Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks
While accounting can be a repetitive, time-consuming function, you may be making more work for yourself than need be. With just a few minutes of your time, and the magic of Xero, you can teach your accounting software to do much of your recurring work for you all on its own. Here’s how to set up automatic repeating invoices in Xero!
After you’ve logged into your Xero dashboard, click on the Sales button under the Accounts tab at the top of your screen:
On the Sales page, click the New button at the top left, and then Repeating Invoices in the drop-down menu. It’s been there the whole time, even if you’ve never noticed it before:
There are quite number of data points on the New Repeating Invoice screen, and to effectively use this tool, you’ll need to take a moment to consider things like when you want the invoice to generate each month, and the due date for payment once it has been sent out.
In the example below, we’ve set the invoice to automatically generate on the first of each month, with a due date of the 20th of the same month. In the event that the invoices have a predetermined end point, you can set that as well in the End Date box. Leaving that particular box blank will instruct Xero to keep creating invoices until you eventually tell it to cut it out.
Clicking each of the three options in the blue rectangle above will trigger a variety of events. Save as Draft will, well, save the invoice as a draft for you to come back and approve each time. This is useful when costs varies from period to period, but hardly much of an efficiency hack. Approve will create the invoice for you to then send out yourself.
But the real time-killer is to go for Approve for Sending, which will automatically email the invoice to its intended recipient each month (or week, depending on your needs).
Simply fill out the financial information in the fields underneath, just like you normally would for a single invoice, and then kick back and revel in your newfound Xero mastery.
GSD: Tips and Tricks is brought to you by Xero, the cloud accounting software solution for your small business. With Xero, you can log in anytime, anywhere to get a real-time view of your cash flow and manage your books. Start your free 30-day trial today.