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For us it is not draft status so much as being able to create another copy from a billed order.

Seem to have also lost the ability to copy one purchase order to multiple bills?!? - case in hand: we have 3 supplier invoices ("bills") today for one purchase order (each line a different supplier invoice - perfectly normal) but can only create a bill once and then lose the ability. Used to be able to do this, even if we had ticked "mark as fully billed". As a workaround can't copy the bill to another bill because each supplier invoice uses different lines on the PO (and would lose the history tracking from the PO if we did). End of month pain...
EDIT: Just read your work around @Malena - thank you!

@Mike - I agree, some real world testing and a short feedback loop would avoid these basic 'break existing features to introduce new features' issues.
Even though I think some of the new changes have improved things, and some issues have been fixed, there is a real issue with breakages ongoing.

This is not just when POs are in draft mode. If quantities and/or unit price are blank the *create bill* doesn't provide ability to copy these across, meaning the PO has to be edited to add values in (even to info-only lines), then resave PO before 'create bill'. Even worse if we don't notice the info-only lines are missing a bill has been created without carrying them across. Many of our POs have no quantities or values at all, meaning *create bill* from PO gives no option to create a bill. surely these basic bugs would be piked up if Xero tested changes properly with real users?

Can Xero add "Copy to a Bill" under the 'three dots' in the top right corner. We realise it's there in the 'blue box', however consistent across other features (eg copy invoice to draft invoice) it should be under the '3 dots' menu as well - because we work fast and across the platform, it's natural to go straight to the '3 dot menu' and, because copy to invoice is so similar in business to copy to bill (a Xero term), we keep hitting the copy to invoice, end up with draft invoices which have to be deleted/voided and re-start the process.

Copy to bill needs to allow the 'information only' lines to the invoice. We put a lot of info in a description, with no (ie blank) quantity or values, for important info to supplier and needs to also copy to the bill. The old version of "copy to bill" did this seamlessly and happily, but the new version just won't allow it - we have to manually open the PO in a different window now, add lines to the bill and copy info across - very frustrating and unproductive given allowing ANY line to be copied to the bill is a simple solution and was in the previous version.
We are having same problem for small POs where we haven't entered the quantity/price into the fields as we aren't sending the PO - we now can't copy this at all to a bill.
Please provide the old features in the new system

Please, do we have any update on the reinstatement of the "copy to bill" or "create bill" function in draft orders ?? As per previous requests, this is causing a significant disruption to our workflow and we have been struggling on for over a month now and really feel very strongly that we shouldnt be going backwards with our systems !!!!!

I am requesting the urgent reinstatement of the “Copy to Bill” function within draft & awaiting approval purchase orders in Xero. This feature appears to have been removed and replaced with “Copy to Invoice,” however this does not suit our workflow requirements.

The removal of “Copy to Bill” has significantly disrupted our process, as we rely on this function to convert purchase orders directly into bills. We currently have a backlog of supplier invoices waiting to be processed, and manually recreating these bills is extremely time-consuming and inefficient.

Our workflow is now effectively broken due to this change. We urgently need the “Copy to Bill” option reinstated so we can continue processing purchase orders as intended.

Could you please advise why this functionality has been removed, and escalate this matter as urgent for reinstatement as soon as possible?

Thank you.

I see I'm not the first person to wonder how to create a bill from a PO after it was marked as billed and a second delivery arrives!
I get that there was a case for beiung able to partially check in an order, but why the change for this (which adds just a layer of junk popup and not a clean remove from the bill option), then changed the operation for everyone who didnt want it?

Hi, is there any update on this please ? We have dozens of bills backing up by the day, waiting to be entered onto Xero. Some bills have 10+ lines on them, it is not sensible for us to have to manually type all these in when the information already exists in the purchase order and we used to just copy across to the bill. WHY has this option been removed ?? Surely Xero must be able to see that customers were using the function ?? Please look to reinstate it urgently, or add the new "Create Bill" functionality that exists in approved purchase orders. PLEASE, it is seriously affecting an important part of our purchasing and finance workflow......

To save time, we need the ability to raise invoices directly against Purchase Orders (POs) that are awaiting approval. Our previous workflow allowed us to copy the unapproved PO directly to the bill/invoice, which then flowed into ApprovalMax. The current requirement to wait for PO approval means we now have to manually track which POs require subsequent invoice entry.

Hi Steve,

I found a workaround by changing the status of a Billed PO by selecting "unmarked as billed". the create bill button will appears again. Its not perfect, but will work for now if you need to enter multiple bills for the same PO.

hope this helps

We are a company who has to pay the supplier first then invoice the customer. So when an invoice comes into us, we use the "bill to" option to pay the supplier's invoice then do a "copy to invoice" to the customer. I understand I can use the "Create Bill" option, but when I have multiple items on the PO, and only half of them ship and there are backorders, there is NO mechanism to create a second "Bill to" for the balance of the items that come in afterwards. I am NOT going to create a duplicate order so I can process invoices for backorders, that is redundant and utterly ridiculous and processing a manual invoice is a waste of time, it is why we went with Xero to begin with. Stop making changes that impair our abilities to do our jobs. Just leave well enough alone. Please reinstate the copy to "Bill To" option right away!! I have invoices piling up on my desk that I can't process properly and it is hurting our ability to run our business properly.

Please can the "Copy to" come back :) POs are being automatically marked as billed, I do not want this option to be automatic. Our manager needs to approve the bills and link the bills to POs but this can no longer be done. I have to go into each PO billed to unmark as billed. We should not be approving bills, these need to be signed off by a manager not automatically approved. Also I have a problem linking 2 PO's to one bill. Another thing when selecting create bill the PO number is not pulled through to the reference tab.

Please can the "Copy to" come back :) POs are being automatically marked as billed, I do not want this option to be automatic. Our manager needs to approve the bills and link the bills to POs but this can no longer be done. I have to go into each PO billed to unmark as billed. We should not be approving bills, these need to be signed off by a manager not automatically approved. Also, I have a problem linking 2 PO's to one bill.  Another thing when selecting create bill the PO number is not pulled through to the reference tab.

Hi Kelly,I manage three companies on Xero that rely heavily on the "Purchase Order to Bill" function. Removing this feature has disrupted our workflow and significantly increased manual data entry for information we have already captured.Our established process flows systematically: we convert an accepted quote into an invoice, copy that invoice to generate a purchase order (PO), and subsequently create a bill directly from the PO. The removal of this feature breaks this critical chain of events. Could you please look into reinstating the ability to create a bill from both draft and approved POs? Both scenarios are vital to our daily operations.

Hi Kelly, I wanted to provide some additional context around our use of the “Copy to Bill” feature from a fully billed purchase order.
We are a Local Government Entity and since 2016, with the support of our external government-appointed auditors, we have been creating annual financial year (FY) purchase orders in Xero that cover the full year of products and/or services. Typically, we generate around 50–60 of these POs annually, which are used to cover regular, recurring supplier expenses such as SLA/MLA contracts, electricity, phone services, fuel, rentals, trade waste and similar ongoing costs, which are billed either weekly, fortnightly or monthly.
As supplier invoices are received, we bill them against the relevant annual PO each time. From the first instance of billing for a new FY, we mark the PO as billed. We only rely on the “Approved” POs to determine the number of outstanding POs. If all our annual FY POs remained unbilled, there would be an inaccurate and inflated view of outstanding POs from a review and reporting perspective.
The structure of these annual FY POs is also the reason we previously requested a visible running balance of amounts billed against each PO. This is particularly important not only for these annual POs, but also for POs for contractor works with multiple claims or for backordered items.
At present, to determine how much has been billed against a PO, I need to go to the history, open each individual bill and manually calculate the totals, which is more complex when a single bill has been allocated from multiple POs. I hope this gives you some insight to how and why we need to "Copy to bill" from a fully billed PO.

We need copy PO to Bill

Agreed, i am requesting the URGENT reinstatement of "copy to bill" in a draft purchase order. We also have a specific workflow which is now broken due to the removal of this option. I have got purchase invoices backing up waiting to be put onto xero, and i dont want to have to create them all manually, i want to copy the contents of the PO to a bill. Why has it been removed ? The option "copy to invoice" is there so please reinstate "copy to bill" urgently, thank you

When we pay a deposit to a vendor, we usually record it as a prepayment, not as a bill/expense, because the service has not been fully delivered yet and the deposit should not be reflected in the P&L at that stage.

Also, in our process, the purchase order is more like a draft or reference for the final bill. There may still be many changes before the final bill is created, such as quantity, amount, or final balance adjustments.

When Finance marks a PO as billed, it means we have already handled this PO from an internal workflow perspective. If we leave the PO in the Approved tab until all payments are completed, it can create confusion for the team, as it looks like the PO is still pending action.

Therefore, it would be very helpful if the “Copy to Bill” function could still be available even after a PO has been marked as billed. This would allow us to keep our internal workflow clear while still being able to create the final bill from the original PO when needed.