Xero in on Xero; Bashing Boring Bill-tracking

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Do you struggle getting receipts and bills from your small clients? I do. #confessions

I have clients that it does not make sense to use Hubdoc, RecieptBank or one of the other tools that integrates with Xero. I have been patiently awaiting a native solution that would help with this problem. Enter: the new bills email address for Xero.

Xero recently released a fantastic upgrade that allows clients (and your firm) to provide receipts and bills through an email address.

How do you find this email address? Follow the pictures:

This email address is unique to each Xero account. You can use it to forward the bills! Yay!

Xero Pro Tip: I recommend creating a contact in your email for all of the Xero files you will be forwarding receipts and bills to. I use the name convention of, first name: client name, and last name: Xero Bills. I frequently set my clients up with a contact of their own to ensure they can forward bills and receipts as easily as possible. I also set up auto-forwarding rules so the bills/receipts from vendors are automagically coming into Xero! Is your mind blown?! Check out the Xero Central Article about it.

A few things to note -

  • Bills/receipts need to be attached to the email and not in the body of the email for processing
  • They will show up in drafts in “Bills”
  • Currently, you will need to code them directly from the drafts.
  • In the near future, Xero will read and analyze the bills that are sent here for automatic coding. This will utilize the same technology as the Xero Expenses module does.
  • If they are receipts for amounts already paid, after you code them, you can mark them paid via the appropriate credit card or bank account
  • You can also just reconcile the amounts against the bank feed. However, if you or your client utilizes the AP Ledger, it is better to mark them paid prior to the bank feed items coming through to ensure an accurate accounts payable account.

For many larger clients, it makes sense to use Xero Expenses to accomplish the receipt tracking part of this function. Sometimes, it makes a lot of sense to use Hubdoc or equivalent programs. Many times, really small companies can’t afford more than the $30/month software package of Xero and need a streamlined simple solution to help organize their documents. These are the companies where this tool can be an amazing help for not only it’s intended purpose of bill collection, but also as a not so hacky-hack for receipt collection.

Author Bio: Liz Mason is the co-founder and CEO of High Rock Accounting, a technology company, born in the cloud, that happens to do accounting. They focus on implementing next-level technology solutions, while providing services from CFO level down to basic accounting. Liz is also a writer, coach, entrepreneur and a National Xero Ambassador. When not in Phoenix, you can find her traveling the world, enjoying other cultures and planning world domination. Check out The Hot Accounts for more entertaining small business topics. Twitter Handles: @HighRockCPAs @LizzyNorMa