XBert Type: Standard
Accounting Software: Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks
Country Restriction: All regions
Risk Type: Bookkeeping Risk
Business Function: Purchases
Overview
The "Bills in Draft or Awaiting Approval" XBert identifies bills in your accounting system that remain in Draft or Submitted status over the past 12 completed months. These unapproved bills may not currently impact your financial reports, but they could affect your tax obligations and expense accuracy.
What it does
This XBert groups and flags bills by month if they are still in a Draft or Awaiting Approval status. It provides a total count and value for each month where unresolved bills are found, helping you identify unprocessed expenses that may be missing from your Profit and Loss or GST/VAT calculations.
How it works
With every data sync, XBert looks back over the previous 12 completed months to find bills that:
Have a status of DRAFT or SUBMITTED
Are not yet approved or voided
If any bills meet these conditions, XBert will raise an alert for that month. Once all bills in that month are either authorised or voided, the alert automatically resolves.
Example/Use Case
Mark from MBA Cleaning receives a bill for $880 from ABC Mowing Service. He enters it into his accounting system but leaves it in Draft status. Later, he pays the bill in cash. However, because the bill was never approved, the $880 doesn’t appear in MBA Cleaning’s Profit and Loss report — and the $80 of GST included in the bill isn’t claimed on the BAS. As a result, Mark’s business books are inaccurate, and he may overpay tax. Once the bill is approved and reconciled with the payment, the financial records are corrected.
Accounting software
All major Australian-compatible accounting software (e.g., Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks Online).
Which countries it supports
All regions.
Processes
This alert falls under the ‘Purchases (AP)’ category and helps improve accuracy in expense tracking and tax reporting. To resolve this issue:
Click RESOLVE NOW in XBert to access the list of bills for each flagged month.
Review and approve any valid bills.
Void or delete bills that are no longer needed.
Once all items are resolved, the alert will automatically clear for that reporting month.