What lands in an accounts payable inbox?
List the message types before you automate anything. A typical accounts@ address receives supplier tax invoices, monthly statements, credit notes, payment reminders from suppliers, requests to change bank details, questions about when an invoice will be paid, and newsletters. Remittance advice from your own customers often arrives at the same address and belongs to receivables. Each type needs a different destination. Forwarding everything to bill capture creates draft bills from documents that are not bills, while leaving everything in the inbox means invoices wait until someone finds them.
- Supplier tax invoices: to bill capture.
- Statements and credit notes: to a person for reconciliation.
- Bank detail changes: to a restricted verification queue.
- Payment questions: to the accounts payable officer with a drafted reply.
How does Xero's bills email address work?
Every Xero organisation has a unique email address for bills. Email a bill to it as an attachment and Xero creates a draft bill with the document attached, filling the contact, date, total, due date, reference and description when it can read them. Bills in the body of an email are not read. You can send up to 10 bills in one email, up to 25MB in total, and Xero creates a draft for each attachment. If the supplier is not yet a Xero contact, the draft is created with No contact and must be corrected before approval. Xero recommends you do not share the address outside your organisation.
- Find it under Purchases, Bills, New bill, then Copy your forwarding email address.
- A rule in your mailbox can forward bills automatically, as Xero suggests.
- Some mail servers reject addresses that include an exclamation mark; Xero explains a workaround.
Which emails should not be forwarded to bill capture?
Because Xero creates a draft bill for each attachment, forwarding a supplier statement risks a draft bill that duplicates invoices you already hold. Credit notes and quotes carry the same risk. Xero recognises logos and some other documents and saves them to the documents inbox, but its help centre does not promise to recognise a statement, so assume any PDF may become a draft. Keep the automatic forward narrow: known suppliers, a PDF attachment, and wording that identifies a tax invoice. Everything else goes to a review folder for a person, or an AI triage step, to sort.
What should be checked on each supplier invoice?
You need a valid tax invoice to claim a GST credit. The ATO says a tax invoice for a taxable sale under $1,000 must let you clearly determine seven details: that it is intended to be a tax invoice, the seller's identity, the seller's ABN, the issue date, a brief description with quantity and price, the GST amount, and the extent to which each item is taxable. For sales of $1,000 or more it must also show the buyer's identity or ABN. An extraction step can check these fields are present, compare the ABN with the supplier record and flag gaps so someone requests a corrected invoice.
- Duplicate check: same supplier, amount and invoice number as an existing bill.
- Purchase order or job number present where your process needs one.
- Due date consistent with the terms agreed with that supplier.
How should bank detail change requests be handled?
Treat any email that mentions new bank details, a new BSB or account number, or updated payment details as a security event. The Australian Cyber Security Centre lists an unexpected change of bank details as a warning sign of business email compromise, where criminals use a hacked supplier mailbox to send real-looking invoices carrying their own account. Route these messages out of the normal accounts payable flow, never let automation update supplier bank details, and verify by phone using a number from your own records. The separate guide on bank detail change requests sets out the steps.
Can AI answer supplier payment questions?
Suppliers often ask when an invoice will be paid. An AI drafting step can read the question, find the bill by invoice number and draft a reply with its status for a person to approve. Keep the reply factual: received, approved, scheduled for the next pay run, or on hold with the reason. Do not let it promise a payment date that depends on an approval nobody has given yet. Replies that dispute a bill, raise a credit or threaten to stop supply should go straight to the person who manages that supplier.