How to bulk change the account code on Xero bills

Short answer

1. List the bills that have the wrong account.
2. Fix each draft bill by hand in Business > Bills to pay.
3. Use Find and recode for bills already posted.
4. Check a report for the account.

Before you start

• Know the status of each bill. Draft, awaiting approval and approved bills behave differently.
• Check your lock date. Xero blocks changes before it.
• Check whether the bill has been included in a filed BAS.

The manual way in Xero

Draft bills:

1. Go to Business > Bills to pay and open the Draft tab.
2. Open the first bill.
3. Click the Account cell on a wrong line and choose the right account.
4. Save the bill.
5. Repeat for every bill on your list.

Posted bills:

1. Open Find and recode from the Accounting menu.
2. Search for the lines by account, date range or other filters.
3. Select the lines and choose the new account.
4. Review and confirm.

Limits to know:

• There is no bulk edit for the account on draft bills. This is an open request on Xero Product Ideas.
• Find and recode works on posted lines. It does not edit the draft bills in your queue.
• Changes do not pass the lock date.
• Third-party apps can edit bills in bulk. They are separate products with their own terms and pricing.

The Pulsify way

Fix the account before the bill reaches Xero, then you never need to change it after.

1. Forward the invoices to your Pulsify address. Pulsify sets an account on each line from how that supplier’s past bills were coded.
2. To change many lines on one bill, open it and use Bulk edit above the line items. Set the Account once and it applies to every line.
3. To change many bills, select them in the queue and choose Edit > Bulk edit. Pick the Account and apply it. Fields you leave on “Leave untouched” stay as they were.
4. Approve. Pulsify creates the bills in Xero with the right account.

Bulk edit works on bills still in the queue, before approval. It does not change bills already in Xero.

Worked example

Example Plumbing Supplies sends 14 invoices in a week. Each has one fuel line coded to “General Expenses”. Your fuel account is “Motor Vehicle - Fuel”.

In Xero, you open each of the 14 draft bills and change one cell. That is 14 saves.

In the Pulsify queue, you select the 14 bills and use Bulk edit to set the Account to “Motor Vehicle - Fuel”. A bulk edit sets the field on every line of every selected bill. If a bill also has a freight line, that line moves too. Bulk edit only the bills that have the fuel line alone. Fix the rest by hand.

Common mistakes

• Bulk recoding a whole bill when only one line is wrong.
• Changing an approved bill in a period that is in a filed BAS.
• Not checking the lock date first.

Next step

Try an invoice and set the right account before the bill reaches Xero. See automated line-item coding for how Pulsify learns your coding.