Welcome to the Fit Small Business Xero
training course. In this lesson we're
going to cover how to import supplier
bills in Xero. To follow along with me
login to your Xero account now or click
the link below this video for a free
30-day trial of Xero. You can also click
this link to access our full Xero course
and other helpful resources. Let's get
started. When you purchase big-ticket
items such as office furniture or
computers, you may receive your purchases
first and then pay sometime in the
future depending on the credit terms you
have established with your supplier.
If you are converting from another
accounting software to Xero then you
will most likely have unpaid bills that
need to be entered into Xero. It is very
important for you to create these open
bills in Xero for a couple of reasons.
First, you need to have an accurate
record of the money that you owe to your
suppliers, this is also known as accounts
payable. And you also need to have a bill
to apply your payment to when it is time
to make a payment. It is much easier to
import bills into Xero as opposed to
manually entering them one by one.
In this lesson we will walk through each
step of how to import your bills into
Xero. From the Xero dashboard you want to
go ahead and navigate to accounts and
select purchases. And then let's go ahead
and click on the import button. So here
are the three steps that we need to
complete in order to import the supplier
bills into Xero. The first step that you
want to take is to go ahead and download
the bills template file and save it to
your computer. A template similar to this
one should have downloaded to your
computer. At a minimum you must provide
information for the required fields
which we've indicated here with an
asterisk in red. Try to provide as much
information as possible to avoid having
to complete it later on. Starting with
the Contact Name column. You want to
enter the name of the supplier as it
appears on the bill. Please note that
this is a required field.
Email Address: enter the email address of
your contact person for the supplier in
this column. In these next few columns
you want to enter the remit to address
where your supplier would like you to
send payments via chat and other
correspondence. Please note if the
supplier has already been set up in Xero
then you can leave these fields blank.
Invoice Number: enter the invoice number
that appears on your bill. If there is no
invoice number you should create your
own for reference later. Please note that
this is a required field. Invoice Date:
in the invoice date column you want to
enter the bill date that appears on your
bill using this format - two digits for
the month, two digits for the day, and
four digits for the year. For the Due
Date column you want to use the same
format as well. Inventory Item Code: if
you purchased an item for resale to
customers, enter the item code exactly as
it appears in Xero. If you have not set
up the item code then you should do that
first before importing supplier bills.
Click here to access this lesson.
Please note that if you've purchased more than one
item you need to enter each item on a
separate line in this spreadsheet, and
complete all of the required fields.
Description: enter the details of each
item that you purchase as it appears on
the bill. Quantity: if applicable enter
the quantity of each product that you've purchased.
Please note for services this could
represent the number of hours.
Unit Amount: in the unit amount column
enter the per unit cost of each product
or service that you purchased. Please
note this is a required field.
For services this could be the hourly rate
paid or a flat amount. Please note that
you do not need to enter the dollar sign
in this field. Account Code: refer to the
chart of accounts for the account code
that this purchase should be coded to.
Please note that this is a required
field. In the Tax Type field go ahead
and enter the sales tax rate that appears on
the invoice. Please note that this is a
required field in Xero. So if there is no
sales tax rate, go ahead and enter the
default tax which would be taxed on
purchases 0%. You want to
complete the next four columns only if
you have setup tracking categories in
Xero. To learn how tracking categories
work, refer to our course on Reporting in
Xero. Click here to access this lesson.
And finally the Currency column. If you
track bills in multiple currencies, enter
the three-letter code for the foreign
currency the bill is in if it is not in
your native currency. Please note you
must set up multiple currencies first
before you can import supplier bills.
Click here to access this lesson.
Now before we proceed to importing this data
into Xero, I'd like to share a few tips
with you about importing supplier bills.
Tip number one: do not combine customer
invoices and bills on the same template.
Customer invoices must be imported
separately using the invoice template.
For more information you can click here
to access this lesson. Tip number two: do
not make any changes or rearrange the
header row. That is this first row here.
Tip number three: while you can delete
any columns that you do not have
information to import, I recommend that
you leave them. There is no harm in doing
so. Tip number four: if you have already
set up supplier contacts in Xero, be sure
to enter the name of the supplier
exactly as it appears in Xero in the
supplier contacts field. Otherwise, Xero
will assume it is a brand new supplier
and it will set it up again. Tip number
five: if you have already set up supplier
contacts in Xero there is no need to
complete the P.O. address fields unless
you would like to make changes. That is
these fields here. Any information
entered in the template in these fields
will override the contract
details that you currently have set up
in Xero. Tip number six: for bills with
more than one line item each line item
must include the same invoice number and
currency for multi currency. This will
allow Xero to ensure each line item
shows up on the bill along with the
correct totals. Let's return to the
import screen now and import our data.
Back on the import screen in Xero, we
just completed step number two where we
put on information into the template and
now we are ready for step three. Which is
import the updated template file into
Xero. So you want to go ahead and click
the Browse button to locate the file
that you want to import. Once you select
the file you should be able to see the
file name to the right here. Once you see
your file name here to the right,
we want to go ahead and do a couple more
things here. So there are a couple of
questions that we need to answer in
order to assist Xero in handling
contact address details and sales tax.
So the first question here that we are
asked is would you like to update
contact address details. As we just
discussed, if you have already set up the
supplier contact in Xero, then there is
no need to include address details in
this template unless you want to update
the information that was previously
entered during setup. So in this example
we'll select 'No, ignore all address
details'. The next question is the unit
amount field tax inclusive or exclusive?
If you include a tax in the unit amount
column of the template, then select tax
inclusive. If you did not include tax in
this column then you want to select
exclusive. In our sales tax lesson we
discussed how to track, pay, and report
sales tax. Click here to access this lesson.
Once you've indicated your
response for the two questions, you can
go ahead and click the import button.
In the next screen we'll have a chance to
review and confirm the bills
that will be imported. So from this
screen Xero is letting us know that
there are a total of seven bills that
will be imported into Xero. Luckily we
have no errors. So basically in this
section make sure that the total number
of bills in this section agrees with the
total number of bills in your
spreadsheet. If it does not, you will see
a notification in this section for any
errors for the bills that will not
import, along with an explanation of what
the issue is. Please note all bills will
import in a draft status. This simply
means that the bills will have to be
approved after they have been imported.
You can give certain users permission to
approve bills. We will discuss this in
more detail in the lesson on How to
Invite Users. Click here to access this lesson.
If you are ready to proceed with
the import, select the complete import
button here. If for some reason you need
to go back and make changes, go ahead and
click the go back button. So we'll go
ahead and select complete import. And we've
received a notification here that 7 new
draft bills have been imported here.
So since this is a success we see all of
the bills that we just imported, and they
are on the draft tab here. So at this
point you can review, edit, or approve the bills.
That wraps up the lesson on how to
import supplier bills into Xero. To
access our full Xero course or any of
the other lessons in this series,
Click this link. You can also find a link below
this video for a free 30-day trial of
Xero.
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