Bills - Flag a Bill as 'in dispute / query' – Share and support customer ideas for Xero

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'

1,292 votes

AdminXero Team (Admin, Xero) shared this idea · 24 November, 2022 · Report… · Admin →

Accepted ·

AdminKelly Munro (Community Manager, Xero) responded · 29 October, 2026

Hi everyone, thank you for continuing to share how important it is to clearly identify bills that need attention before they’re paid. We understand the impact this has on teams managing bills and avoiding payments being made before a query is resolved.

While a user control flagging mechanism is not directly in the pipeline yet, we want you to know that your feedback and the volume of support here is getting to the right places.

Our product teams are continuing to consider this wider workflow (not just adding a standalone flag) as they plan and shape our direction for bills.

We’re working towards making it easier to manage payments out of your business, with clearer ways to understand which bills need action as part of a more connected bills and payments experience.

The new bills approval flow which we’re currently developing is an example of this - once available admins will be able to set rules based on factors of bills such as; amount, supplier, account code or who submitted the bill. You’ll then be able to automatically route bills through selected approvers in sequential or parallel steps. While we know this isn’t a direct solution for this idea, this’d provide you with controls to set rules for common flows in which bills need flagging for approval from specific users in your organisation.

We appreciate the detail and persistence you’ve brought to this conversation. As soon as there's more progress surrounding this I'll make sure to share another update here.

Show previous admin responses (5)

Accepted ·

AdminKelly Munro (Community Manager, Xero) responded · 29 July, 2025

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.

submitted ·

AdminKelly Munro (Community Manager, Xero) responded · 02 August, 2024

We appreciate wanting to see more rapid movement, everyone. Having done a lot of exploration into this area our team have a good handle on the needs to solve this, however we want to be honest that development will be some time away with the team currently focused on improving bills list views and updating add/edit bill pages. For the time being to keep you up to date we’re going to move this idea back to Submitted until more active work takes place for this.

I can assure you this idea is the best place to be leaving feedback for this feature, and Xero Product Ideas as a whole is the best place to be sharing where you’d like to see change across Xero products. As a community team we’re advocating on your behalf constantly to see where ideas can be worked on, and this site is where our product teams regularly come to better understand and see where they can develop solutions for our customers alongside other priorities they’re balancing. You’ll see in many places we’re beginning to see how we can get our community members more involved in research and testing for ideas early on in the development process.

As soon as there is more news around the teams work in this space we will be back to share this with you all, here.

under review ·

AdminHannah G (Admin, Xero) responded · 28 November, 2023

Hi community, appreciate the want for more of an update from us on this highly voted idea. Since Kelly’s last message I am pleased to let you know that our product team has done some discovery work in this space. More specifically, exploring the different ways in which the problem could be solved in Xero, alongside understanding the technical challenges. The feedback you’ve shared has been really useful for our product team’s research 🙏

We recognise the importance of needing to know which bills are flagged, so people making payment can review whether a bill should be paid or not, to avoid inadvertent payment. Being able to improve this workflow is important to us and once we have solution concepts, we will be sure to reach out to this community for feedback.

Right now there are no specific time frames available as to when this might be worked on, but thought that the community would appreciate knowing that this is being looked into. As always we’ll return here when we have more to share 😊

submitted ·

AdminKelly Munro (Community Manager, Xero) responded · 24 November, 2022

Hi community, you may have seen our recent update on this like-minded idea for Sales invoice – Flag an invoice as ‘in dispute / ( https://productideas.xero.com/forums/939198/suggestions/44960557 ) query’ ( https://productideas.xero.com/forums/939198/suggestions/44960557 ).

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, and will continue to track this through the conversation here. If there’s any change we will let you know on the thread here. Thanks

submitted ·

AdminXero Team (Admin, Xero) responded · 24 November, 2022

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Melissa Ilston commented · 24 November, 2022 21:44 · Report

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?

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Arnis Veisbergs commented · 24 November, 2022 21:39 · Report

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.

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Heather Lane commented · 24 November, 2022 21:35 · Report

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.

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Stuart Mohamed commented · 24 November, 2022 21:26 · Report

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"

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Clare Grain commented · 24 November, 2022 20:06 · Report

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?

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Shannon Lynds commented · 24 November, 2022 19:15 · Report

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.

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Teresa Snell commented · 24 November, 2022 16:01 · Report

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.

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Amanda Connolly commented · 24 November, 2022 16:00 · Report

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

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Lianne Carr commented · 29 June, 2022 10:47 · Report

Create a way of flagging or colour coding draft bills to pay. When you have some that are on hold for one reason or another and some that aren't due until a lot later in the year, rather than looking at them in drafts repeatedly if they were flagged or colour coded we could easily see to ignore them. Much like when bills are overdue in the 'Awaiting Payment' tab and coloured red. Would just be a nice option to be able to change manually in Drafts.

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