Your bills management dream = Hubdoc

Bills management is such a pain to deal with when you're in business.

You've got to:

1) receive the bills (email, post)

2) enter them into your accounting system

3) check them against any statements you get

4) remember to pay them by due date

5) keep them for 7 years

Absolute admin.

This process is commonly all done manually too 🤮, so it takes time out of your day (and all too often it's your evenings).

If there's anything I ever implore you to automate, it's dealing with bills.

And this is the part where I tell you - there's an app for that 😅.

Have you heard of Hubdoc? It might sound familiar to you, as it's always there in your Xero organisation dropdown box in the top lefthand corner:

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Hubdoc is a bills management system owned by Xero, and we love it.

It can automatically read, categorise, and send to Xero so your bills are ready for you to review for payment and already recorded correctly. It can be set up so that you barely have to lift a finger!

Think of the above manual process, and now let's put your bill through the same journey but using Hubdoc:

1) receive the bills

2) forward* them to Hubdoc (via email, or photo upload)

3) one-off: ensure the bill has been read correctly, and then set and forget for future bills

4) Xero shows you who to pay, how much, and when, right on your dashboard upon login

5) all bills are e-filed away in folders in Hubdoc and attached to transactions in Xero (you can throw away that paper now)

*steps 1 and 2 can be combined by setting up auto-forwarding rules

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A screenshot of Hubdoc reading a bill and automatically filing it away with Xero

If you are DIYing your bookkeeping, having an app like Hubdoc will save you SO. MUCH. TIME.

Plus, it's free.

To address the elephant in the room, yes Xero has its own internal form of bills management (email-to-bills), but it has it's limitations. A brief comparison below:

Email-to-bills function within Xero

• Dedicated email to receive bills

• Bills always entered as draft

• Pretty good at reading bill details

• Will suggest coding

• Limited storage

• Attaches PDF of bills to bill transaction in Xero

• No automations

• Can't effectively be used for EFTPOS receipts that are simply just 'spend money' transactions from the bank

Hubdoc

• Dedicated email to receive bills

• Can set what status bills are to be entered in Xero as (draft, awaiting approval, awaiting payment)

• Amazing at reading bill details

• Will suggest coding and memorises for future bills from same supplier

• Unlimited storage

• Attaches PDF of bills to bill in Xero and has folder storage system

• Has automations to recognise, code, and post to Xero for regular bills

• Can be used for receipts

By now you're probably thinking this is some kind of sponsored post by Hubdoc, but I'm literally just such a superfan of saving business owner's time when it comes to these things that I will harp on about something like this for days for free.

Check it out under your Xero organisation drop down box, or if you're not quite ready to delve into it yourself then feel free to send us an email to enquire about our set up and training service for Hubdoc.

Now, what are you going to do with all your new-found free time?