Why choose Draft or Approved?
When you publish a receipt as a Bill or a Sales invoice, XBert creates it in your client's Xero file. You choose which state it arrives in:
Draft: the bill or sales invoice waits in Xero's Drafts, so someone can review and approve it in Xero.
Approved: the bill or sales invoice goes straight to Awaiting Payment in Xero, with no second review in Xero.
Bills and sales invoices each have their own setting, so you can choose differently for each, for example approving bills straight away while sales invoices wait in Drafts.
Every client starts on Draft for both. Choose Approved for clients where you're happy for your review in XBert to be the final check.
đĄ This only applies to bills and sales invoices in Xero
Expenses (Spend Money transactions) aren't affected, and the option doesn't appear for clients on other accounting software, which can't take sales invoices from Receipt Capture either. For MYOB clients, which have no drafts, the preview panel says To MYOB as an open bill: it's live in MYOB as soon as it's published instead.
â ď¸ Approved needs a due date
Xero won't accept an approved bill or sales invoice without a due date. If it's missing, publishing stops at the validation step with Due date is required when publishing as Approved. Add the due date, click Apply & Save, then click Retry Step.
Before you start
You need admin access to change a client's default.
The client must use Xero and have Receipt Capture switched on.
đ Read more here: How To: Turn On Receipt Capture for Your Clients
Set the default for a client
In the left-hand menu, click Settings.
Under Receipt Capture, click Settings.
Find the client using the search at the top.
In the Publish Bills As column for bills, or the Publish Sales Invoices As column for sales invoices, click Draft or Approved.
Hover over it and you'll see Approved bills go straight to Awaiting Payment in Xero - they will not wait in Drafts for another review, or the same message for sales invoices.
The default applies to every bill or sales invoice for that client that hasn't been published yet, unless you've changed that receipt on its own.
If you see a dash instead of Draft and Approved in either column, the client isn't on Xero or doesn't have Receipt Capture switched on.
Change it for a single receipt
You can change where one bill or sales invoice lands in Xero before it's published, without changing the client's default. You don't need admin access for this.
In the left-hand menu, click Receipt Capture.
Click the receipt to open the preview panel.
Next to To Xero as Draft, click Change to Approved.
You'll be asked Publish as approved? Click Publish as approved to confirm.
To switch back, click Change to Draft.
â ď¸ You can't change this after it's published
The option disappears once the receipt has been published. To change the status of a published bill or sales invoice after that, do it in Xero.
Need help?
If you have any questions, our support team is here to help!
Reach out via the chat widget on the bottom left of your XBert screen (Help), or email us at support@xbert.io