Last updated 27 July 2023
Changes are coming to the contact overview page
We wanted to share the next step in improving the contacts experience in Xero, helping you better manage the relationships with your customers and suppliers, as well as your cash flow.
We’re excited to share that we’ve updated the design of our contact overview page, and introduced search and filter functionality. This will make it easier to find the information you need quickly.
These changes are all part of our multi-year modernisation program, to stay ahead of the latest technologies, standards and ways of working to support your business or practice. They will play a crucial role in helping us unlock further improvements and build features faster in contacts and across the Xero platform in the future.
What’s changing?
A redesigned contact overview page
The redesigned contact overview page will make it easier to find the information that you’ve told us is most important. On this page, you’ll notice the following updates:
- The contact’s main information (key contact details and financial activity summary) is now at the top of the page, so it’s available at a glance
- Activity and transactional information is grouped into tabs, so you can easily see the contact’s financial stance – you no longer need to constantly scroll to access this information
- History and notes has moved to its own section at the bottom of the page – this is consistent with other parts of Xero.
- ‘Add to group’ and ‘Remove from groups’ have been combined into ‘Manage groups’ found in the overflow menu
Introducing search and filter
As a result of your feedback in Xero Product Ideas, we’ve introduced a new search and filter functionality to help you easily find relevant information and transactions. Select the summary of what’s owed or owing to you to see the transactions awaiting payment. Or, navigate to the invoices, quotes, bills or purchase orders tabs to search by those categories. You can also filter by dates to narrow your search down even further.
This feature makes life that little bit easier for you to find the information you need more efficiently. It’s also something you’ve been asking for, so we’re excited to roll this out as part of these wider updates to contacts.
Other updates
- User roles and permissions: Information that you see on the contact overview page has been aligned with information you can see in other areas of Xero based on your user role and permissions.
- The money in/out graph has been removed
- Notes on contact activity have been moved to the history and notes section at the bottom of the page
- Contact notes are now within the contact details section
- We’ve removed the Skype field. If you have Skype details stored, you can export the Skype details in a CSV to access them
- Classic expense receipts can now be found in expense claims in the business menu
- The feature to add a file from the file library has temporarily been removed from the contacts screen. For now, you will need to download the file from within your file library before you can attach it to a contact record
The future of contacts
These changes are more than just aesthetic. They are upgraded functionality that bring us another step towards delivering more features you’re asking for, such as multiple addresses in contacts. We appreciate your patience, as we continue to build strong foundations for the future to provide you not just surface improvements but the features you’re asking for.
As always, we’ll keep you informed with our next steps on this journey. Our product teams are constantly working on improving the contacts experience and we would love to know what you think – please let us know over on the Xero Product Ideas page.
Nice, but I’ll miss the graph; it was useful for spotting when something unusual was going on with invoices/bills, usually that something wasn’t attached them to the correct contact…
Me too – the graph is my most useful tool for credit control – I can see at an instant how regularly monthly payers pay and what amounts.
I’m very glad to see it go. If you have multiple users at differing permission levels, the graph can be dangerous, as you can roughly see how much ANY contact has been paid per month, employees included.
Great, when will this be rolled out? The contact page at the moment is a nightmare.
Hi, great to see the improvements, however there is one issue that affects our organization and I am sure others. We have contacts with identical individual names, but difference Account Numbers. However your system does not allow duplicate Contact Names. I see this as short sighted as when invoicing a large number of individual people, you are always going to have contacts with the same name – e.g. David Smith…
I totally agree with you!
The fact that the banking reconciliation cannot search on Account Numbers is also Ludicrous.
I agree. This restriction of same names causes a problem to our organisation also.
100% agree
Steve we have the same issue. We deal with lots of finance companies who finance purchases of our customers. Each time the finance broker contact changes but the finance company remains the same. As the broker is not the one receiving the invoice or paying out we are constantly changing customer details. Is a problem when we are dealing with more than one broker but the same finance lender.
Improvements look good, but it’s definitely a shame that you’re getting rid of the money in/out graph! It’s a very useful interactive visual tool for having a quick glance back at sales / bills for contacts and comparing them month to month (without needing to bring up a separate report).
I wish that Xero worked on something that is actually useful or that improves the functionality of their software. There are much more crucial things to work on and these guys just keep ignoring them and looking away from what their customers and community is saying. Real shame
i agree with you Vuk, 100%. So frustrating!
Yes, bring back the graph. This is a useful tool for noticing missed invoices or payments.
Would like to see the following available in Contacts – as a GST registered sports Club – with over 300 individual Club members – who pay annual subscription each year.
1) Any Contact “Groups” set up by the User to be included as a field(s) in Contact export / import csv files
2) a number of User defined data fields to be available to capture organisation specific Contact info requirements – text values , date values, numeric values, flags etc – example for my Club would be 1)Date of Birth 2) Date Joined Club 3) Age 4) Occupation 5) Flags – e.g. tick – receives printed Club magazine by postal mail.
These user defined fields to be included in export/import files also.
Good improvement, but I also like the money in/out graph. A handy tool when asked for a credit reference and their monthly spend. Could a tab be created for this?
Improvements seems good, but every time you make an update, I loss some of the tools I use almost daily ( eg: I’m not longer able to look up a contact by phone number)
Now it seems you’ll get ride of the graphics showing money in/out for each account, another important tool on my daily work.
The search and filter and tabs will be a great improvement and make this page very useful!
Great I cannot wait this is going to be a huge improvement! I hope users with only access to invoicing/billing will now also be able to use reports for suppliers and customers like the activity statements!
Money in / out graph was useful. Maybe have it as an accordion that’s minimised by default that can be opened by users who find it valuable?
Please keep the graph. It’s an instant warning of change in pattern for regular customers
These updates seem okay overall, but it is still missing the number one feature that users are asking for and what will ultimately cause them to leave Xero in search of another tool. That is the ability to mark a purchase invoice as in dispute to avoid paying items you don’t want to.
Good improvements but there are other things that still have not been addressed.
-Contacts with the same name, there are more than one person with the same name!
-Being able to send statements to one set email address and invoices to another email address without both appearing in the address box.
I agree there needs to be setting for Quotes/Invoice/Statement to be able to send to different emails but also it is very annoying that if there is a added contact on there you cant see them on the main page. You must go into edit to see them. For businesses there should be the business name and then the contacts underneath with there name, email, number and even job title. we have multiple companies with more than 1 contact and i have to remember who they are because they dont come up on the main screen.
Leave the money in/out chart alone. It’s the most useful thing on the page currently. I really hope this is a foundation to allow us to send quotes/invoices/statements all to different contacts under one company. Progress on updating Xero has been extremely slow, so I just hope I get to see some useful change before I retire in 30 years.
With these modern changes, are we going to get the ability to send statements different customer groups?
Like the others, I will miss the graph. This feature, is handy when giving credit references.
I hope the duplication of ‘Contact Name’ in the ‘Attention Field’, each time an invoice moves across to Xero, from our Inventory Program, has been fixed. Also companies with multiple delivery addresses – the ‘Street Address’ changes each time an invoice moves to Xero (often with line break disappearing).
Good improvements, but I would also like to see further changes to the contacts:
– as above with a contact with the same name – but maybe if the same name has been put in without knowing, there could be a flag to say this contact has already been created, so that you can decide whether you want to duplicate the name or discard it (in case you have accidentally created the same contact twice)
– multiple phone numbers with different people’s names against it, instead of just one mobile number linked to a name
I too liked the graph for a snap shot!
When will these changes be coming in?
In agreement with others here some good improvements, but I liked and used the graph and I also have several customers with the same name
Hi love using Xero contacts but here are some issues I have which could be improved,
– When scrolling through my contact page (which I have a lot of contacts), and say for example I go to one of my contacts ‘Jims Mowing” then I want to go back, it takes me back to the start of contacts, so back to ‘A’ rather than back to the last page where I was on, and I have scroll all the way back to where ‘Jims Mowing’ was.
– Also, it would be good in the contacts search bar if I type in the first letter of the contacts name (eg ‘M’), then all the contacts beginning with ‘M’ come up, then each letter after that….
I have found the exact same problem with searching for contacts and then being sent back to the start each time – extremely frustrating and extremely time consuming!!
Will the screen be loosing the debtor/creditor days. This is extremely valuable and I know its had a lot of report requests to show this data for all customer/suppliers on one page. Are we now going to loose it on the individual contact page too???
Still after all this time and being told it was on the list you still havent allowed the primary person to be the Contact name. Especially useful for daling with indiviuals, such as supplying services to an individual. Just put a check box next to Primary Person to use as contact name.
So many times Xero will not recognise a Customer or Supplier name that is in the Contacts List but will not bring it up when entering a new Bill or Invoice. This has been happening since we first got Xero in 2018 and is still not fixed.
Are we going to be able to see overpayments/prepayments at the top of a contacts page?
I would also like you to keep the money in/out graph and agree with the above comment asking if we could possibly have a tab so we have the option to view it or not.
The graph is very useful – please reinstate! It communicates a whole lot of information in one glance.
Thumbs up on the filtering option – that will save a lot of time for contacts with lots of activity.
Thumbs down on losing the money in/out graph – like many others, I find it a really useful one-glance indicator of when something is needing attention: please find a way to keep it!
When invoicing, the FIRST thing I look for on the contact page, is whether my customer is on a 30 day account, or pays proforma. I used to be able to see this at a glance, but now it is hidden in a tab requiring an extra click! This info needs to be visible on the main front page, not hidden. Please fix this before rolling out the change. Thank you.
Keep the money in/out graph!
I am used to the old page, and will no doubt get used to the new one. The only thing that I will really miss is the money in-out graph. It is so useful to see any obvious changes to the regular spending pattern.
Is there anything we need to do before the change to Contacts?
I would like to see an option to Clone the clients, as we have the same or similar client but with different entities
The way I get around this is to export the contact you want to copy, then change the details that are different for the new contact, save the file and import that file back into Xero.
Hope this helps you out in the meantime.
Are you combining Suppliers and Customers because some of our Customers are a Supplier as well and this would confuse matters a bit in our accounting.
As many other, I feel removing the In/Out graph is a shame. Please put it on a seperate tab if it has to move.
More than one delivery address per customer card would be very useful. I have customers with delivery addresses all over Australia but invoices and statements go to one address. I have to open the customer card to change delivery address every time I invoice.
Also ability to mark invoice as “Prepaid” (before delivery) would be helpful. And I don’t like the “Due date” showing on invoices.
I am new to Xero and hope to see some improvement in the near future.
And eventually, we might get the ability to email an invoice to one email address within a customer/contact and a statement to another. Yawn.
Not liking this at all! Why change things that work perfectly already?
Maybe time for a change to a different system that is more user friendly
Bring back in the customer account the old invoice report ,a lot easier to check if invoice was paid or prepayment allocated or not ..
The single most useful tool for me on credit control is the graph, I use it for every customer to see if they have made their monthly payment and if they have done so every month over the last 12 months, without this my entire workload will absolutely be lost. IT HAS TO STAY!!!! Statements split a payment between the invoices paid so to see how much is paid I will have to add it up manually. KEEP THE GRAPH!
Shame about the graph, a useful at a glance tool to spot missed payments or changes in buying behaviour.
Hi, no this is not an improvement everything but. i don’t want a report for contacts, i just want a list of everything that comes up all at once for a contact and it doesn’t take two minutes to load and where i don’t have to enter in dates. Please please please can i get the old contact transaction listing back or someone from xero show me how to get it. thanks
I wonder who makes the decisions at Xero to change things and just ignore subscriber’s (not members – we pay for Xero) requests for important changes that impacts our businesses. Disputes on Bills, Payroll hours to days, etc. There are so many listed, but Xero seems to change the look of this rather than actually implementing functions that will support business.
Come on Xero, take note of what your subscribers are saying and do something useful for a change!!
Looks like a good addition. We’ve always though the contact page was an area which needed improvement.
Please bring back the graph!!!! It was the fastest and easiest way to see what’s going on in someone’s account. I could quickly see if they had paid recently or if there were changes in patterns. Please bring it back!
In the contacts page – I cannot see ‘Contact Details’ section on the right as it is overlapped by any invoices that are there showing. My page is full screen. If I make my screen larger s I have to scroll right and left (really really annoying) I can see the contact info – what has happened??
So many things are now taking extra clicks to look at
Removing the money in/out graph is a step backwards. What are you trying to achieve by that? Save a few CPU cycles in the server farm?