Did you know there are two versions of invoicing in Xero? There’s the original ‘classic’ invoicing experience and ‘new’ invoicing. New invoicing is the updated version with a refreshed design, new functionality and many of the features you know and love from classic.
New invoicing has come a long way since its initial launch and we’re pleased to have introduced several improvements you won’t see in classic invoicing. Here are five features you can use to unlock even more time-saving value from Xero.
1. Your work auto-saves as a draft
We’ve all been there: you’re drafting an invoice and suddenly the phone rings — you later realise you were mid-way through an invoice that you’ve now lost.
With new invoicing, there’s no need to worry about losing your work while multitasking. As long as you’ve added a contact to an invoice, your work will automatically save every few seconds.
2. You can make the most of e-invoicing
E-invoicing (available in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore) is a way of digitally exchanging invoices with other businesses directly through software systems, making the whole process faster, more secure and more efficient.
Instead of sending the invoice via email or PDF attachment — which have the potential to be tampered with — e-invoices are sent securely into your customers’ or suppliers’ accounting software.
In the current cybersecurity climate, e-invoicing’s security features make it a no-brainer. As more businesses and government agencies adopt e-invoicing, we expect it to become a global best practice standard and a natural part of the cloud accounting process.
You can only find this functionality in new invoicing. So before you sign up for e-invoicing, make sure you’re using new invoicing in Xero.
3. You can complete multiple actions at the same time
In new invoicing, you can now complete multiple actions while approving an invoice. The ‘Approve’ button from classic invoicing becomes ‘Approve & email’, and the dropdown menu now offers several options to choose from. You can ‘Approve and add another’, ‘Approve and get link’ and ‘Approve and print PDF’ all in one click.
These options help remove clicks and speed up your workflow, so you can spend less time on manual tasks and more time doing what you love!
4. You can apply credit limits to regular customers
Credit limits encourage customers to pay their outstanding invoices faster, improving your cash flow and reducing the risk of bad debt.
If you’ve already set credit limits for your customers, go back and review them to make sure they’re appropriate in this current economic climate. It’s also a good idea to review your payment terms and tighten them up where you can (for example, reducing them from 30 days down to 7 or 14 days), particularly for new customers or those who consistently pay late.
5. You can add new contacts and inventory items on the fly
New invoicing allows you to add a new customer or inventory item from within an invoice. The customer or item is then saved to your contact list or inventory. So if you’re invoicing a client for the first time, there’s no need to set them up as a new customer in the usual way — it can be done on the fly to save you precious time.
Why not give it a try?
If you haven’t given new invoicing a try or it’s been a while since you checked it out, now is a great time. Of course, we’ll keep you updated as more features are rolled out. In the meantime, you can let us know what other features you’d like to see in new invoicing, in Xero Product Ideas. We’re always listening and here to help if you need a hand.
thanks for the tutorial – I’ll give new invoicing a try
It would be nice if you could set the button at the top of invoicing. We need to send our invoices by PDF as they go through a third party, and it would save so much time to have that as the default option.
Otherwise, we have been using new invoicing for a while and it is another step forward. Well done.
Thanks James, we encourage you to share your idea over on Xero Product Ideas, as our teams review these regularly.
I cannot seems to find a discount column on the new invoicing method
Hi Barbara, sorry to hear you’re having some trouble. Please check out Xero Central for more detail on the discount column, and feel free to raise a case if you need support.
Love the new save a contact on the fly time saving feature. Wish you had this ages ago. Fantastic idea
I was a MYOB customer for years Xero is so much better and easier and love the updates and news letter
Just trying the new invoicing, and its a shame that TAB doesn’t work anymore when selecting a contact – actually have to select the contact instead of tabbing to select it. And also, we cannot enter a new tracking category when in the invoice. More time consuming for us. Nice to see new features but please keep the old ones!!
There has been a large number of users requesting a blank field in invoices, which has sadly been confirmed by Xero as not on the agenda. Quickbooks has this feature, which is preventing Quickbooks users from moving across to Xero. You ask for customer feedback and sharing of ideas we’d like to see in new invoicing, and yet adding a simple little blank field is apparently too difficult. Very disappointing.
I haven’t tried the New Invoicing yet, I am wondering when you click on the Approve and email button, does it bring you to the email in the same way as classic invoicing does ?
Why does the purchases side not have access to inventory in Xero.
Would have thought it to be vital to there tasks on amending inventory prices, deleting obsolete stock and so on. Would be good to have the function added to purchasing side in Xero.
I will try the new look Xero.