposes I often have to submit for awaiting payment to have them added to the ledger - this is where I have an issue as I dont want them paid if they are in query. Another scenario is, they are in awaiting approval and some may have a query and if the latter are flagged I wont have to keep opening them to find out "Oh that's in query" and move on - the same goes for INVOICES as well - FLAGS FLAGS FLAGS please!
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Dorcas Rixson
commented
Disappointed to hear that Xero are not developing the 'in dispute' for sales and purchase invoices