The walkthrough
69.3 seconds. Captions are included in the film. Made with Nolan from an editable screenplay running in a real browser.
What the requester said
“In ‘Bills Awaiting Payment’ it would be useful if you could assign (or at contact level) a payment method. Specifically so that anything due to be taken by DD isn’t inadvertently paid on a payment run.”
Verbatim from the Xero Product Ideas board. Reproduced as a contiguous extract and checked against the harvested record.
Key moments
- Set a default payment method on the contact and override it on a bill.
- Keep direct-debit bills out of a payment run by default.
- Let the user review and include an excluded bill when needed.
What we concluded
Needs a different solution
A payment-method column provides useful context, but it still relies on someone noticing it during a payment run.
Leaving direct-debit bills out of the run by default is what prevents duplicate payment.
Why we reached that conclusion
The requester wants to avoid paying a bill twice when the supplier is already collecting it by direct debit. Showing the payment method helps, but the prototype suggested that a safer default would address the problem more directly.
A column still relies on someone noticing it while working through a long payment run. Because the reported problem is an accidental selection, the interface can do more than provide information.
Our prototype stores a default payment method on the contact, allows it to be changed for an individual bill, and leaves direct-debit bills out of batch selection by default. A visible notice explains which bills were excluded and lets the user include them when necessary.
Bills without a payment method continue to behave as they do today. The change requires a new field and more space in an already busy table, but it does not require a new payment workflow.