An app sent invoices or bills in as approved instead of draft: a guide for Xero users

You connected an app so that its invoices or bills would land as drafts for someone to check, and they arrived approved. Or a setting changed and a week of documents went straight to awaiting payment. This guide covers the setting to fix first, when an edit is enough, the manual way back to draft, and how to take a whole batch back to draft with the same numbers.

Checked against Xero Central, Xero Product Ideas and the apps' help centres on 16 October 2026.

Where the status is set

The status a document arrives with is chosen by the app that sends it, not by Xero. A few examples from the apps' own help pages:

• A2X posts draft invoices and bills by default; its auto-approve setting sends them approved instead (A2X automation settings).
• ServiceM8 has a "Send invoices to Xero as" setting: Awaiting Approval syncs them as drafts, Approved syncs them approved (ServiceM8 invoice status setting).
• Dext publishes to Xero as draft, awaiting approval, awaiting payment or paid, depending on the publishing settings (How to publish documents to Xero).
• Hubdoc: Mark as Paid turns a bill it published as a draft into an awaiting payment bill (Publish Hubdoc documents to Xero).
• Conversion imports can come in as draft, awaiting approval, approved, or approved and paid; Xero recommends importing as drafts first (Import invoices and bills using the Conversion Toolbox).

Xero's own CSV import, by contrast, always creates drafts (Import customer invoices).

Do they need to be drafts?

Often not. Xero says you can edit an invoice at any time, though some fields need the payment removed first, and that it won't notify the customer of the change (Edit an invoice). If a reviewer only needs to correct a few lines, editing the approved invoice is the quickest fix. Going back to draft matters when the document should not count yet: it should not be in the aged receivables or payables, not be emailed or paid, or it must go through your approval step again.

The manual way back to draft

Xero has no unapprove option. On the invoice request Xero's reply of 11 August 2025 marks it not in pipeline and suggests voiding and copying. So, for each document:

1. Fix the setting first. Turn off auto-approve or change the publish status in the app, so the next sync does not repeat the problem.
2. Clear what blocks a void. A paid document needs its payment removed first (Delete an invoice or bill payment).
3. Free the number. To reuse an approved invoice's number, change it before you void the invoice (Delete or void an invoice).
4. Void it. Sales invoices one at a time; bills several at a time from the Awaiting Payment tab (Delete or void a bill).
5. Copy it to a new draft. A voided invoice or bill can be copied to a new one.
6. Re-attach the files and restore the number. Download each attachment from the voided document and attach it to the draft (Attach a file to a transaction), then give the draft the original number.

Where the manual way runs out

• Six steps per document. A week of synced invoices can be dozens of documents, each opened several times.
• Receipts and source files. Capture apps attach the original document; every one has to be downloaded and uploaded again by hand.
• Voids are permanent, so a wrong click costs a re-entry.
• Lock dates stop the change for anything dated on or before them (Set up or remove lock dates).

The faster way: Unapprove

Unapprove is a web app that works with Xero. It does not change the app's settings; fix those first. It then runs the routine above for a whole selection, copy first, void second.

• Select the batch. Filter approved invoices and bills by date range, contact, number or reference, for example the contact and dates the app posted to.
• Preview, back up, confirm. The preview shows what will happen to each document and writes nothing; a CSV backup is offered; you type the count, for example UNAPPROVE 24.
• Draft copy first. Each document gets a draft copy with the same contact, dates, reference, currency, lines and attachments. A sales invoice's original is renamed with "-V" and voided, and the draft takes the original number. Both get a history note naming the other.
• Awaiting approval, not approved? A separate run sends documents from awaiting approval straight back to draft, with no copy and no void.

What it skips, and tells you why: documents with a payment applied (why), documents in a locked period (why), and documents for an archived contact (why). A document with an attachment over 10 MB, or more than 10 attachments, can only be voided. For US organisations Unapprove only voids.

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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