Duplicate bills from Dext, Hubdoc or the bills inbox: a guide for Xero users

The same supplier bill is in the books twice: emailed to the bills inbox and published from Dext, or uploaded to Hubdoc by two people. For unpaid copies, Xero's own duplicate review is the right tool, and this guide starts there. It then covers what the review leaves to you, chiefly paid copies, and how to clear a large batch of those in one run.

Checked against Xero Central, Xero Product Ideas and Dext's help centre on 16 October 2026.

Where the second copy comes from

• Two routes for one bill. The bills inbox creates a draft bill for each PDF attached to an email, up to 10 per email (Email PDF bills into Xero). If the same supplier also sends the bill to Dext or Hubdoc, it can arrive twice.
• Published straight to paid. Dext can publish to Xero as draft, awaiting approval, awaiting payment or paid (How to publish documents to Xero). In Hubdoc, Mark as Paid turns a bill it published as a draft into an awaiting payment bill in Xero (Publish Hubdoc documents to Xero). So a copy may arrive approved, or with a payment already on it.
• Republished after an edit. Dext says to delete the copy in Xero first, then clear the item's publishing data before republishing (How to republish an item). Skipping the first step leaves two bills.

The manual way, step by step

1. Close the second route. Decide whether suppliers send to the bills inbox or to your capture tool, not both. Dext can flag likely duplicates for review instead of publishing them (How Dext handles duplicates); Hubdoc flags them and never auto-publishes a flagged one (Resolve issues with documents in Hubdoc).
2. Run the duplicate review. Xero compares the contact, reference and amount of bills and credit notes and flags potential duplicates. In Purchases, Bills, open the menu and choose Review duplicate bills, then Keep all, Delete or Void for each supplier (Review duplicate bills or credit notes).
3. Catch what the review misses. A copy with a different reference or amount is not flagged, and bills from the same repeating template are not compared. Search by contact and amount for the rest (Search for sales and purchase transactions).
4. Delete or void the unpaid copies. Drafts and awaiting approval bills can be deleted; awaiting payment bills can be voided several at a time from the Awaiting Payment tab (Delete or void a bill).
5. Unpick the paid copies. Remove the payment first, one payment from one bill at a time, then void. If the payment was reconciled, Remove & Redo deletes it and leaves the bank line to reconcile again (Delete an invoice or bill payment).

Where the manual way runs out

• The review is for unpaid bills. Xero's reply on the duplicate warning request (25 September 2024) says the review page takes action on unpaid bills, draft or awaiting payment; paid bills are picked up, but you act on them from the bills list.
• One payment per bill per step. A month of copies published as paid is a long afternoon of Remove & Redo.
• Tax. Xero says voiding a bill could have tax implications, so check with your accountant, especially if a VAT or GST return already includes the copies.
• Lock dates. Nothing dated on or before a lock date can be changed (Set up or remove lock dates).

The faster way for paid copies: Unapprove

Unapprove is a web app that works with Xero. For unpaid duplicates, Xero's review is quicker and free; use it. Unapprove does not find duplicates. It helps once you have a list of copies that the review can't clear, typically because they are paid.

• Select the copies. Filter bills by contact, date range, number, reference or amount owing, and tick the ones you identified.
• A backup first. The preview offers a CSV of the selection, including amounts paid, before anything runs.
• Paid copies. The "Remove payments and void" run removes each copy's payments and credit note allocations, then voids it, and lists what it removed in a history note. Reconciled and batch payments are never removed; those copies are listed for Remove & Redo in Xero.
• Unpaid copies the review missed. The void-only run voids them in batches and adds a history note to each.
• Bills that should be redone, not removed. The unapprove run makes a draft copy with the same contact, lines and receipt attachments, then voids the original.

What it skips, and tells you why: documents in a locked period (why) and documents for an archived contact (why). Each run has a ceiling on the number of documents.

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".

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 for 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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