Bulk unapprove bills: a guide for Xero users

Xero has no button to unapprove an approved bill, one or many. It lets you approve bills in bulk, but its Product Ideas reply says the way back is not in the roadmap at the moment. A bill that must go back to draft is copied, the original voided and the files re-attached. This guide covers when editing is enough, that route step by step, where it stops being practical, and how to do it for a whole selection.

Checked against Xero Central on 12 October 2026 and Xero Product Ideas on 24 October 2026.

First, check whether editing is enough

Many "wrong" bills do not need to go back to draft at all. Xero's page on editing bills says an awaiting payment bill with no part-payments or credit notes applied can be edited in any field. On a paid bill you cannot change the tax rate, but you can change fields that do not affect the total, such as contact, reference, account code, description and tracking. If the problem is an account code on many lines, Xero's find and recode tool changes it in bulk without touching the status. Go back to draft only when you must re-enter the bill itself: a wrong contact you cannot recode, wrong amounts, a wrong date or a wrong currency.

The native way: void, copy, re-attach, approve

Xero's reply on the bill unapprove request (more than 650 votes), dated 20 November 2025, says the work needs groundwork first, with the Bills pages being rebuilt, and is not in the roadmap at the moment. So the routine for each bill is:

1. Remove any payment. A paid bill cannot be voided. Use Remove & Redo on the bill (Delete an invoice or bill payment). A batch payment has to be dealt with as a batch (Delete a batch payment).
2. Download the attached files. Open the bill, click Files, then View and Download for each file (View, download and delete files in transactions).
3. Copy the bill first. Purchases > Bills, open the bill, click Copy (Add and approve a bill). Xero states that an attachment is not copied to the new bill.
4. Void the original. Purchases > Bills, Awaiting Payment tab, tick the bills, click Void, then Continue. Voiding several bills at once is supported (Delete or void a bill).
5. Re-attach the files to the copy (Attach a file to a transaction), then edit the copy and approve it. Approving several drafts at once works from the Draft tab.

In the beta of bill approval workflows, a rejected bill goes back to the Draft tab (Understand bill approval workflows), but that covers bills waiting for approval, not approved ones. Which route fits which status is set out in moving bills back to draft.

Where the native way runs out

• Only the void is bulk. Copying, downloading and re-attaching files, and re-entering anything are done bill by bill.
• Attachments do not follow the copy. For receipts and supplier PDFs that is the expensive part: every file is a download and an upload.
• A void is permanent. Xero says a deleted or voided bill cannot be restored, only copied, and that voiding a bill could have tax implications, so check with your accountant or bookkeeper.
• Payments go one at a time. Xero says you can remove only one payment from one bill at a time, and that a removed payment cannot be restored.
• Lock dates. After a lock date is set, users cannot add or edit transactions dated on or before it (Set up or remove lock dates).

Sales invoices add a rule about numbers: see the invoice and bill guide.

The faster way: Unapprove

Unapprove is a web app that works with Xero. It runs the routine above for a selection of bills, in the order that protects the original: the draft copy is created and checked first, and the original is voided only after that.

What it does for a bill

• You sign in at Xero and choose the organisation. Filter the list to bills and narrow it by status, date range, contact, number or reference. A preview shows the outcome for every document and writes nothing.
• The draft copy carries the contact, dates, reference, currency, tax setting and every line, including tracking.
• Bills keep their number. A bill's number need not be unique in Xero, so the copy takes it straight away and the original is not renamed. (A sales invoice's original is renamed with a "-V" suffix first.)
• Attachments are carried across from the original to the copy, and the original is not voided unless the copy shows the same number of files.
• Both bills get a history note naming the other and the order things happened in.
• You confirm by typing the count, for example UNAPPROVE 24. A CSV backup of the selection is offered on the preview first. Afterwards you can download a results file.

What it skips, and tells you why: bills with a payment applied or a credit note allocated (why), bills inside a locked period (why), bills for an archived contact (why), and any bill processed in the last 24 hours. A bill with a file over 10 MB, or more than 10 files, can only be voided, because no complete copy can be made. Each run has a ceiling on the number of documents; if your selection is over it, the preview says so and asks you to select fewer and run again.

Paid bills. An unapprove run skips them. A separate "Remove payments and void" run removes the payments and then voids the bill, but it does not create a draft copy, and it leaves reconciled and batch payments alone.

What access it asks for: your name and email to sign you in, read and write on invoices and bills, read and write on attachments, and read-only on organisation settings and contacts. A payments permission is requested only if you choose "Remove payments and void".

What it never does: see your Xero password, store your attachments, or change anything before you type the confirmation. Nobody can undo a void.

Price: free for 14 days, with unlimited previews and three documents processed in total. After that, $29 per month per connected organisation, or a one-off $49 Clean-up Pass covering 7 days and up to 500 documents. Prices are in US dollars and exclude VAT and sales tax (added at checkout); the pricing page has the details.

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