Enter your idea

"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.

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.

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.

"But to give clarity, currently we do not have plans for developing a flag for bills, or sales invoices."

Why not!?!?!

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!

Disappointed to hear that Xero are not developing the 'in dispute' for sales and purchase invoices

This is an essential feature. As with others, unimpressed that you have moved this to a different thread to restart the counter on interest in this feature.

Here's a Linked in group - perhaps taking this to the social media will help Xero to reconsider.
Xero Discussions (27K members) https://www.linkedin.com/groups/1415817/
Xero is actively posting about how great and wonderful they are - which is just an insult to the user community.

What is stopping Xero from being able to do this?

In real world scenarios, sometimes supplier bills cannot be approved because they are incorrect. Sometimes suppliers make genuine mistakes and charge the incorrect price. We then have to dispute this with them and somehow have to track it to ensure that the wrong amount isn't paid.

Why shouldn't we expect that our accounting software can do this? That's where the bills awaiting payment are generated from.

It just makes a lot of common sense that this should have been a feature a long time ago.

Despite the new thread, this remains a critical requirement. Invoices have to be booked for all sorts of reasons (recovering VAT for example) but may need to be held for payment. I do find it extraordinary that Xero have no plans to introduce this.

Totally agree with Andrew Finnie. It's an organisation that has become arrogant towards its client base

so despite the numerous comments that this is a feature desperately needed by your cusotmers 'this is not something we have plans to develop at this time.'

What is the point of us voting/commenting if you are already telling us you are not going to do this?

Maybe it's time to vote with our feet and switch to one of your competitors that does offer this basic accounting feature.

Completely agree with Arnis. Don't know why you've reset the counter on this. Why ask for ideas then ignore them when they get enough support?

Outraged! I have to agree with Claire and the other contributors. What is the point of this communication? You have effectively just reset the counter on a function request that has been around for years and as soon as we have managed to drum up some support - you have killed it.
This really is no rocket science - literally every other accounting software has this function and it is an important function to have.
We have a team of around 20 bookkeepers and Finance managers which provides financial management services to around 80 entities. Without the ability to flag bills we run a risk of paying bills which are in dispute. Having these not recorded or keep them as drafts is not an option as this does not provide a true and fair view of the company's financial position.

This really is a critical feature that Xero lacks.

1 it’s good accounting practice to put all invoices on the ledger so that they’re reflected in the accounts - holding invoices for lengthy times in an unapproved state means extra work in creating accruals and inaccuracy creeping in.

2. Sometimes invoices are approved, then issues come to light which put the invoice back in query. Xero has no efficient way of holding these invoices back from payment runs which is a risk. to Xero’s own clients cashflows.

Xero team, there’s a reason why your clients are asking for this feature to allow them to manage their finances and cashflows. I don’t understand why you would not add flags or other marker when this is clearly recognised as a critical weakness by so many.

Xero: " We're really interested to know if this is important to you, so please take the time to read this status update, click this link and add your vote/voice"

Also Xero: "We have got no plans to develop this idea anyway"

this is critical on the sales and bills side, I don't understand the point of the email as this has been going for a year to get this added and you have put on the email that you have no plans to add this to either side so it seems you are ignoring your customers regards a function that is so basic that even Sage has it?

Basic functionality that Xero is missing - results in increased complexity (having to keep invoice in draft or awaiting approval and then remember these can't be approved, or have approved and remember not to pay) and increases the liklihood of losses if these bills are accidentally paid.

Xero is the only accounting system I have used that does not have this functionality. It becomes very complicated trying to keep track of bills that are being held (for whatever the reason) and ensuring they do not get paid when there is no ability to make the system hold bills.
Systems I have used previously also had the ability to report on held bills so that managers could review them and ensure queries were being progressed.

Basic accounts payable management that should not be done 'offline'. Come on Xero, get it done.