Xero in on Xero
Xero’s standard document templates provide options for customization. However, business needs may require additional layouts or details which are not available through the standard templates. In this article, we look at examples of situations in which custom document templates may be used, as well as how to work with them.
Xero provides a number of options to customize your organization’s documents from within the system. While these standard options suffice for many organizations, there are situations in which you may need to present a document in a certain format, or include specific information for a client or vendor, that simply is not available through Xero’s standard document functionality. Some examples I have seen in practice include:
- Adjusting the printing of mailing addresses to allow for the use of window envelopes
- Change column headings to reflect verbiage used in a specific industry
- The addition of information stored in fields within Xero which are not a part of the standard templates
Xero allows the user to customize the following documents for their needs: Invoices, Statements, Credit Notes, Quotes, Purchase Orders, Receipts, and Remittance Advices. The fields included on the initial templates within Xero vary based on the type of document, as do the additional fields that can be added to a specific document. For example, on a standard Invoice within Xero, there is not a way to show a discount percentage by line item. However, using a custom template, you could include the discount percentage by line item on a Quote, Invoice or Purchase Order, but this field is not available for use on a Statement or Credit Note document type. There is a complete listing of the fields which can be utilized in custom templates, shown by document type, located here.
Now that we’ve looked at a few of the many scenarios in which a custom document template can be used, let’s now talk about how to use them. First off, you will need to have an Advisor or Standard user role within your organization’s Xero company in order to work with their templates. After you have confirmed you are the appropriate user role, you can then access the documents by going to 'Organization Setting's>'Invoice Settings'. Click the down arrow next to 'New Branding Theme' and select 'Custom .docx.' Name your new theme and save this. When you look at the newly created theme, you will then see the ability to download a .zip file which includes all of the document templates that you can use. Note that these document templates will be downloaded in the .docx format (Microsoft Word). They can be converted and worked with in Google Sheets, but doing so means you will need to save these back to a .docx format prior to uploading to Xero.
After you have downloaded the templates, you can then begin making your document modifications. Note that any items you see between the “<<” and “>>” are the field names that Xero uses. Therefore, <<InvoiceDate>> tells Xero to place the information from the system in that location. If an item does not have <<>> before and after it, then it will print on the document as it appears on the template. For example, on an invoice template, if you change the “Quantity” column heading on the document to “Number,” the invoice will print it as shown. However, in the table section where it shows <<Quantity>>, this is going to pull the quantity of items from the Xero system for that line item.
Speaking of tables, in order for tables to render appropriately it is important to not remove the TableStart and TableEnd fields. If these are removed it will not properly display the information you wish to show in the table(s) on the document.
In summary, the ability to customize documents used within Xero through the use of .docx templates significantly enhances the power of Xero by allowing organizations to easily present the information they need on their system documents.
XPT (Xero Pro Tip): If you have made document changes and everything looks OK, but is still not rendering correctly, using Alt+F9 will open the view field codes functionality in Word. Using this will allow you to see the additional information related to the merge field where you can identify potential errors.
Paul Johnson
Author Bio: Paul K Johnson CPA, CGMA is the Founder of Atlasphere Consulting which provides accounting and fractional CFO services to organizations throughout the world. Paul and Atlasphere also have extensive experience consulting on accounting and ERP software solutions. Twitter handle: @atlaspherecons