Year-end clean-up checklist for duplicate and misposted invoices: a guide for Xero users

Before the year's books are locked, someone has to find the invoices that should not be there: the same invoice entered twice, an import that ran twice, a sale posted to the wrong account. This guide is a checklist for that, with Xero's own tools first, where each one stops, and how to deal with a large batch of approved documents once you have decided what has to go.

Checked against Xero Central on 12 October 2026.

The checklist, with the native tools

1. Finish the period first. Xero's year-end page says to reconcile every bank account, enter and approve all invoices, bills and expense claims, and bank all payments before you start (Do a year end). Clean-up goes before the lock date, not after: that same page lists setting a lock date as the accountant's closing step.
2. Review duplicate bills. Xero compares the contact, reference and amount of all bills and credit notes and flags potential duplicates. In Purchases > Bills, use the menu icon and choose Review duplicate bills, then Void, Delete or Keep all for each supplier (Review duplicate bills or credit notes). A paid bill needs its payment removed first.
3. Look for duplicate sales invoices by search. There is no equivalent review for sales invoices, so search by contact, amount and date range (Search for sales and purchase transactions) and compare what comes back. Invoice numbers must be unique, so a duplicate usually carries a different number and the same contact, date and amount.
4. Remove what is wrong. Drafts and awaiting approval documents can be deleted, and several at a time from the list view. Approved documents can only be voided (Delete or void an invoice, Delete or void a bill). If you already sent an invoice, Xero recommends a credit note instead of a void, so you and the customer have an audit trail.
5. Fix misposted lines. For a wrong account code, tax rate, contact or tracking, edit the document (Edit an invoice) or use find and recode for a group of lines (About find and recode, Find and recode a group of transaction lines).
6. Re-run the aged reports and the other checks on Xero's year-end page, then let your accountant lock the period.

Where the native tools run out

• Voiding sales invoices is one at a time. Xero's invoice page says you cannot void awaiting payment invoices in bulk. Bills can be voided in bulk from the Awaiting Payment tab.
• Paid duplicates need their payments removed first, one payment from one document at a time, and a payment removed with Remove & Redo cannot be restored (Delete an invoice or bill payment).
• Find and recode has fences. It needs the administrator role, Xero recommends no more than 200 transaction lines at a time, it cannot recode a locked period or voided transactions, and a recoded line cannot be undone except by recoding it again.
• Recode will not fix everything. It does not change dates, references or amounts. Xero lets you edit those on an unpaid approved invoice; if the document has to go back to draft instead, you are back to void, re-enter and re-attach, which is the routine in the unapprove guide.
• Voided numbers are used up. To reuse the number of an approved invoice, change it before you void it. Voided invoices cannot be restored.
• Lock dates end the argument. Once a lock date is set, users cannot add or edit transactions on or before it (Set up or remove lock dates).

The faster way for the approved ones: Unapprove

Unapprove is a web app that works with Xero. To be clear about its limits first: it does not find duplicates or misposted lines for you. You decide what is wrong, with the checklist above; Unapprove does the repetitive part for a large selection of approved invoices and bills.

What it does

• Selecting. After you sign in at Xero and choose the organisation, filter by type, status, date range, contact, number, reference, overdue days or amount owing. Tick what you decided to remove. The selection can be saved and carried across pages.
• A backup before anything runs. The preview offers a CSV of the selection: each document's ID, type, number, reference, contact, dates, status, currency, totals, amount paid and credited, whether it has attachments, and the last update. Keep it with the year-end file.
• Void the duplicates. The void-only run voids approved sales invoices and bills in batches of 50 and adds a history note to each ("Voided in bulk", with the number). No copy is made. Every document is re-read right before it is voided.
• Redo the misposted ones. The unapprove run creates a draft copy with the same number, contact, dates, reference, currency and lines, carries the attachments across, then voids the original. You correct the draft and approve it.
• Duplicates that were paid. A separate "Remove payments and void" run removes the payments and credit note allocations, then voids the document, and lists what it removed in the history note. It leaves reconciled payments and batch payments alone.

What it skips, and tells you why: documents with a payment applied or a credit note allocated in the unapprove and void-only runs (why), documents dated on or before your lock date (why), documents for an archived contact (why), and anything processed in the last 24 hours. That lock date rule is why the clean-up has to come first. Each run has a ceiling on the number of documents; if you select more, the preview asks you to select fewer and run again.

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, change anything before you type the confirmation (for example VOID 18), or undo a void. Nobody can undo a void, so check the preview against your list.

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, which suits a single year-end. Prices are in US dollars and exclude VAT and sales tax (added at checkout); the pricing page has the details.

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