Redo a migration whose open invoices and bills landed as approved: a guide for Xero users

The migration is done and your open invoices and bills are in Xero as approved. You wanted drafts to check first, or the numbers, dates, tax rates or accounts came through wrong. The Xero pages checked describe no way to send an approved document back to draft. This guide covers how they ended up approved, what your conversion balances need, the manual redo, what cannot be redone, and redoing a batch with the same numbers.

Checked against Xero Central on 23 October 2026.

Invoices that came across twice are a different job: see invoices posted twice after a migration.

How the documents ended up approved

Xero's own CSV imports create drafts, which you approve afterwards (Import customer invoices, Import bills and credit notes). Approved arrivals come from somewhere else. The Conversion Toolbox, the import tool Xero's page describes for advisers, lets whoever imports choose draft, awaiting approval, approved, or approved and paid, and suggests draft so you can check first (Import invoices and bills using the Conversion Toolbox). An app set to approve on arrival, or someone approving the whole import, gives the same result.

What your conversion balances expect

An approved document is not always a mistake. Xero says the unpaid invoices and bills at your conversion date are entered at their outstanding amounts, and that their total due must equal the receivables and payables conversion balances (Enter unpaid invoices and bills for your conversion balances). Its troubleshooting page lists what they need: approved, only invoices, bills, credit notes and expenses, dated before the conversion date, at outstanding rather than original amounts. Xero won't save the conversion balances while the totals differ (Troubleshooting for conversion balances).

So a document dated before the conversion date should end up approved, and a draft is no stand-in. Documents dated on or after it are ordinary transactions, where drafts-first makes sense. Split your list by that date.

Edit in place, or redo?

If only a few fields are wrong, edit. Xero says an awaiting payment invoice can be edited (Edit an invoice), as can any field of an awaiting payment bill with no part-payments or credit notes (Edit bills). Redo when the documents must be drafts again, or too many are wrong to edit one by one.

The manual redo, step by step

1. Split by the conversion date. The conversion date is always the first of a month (Setting your conversion date). Run the aged receivables and payables summaries for the day before it and keep copies.
2. Clear what blocks a void. Remove any payment with Remove and Redo first. The bank statement line stays, and Xero says a removed payment can't be restored (Delete an invoice or bill payment).
3. Free the number and void. To reuse the number of an approved invoice, change it before you void, for example by adding "-V". Invoices are voided one at a time; bills can be voided several at a time from the Awaiting Payment tab (Delete or void an invoice, Delete or void a bill).
4. Copy each one to a new draft. Xero says a voided invoice or bill can be copied to a new one. Re-attach the files by hand.
5. Correct the draft. Fix the number, date, tax rate and accounts. A document that belongs to the conversion keeps a date before the conversion date and the amount outstanding.
6. Approve again. Approve the drafts and check the aged summaries against the old system.
7. Save the conversion balances again. Each save reverses the previous conversion journal and posts a new one (Enter conversion balances).

What cannot be redone

• Payments. A document with a payment applied has to lose the payment first, and a removed payment can't be restored. Payments the migration brought in are separate transactions.
• Locked periods. Once a lock date is set, users can't add or edit transactions dated on or before it (Set up or remove lock dates). Xero also says a lock date can stop a standard user saving conversion balances.
• The conversion date. A redo does not move it. Xero lets you reset it, but the balances must then be confirmed again. That is a decision about your books.
• The void. It is permanent, which is why the copy comes first.

The faster way: Unapprove

Unapprove is a web app that works with Xero. It runs the void-and-copy redo for a whole selection and keeps the numbers. It does not compare your books with the old system or touch your conversion balances, so the last manual step stays yours.

• Select. Filter approved sales invoices and bills by date, contact, number or reference. A date range splits documents before and after the conversion date.
• Preview and confirm. The preview writes nothing and offers a CSV backup. You type the count, for example UNAPPROVE 40.
• Draft copy, same details. Each document gets a draft copy with the same number, contact, dates, lines and attachments. A sales invoice's original is renamed with a "-V" suffix and voided, and a history note on both documents points to the other.
• Then you finish. Correct the drafts, approve them and save the conversion balances again, as in steps five to seven.

What it skips, and tells you why: documents with a payment applied or a credit note allocated (why), documents in a locked period (why), and documents for an archived contact (why). An attachment over 10 MB, or more than 10 attachments, means void only; the preview says so. For US organisations it only voids. Credit notes are not covered. The "Remove payments and void" run makes no draft copy, so it is not a redo. See the bulk unapprove guide for the general run.

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. The payments permission is requested only when 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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Questions

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