How to make Xero emailed bills tax exclusive

You set a supplier to "Tax exclusive" in Xero, yet every bill that arrives through Email to Bills or Hubdoc is saved as tax inclusive, and the totals no longer match the supplier's invoice. Here is why, how to fix one bill by hand, and how to fix all of them at once.

Why it happens

Xero keeps a purchases default per contact (Contact → Edit → Bills defaults → Amounts are). New bills you create by hand use it. Bills created from an emailed or Hubdoc document are drafted by the capture step, which sets "Amounts are" from its own reading of the document and does not apply that default. The same step often leaves the account code empty when it cannot pick one. Users have asked Xero to change this on Xero Product Ideas; the request is still open.

Fix one bill in Xero

1. Open the draft bill (Business → Bills to pay → Draft).
2. Change Amounts are to Tax exclusive.
3. Decide what should stay: if the document showed net amounts, the total now goes up by the tax. If the document total is right, retype each unit price as the net amount.
4. Fill any empty Account, check the total against the document and save.

Xero has no bulk edit for it, so this is one bill at a time.

Fix every draft bill at once

Bill Tax Fixer for Xero reads your draft and awaiting-approval bills and each supplier's default, and lists every bill that differs, with the total before and after. You choose:

• Keep the total: unit prices are recalculated to 4 decimals so the bill total stays to the cent. Any cent that rounding cannot keep is shown before you confirm.
• Keep the line amounts: the printed amounts stay as net; the total grows by the tax, and the difference is shown.

Empty account codes take the supplier's default purchase account. Approved bills are never changed. Every bill is read back from Xero after the change, and a run can be undone for 30 days.

Preview your bills free  The first 10 bills are free.

Questions