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I cant understand why something so obvious and simple is getting left off all the updates Xero?

Until there is a proper flag, one workaround that holds up: add a tracking category called "Payment method" with an option "Direct Debit" and set it on every Direct Debit bill (or put "DD" at the start of the bill's Reference). Then on Bills > Awaiting Payment you can search for DD, and reports such as Aged Payables can be filtered by the tracking option, so you see which unpaid bills will clear by themselves and can leave them alone until the bank feed shows the payment. Setting the tracking option on the repeating bill template means new bills from the same supplier carry it automatically.

I add (DD) on the contact record after the suppliers name for anyone paid by direct debit. It's not ideal but at least I can identify them on a list of suppliers due to be paid.

Being able to filter by group so you can identify which contacts are paid by Direct Debit would save so much time. I also receive duplicate payments from clients who are set up for DD and are also Xero users so I know I'm not alone!

This is similar to this idea which has more votes, so might also be worth voting on this one so it's not diluted https://productideas.xero.com/forums/967139-purchase-orders-bills-inventory/suggestions/46322308-bills-to-pay-ability-to-filter-by-contact-group

This would be extremely helpful and save a ton of time filtering through which bills I actually need to pay directly via a website. Additionally, I would love to see a color-coded system or some way to distinguish between bills that are paid using other methods as well. For instance, green for direct debit/autopay, blue for vendors I have to write a check to, pink for ones I have to pay online, etc. Currently I am doing my own version of this with the reference line, but it prints my notes on checks, which is not great.

It would be helpful to have an option to mark bills/suppliers as paying via DD so they can easily be identfied and filtered out of the bill awaiting payments tab when setting up batch payments. I currently use planned payment dates to schedule pay runs, but have to keep a seperate tracker of which contacts should and should not be paid manually. If this could be integrated into xero it would help massively.

I only have about 10-15 a month across DD & BPAY. I have set up some of the DD payments as recurring to ensure the DD suffix is there. However, this means manually adding the bill attachment later when is comes in, then editing the bill to adjust for monthly differences, or doing an adjustment during reconciliation. I once paid a DD bill accidently and it took 2.5hrs on the phone with the supplier to sort it out. After that, I went through all the DD and BPAY suppliers to remove any bank details from their files so that if they accidentally get picked up in a batch, the lack of bank details gets flagged. I then cancel the batch, check if was a DD or BPAY, pay by BPAY if req and rerun the batch. Never tried an add-on.

I’m a developer looking into this. For those using the DD/BPAY-suffix workaround: roughly how many bills a month does this cover, and what happened when it broke (e.g. a direct-debit bill paid twice)? Has anyone tried an add-on for it?

Appreciate all the workaround suggestions, but if you use the import functionality from another system it relies on the supplier name matching the other system 100% which means adding DD to the end of the supplier name in the other system which can cause other issues. It's just ridiculous at this point that 2 years later, given the number of comments, there isn't a fix for this very common issue.

The issue with adding DD etc to the supplier name is as we automate the system and have the various portals send the bills they come through as the company name and bypass the account I have already loaded with the DD etc on it, so they still get tangled in the bills I need to schedule.
It is ridiculous that we have to find work-arounds and/or risk double paying bills all because Xero are apparently incapable of producing a fix to a very common issue.
I have resorted to having a notebook listing the suppliers on DD and BPAY etc and every time I am allocating dates I have this open to cross check against, a massive waste of time, but better than paying someone twice.

Xero won't fix this anytime soon so my workaround for this is to add BPAY or DD to the end of the supplier's contact name, ie SUPPLIER NAME (BPAY) or SUPPLIER NAME (DD), so I know to skip these in the list of bills awaiting payment when I create a batch. As they don't need a remittance, it doesn't matter.

This has been asked for for years!!!! Yet Xero don't seem to think it's a priority. Very frustrating. One way to get around it is to suffix the customer name or invoice number with DD. Which will work until Payee verification is introduced by the banking system for businesses.

Not sure how this isn't out of the box. We have had suppliers paid twice because they were included in a batch payment. Tags visible in the column view, colour coding of the bills or due date or planned date set to do not pay, would all be better options.

An option to flag or remove bills in the to be paid list that have a direct debit set up on them so it is more obvious which bills need paying manually.

Colour coding function or and extra check box for autopay/Direct Debit would be an easy fix for this, not sure why its not already a function, as this is a vital part of the payments process, come on XERO do somethiung about this please

This is a vital function, and I'm not sure why it's still classed as "Submitted" when there are other ideas on here that only have 40 votes that have been classed as "Gaining Support".

This idea clearly has support, and is essential for larger businesses and to help with cover as usually only the person making the payments regularly will know which suppliers are paid by direct debit/standing order/credit card.

This is a vital function, and I'm not sure why it's still classed as "Submitted" when there are other ideas on here that only have 40 votes that have been classed as "Gaining Support".

This idea clearly has support, and is essential for larger businesses and to help with cover as usually only the person making the payments regularly will know which suppliers are paid by direct debit/standing order/credit card.

Adding DD either on the contact name or invoice number is fine however, if we have an invoice that is then paid over many months there is no way to put the different planned date to then use for cashflow purposes. This would be VERY helpful to project cash better

I usually enter DD after the invoice no so they are easier to track.