Automating processes and making best use of accounting software features is one of the keys to making taking care of your books as time efficient as possible. Sending your bills to Xero by email is one of those features. It can streamline your entry process, reduce errors, and save you time. Read on to learn how to send bills to Xero by email.
How Do I Send Bills to Xero?
To send a bill to Xero by email, simply go to the bills to pay screen. Along the upper bar you have various options such as create new bill. Last on the bar is ‘Create bill from email.’ Click this and then choose copy email address. You then simply send or forward your bill to this address and it will be automatically created in Xero in the draft section.
- Tip: Save this email address to your address book so that you can send bills to Xero in the future without coming to this page.
- Pro tip: Setup rules in your mailbox to automatically forward emails from regular suppliers or vendors to the Xero email address which will then auto-create draft bills for you.
Please note, that for security reasons, Xero does not recommend you share this email address with anyone outside your business.
What Are the Pros and Cons of Sending Bills to Xero by Email?
In terms of pros, you can send nearly any type of document and Xero should be able to read it and create the bill for you. You can see a full list of document types here. You can also send multiple bills at once (up to ten) and Xero should create a separate draft bill for each one. Xero will read the bill and autofill the information that it can, such as the amount and date due. These auto-generated fields will have a lightning bolt symbol next to them so you can easily identify and check them.
On the con side, the bill must be an attachment to the email. Xero will not read any bill information that is in the body of the email. It can only create the bill as draft and you can’t create supplier rules, so you need to enter some of the information on each bill manually, such as the account code.
Do You Want More Functionality?
Would you like more functionality such as the ability to create the bill as awaiting payment or automatically adding the account code based on the supplier? To do this you can use HubDoc or other apps that link to Xero like Dext. We plan to post blogs on how these apps work with Xero in the near future, so stay tuned. If you would like to see how we can help you get setup with these other apps please visit this page.
