04. Bills to match PO in Xero

New feature update on July 2023 is included in this page below in Section V.

I. EzzyBills Settings

You will need to change a pair of EzzyBills Settings to enable this. Go to Settings -> Advanced Options, use either of the two setting options below:

Option 1: PO numbers will be extracted based on EzzyBills’ own default PO keywords.

Option 2: PO numbers will be extracted based custom keywords

More: Purchase Order number extraction

II. How does this feature work?

When a bill is uploaded into EzzyBills, and there is a corresponding PO in Xero (same supplier, and same order number), then

1. If the amounts on the bill and the PO match, with some tolerance in difference (30% is the default, but the tolerance can be modified: how)

1. the PO status in Xero will get changed to BILLED;
2. the new Bill will get imported into Xero. The “Account”  code and Tracking information that is on the PO will get copied across to the Bill (matching on item codes and descriptions; otherwise use the most common one).
3. If the PO is already “billed” or “deleted”, a warning message will be written in the log and also in the weekly report.
4. If the bill is uploaded with email extension ###.MatchPO@ezzybills.com, the supplier name on the PO will get copied across to the Bill. This is a feature requested by our customers as they use generic supplier names for one off purchases.

2. If the amounts do not match (the difference is more than the percentage difference cutoff value), the new Bill will get imported into Xero, and

• (by default) assume that the PO is only partially ‘Receipted’, so the PO state will be left unchanged, but the relevant Account and Tracking information will be copied across to the new Bill.
• if you want EzzyBills to mark the PO as billed regardless whether the invoice total values matches, you can turn on the Settings below

3. Export status of bills

• By default, bills will be exported to the Draft folder in Xero.
• You can change the folder to a different one in EzzyBills Settings ( Exported Status can be modified to “Awaiting Approval” or “Approved – Waiting for Payment” as well). This setting is applicable to all bills.
• If you want bills with matched PO go to approved folder in Xero (i.e. Awaiting Payment) and the other bills go to the “Draft” folder, you can do so follow the instruction here: how to change the export status for bills with a matched PO 

III. Example: a bill, matched to purchase order 215

I now upload a matching bill for this PO.

The amount on the invoice matches that on the PO,  the new Bill gets imported into Xero, with the “Account” code and “Tracking” data transferred from the PO, line by line.

And the PO changes status to “Billed”.

IV. Get PO in Xero received and billed in 2 steps

How to receive and mark PO as billed with two steps  

V. Receiving item line by line (new option as of July 2023)

If you use “item codes” in Xero on both the PO and bill, you can enable this new optional feature by changing the workflow task setting on “Xero Export”.

With it, on the PO, you will see the receipted detail of the bill: invoice number, and items and their quantities.

Find out more

Find out more on this topic:

1. PO number extraction
2. Case Study: Match a bill with a Purchase Order in Xero – with Approval