47 comments
Hi Miles,
Discounts can only be entered at the line item level as shown in the video & this How do I enter a discount? Help Centre page, and not to the overall total as you request. We realise the discount functionality is a bit clunky at the moment and based on customer feedback will possibly review this at some stage.
Thanks for writing in!
Catherine
Hi,
The discounts really does need visiting. Reducing the quantity just leads to confusion. Your example is OK, but if I’m sending 10 of something, but just but 9 in the quantity field, the customer just gives me grief! “Sorry but its a limitation in our accountancy software” just doesn’t cut it!
I always want to show how much discount I have given on individual lines, not as one total so your second option isn’t great for us either.
What I really need is just a discount field that takes a % off the total for that line.
Please push this up your priority list!!!
Regards
James
Hi James,
Thanks for this feedback and we’ll certainly put your request for this to be revisited onto our To Do list. We didn’t build a discounting module per se into our invoicing but as we get feedback like this we’ll certainly need to take another look. Thanks for letting us know.
Catherine
We are considering using Zero but the discount options are very poor in my opinion.
Hi Martin,
Thanks for your feedback, +1 for getting this revisited!
Catherine
Agree with the above regarding the limitations of Xero and discounts. There also there needs to be something included for settlement discount as the VAT calculation changes in the UK
How would one go about setting up a client to permanently and automatically receive a X% discount on every invoice?
Hi Matthew
At this stage you can’t apply a percentage discount to an invoice overall or to a customer. It’s something we’re looking at for a future release. In the meantime the quickest way to provide the same discount on a regular basis is to use a price list item – this may or may not be suitable depending on the number of customers or number of products. Our help on discounts is brief but may provide a spark.
Regards,
Catherine
Rose
Hi Guys, our discounts are lump sum, not percent based and I was wanting to enter a negative amount in the PriceLists to show this – however, can’t seem to get xero to allow this. Can you help?
Hi Rose, you’re right, you can’t enter a negative amount for a price list item. One thing you could do is set up a price list item with the code, generic description for the discount if appropriate and account, and leave the value at 0.00 to enter a negative line item on the invoice after inserting the item. Not sure if that might work for your situation.
Regards,
Catherine
Michael
Yeah! I heard this line “At this stage you can’t apply a percentage discount to an invoice overall or to a customer. It’s something we’re looking at for a future release” TWO YEARS AGO! This is simply bulls***ing customers. You have great software with great SIMPLE,basic, fundamental, problems. Either you do something about it or I will loose my patience completely. It’s not a rocket science. FreshBooks have it for years. Do I have to pay them (integration) just to be able to use simple basic, fundamental functions that should be here from very begging? And there are plenty. Something is really wrong here.
@Michael, sorry to hear you are losing patience with us. To continue to keep things simple and juggle demands for functionality it does sometimes take time to revisit or release some features. I know this seems a simple fix and all I can say at this time is that this *is* on the list for improvement and when we get time to address it we will. Thanks for airing your frustration – I hope you don’t think I’m brushing you off, all feedback does have an impact on our priority list!
Regards,
Catherine
Sam
Discount as a % on all invoices is fundamental for our business. Please prioritise this feature as this is crucial to us going forward.
Graeme
Yes, having the ability to apply a discount on the whole account is very important and should be basic. Could even be an attribute you can add when setting up a customer. Please, please add this to the system urgently.
Grant
I really can’t believe that this discount issue hasn’t been addressed as it’s been a fundimental requirement for all companies I have worked for or implemented accounting systems for. It’s such a shame as it’s the only reason we’re going to have to rule out adopting the software.
Zee
A discount column is essential for us to invoice any of our clients as we need to apply different discounts to each item. Changing the price or quantity would simply waste time in queries and cause misunderstandings and lost business.
Please add a discount column!
SXScuba
Every company offers discounts in some way or another so I would of thought this would be given priority anyway…
Please push it up the to do list ASAP.
Yes this is also a game breaker for us to adopt xero is there any timeline for development please?
CB
Please add another vote for me regarding including an overall discount. It is a key feature for us as the majority of our suppliers offer a discount. We’d love to see this feature included. Thanks.
we were about to switch but we run booking discounts and agency discounts and we simply can’t use the system without being able to add discount % as line items. real shame as having trialled a few systems Xero looks really good.
Yes, I was all set to enter our first invoice, needed it to have a discount, and am now looking for another online solution
Sarah Cahill
Discount button on overal invoice total please! This would be very very helpful…
Robert
I agree that the others that Xero needs to implement a proper discounting feature and not just a hack.
Ken
Can I support all the comments above. I have several clients who have signed up to Xero but look like pulling out if we can’t get a simple, effective discounting solution and soon! From my point of view, having standard pricing on the inventory list and allocating a discount percentage to each customer (on the contact card?) would suit my clients.
Ken
Still no updates on a proper discount function? Its a bit of a shame that Xero still hasn’t done anything till date from the first feedback from September 2009. I am new to Xero and its important that I can provide discount for the total value of the project. How is something so basic not doable? Looks like I have to look for another online solution.
Nik
Same here. discount to the overall amount of an invoice is a basic requirement. this missing feature alone will let me decide against your product. shame though as I am convinced that it could support us a great deal
PhilW
I’m going to add my voice to the request for discount functionality, it’s really fundamental and a glaring omission.
Andy
I love Xero, but this is one thing that seriously needs addressing and it’s nice to see others are in the same boat. With the amount of people requesting the feature, as far back as September 2009, surely this should take priority?
Anna
I’m also adding my voice for discount functionality. I thought this would have been done last year. It would be ‘really’ nice to see a comment by Xero Staff when a proper discount function will be added.
We’re listening. A better way of doing discounts will be done in a few releases. We’re just clearing out a number of major projects which are also things our customers have asked for. But we hear you and would like to getting sorted as soon as we can.
We’re sorry it’s taken longer than anticipated, but there is just so much to do, but we are getting through stuff.
There are very good reasons why we do things when we do and huge debates around our prioritization. Comment streams like this do help so thanks for your feedback.
Rod
Jon
Please add my voice for discount functionality – a company a dead cert to migrate from MYOB to Xero has gone to JCurve – the frustration with trying to find out a workaround for their requirement to offer customer early payment discounts initiating the change.
Suz
Hi, there needs to be a discount column in the invoice field, as well as a discount field in the customers set up page so when invoicing it automaticaly comes up. Is that a possibility?
Reece
We have two companies using Xero and not having a simple discount column is now causing us frustration and time wasting. Come on Rod, it’s got to be getting embarrassing having this lack of function since the first post Sept 2009.
Yes it is embarrassing and we’ll fix it soon.
There is a work around as described above and we’ll soon have an ideal solution.
We’re sorry but we make prioritization decisions every day for a variety of reasons which means that we sometimes do have a few rough edges we just haven’t gotten too.
It’s in the process now and you’ll love what we’re building.
Again our apologies. We’re working hard.
Rod
Michael
There are tons of such embarrassing lack of BASIC functionality in Xero since 2009 and NO, you are NOT listening. I wrote many letters and NOTHING. Its actually funny how simple and easy to fix these things are (usually) and nothing was done.
Don’t get me wrong. I like Xero and It’s still best but some bugs are just driving me crazy and nothing was done with them from last 2 years. That what is really pissing me off with Xero. And yest I have a list.
Derri
I’m not as badly in need of this as some others, but the ability to discount is very important – on each line preferably. We are about to add another ‘string to our bow’ and offer goods as well as services to our customers, and this is something we WILL be needing shortly.
Any indicators of just how far away “soon” is?
+1 here. My consulting service contracts offer my customers a 5 % discount if paid within 10 calendar days, listed on every invoice. Get those chipmunks moving! 
Steve Shipton
Just run into this issue myself. We would like to be able to discount per line item. If we create an invoice that have multiple line items, each from a different ledger then we have to put in a discount line item for each ledger used to balance it all up which is messy
Hugh
guys – I am looking at your software as a potential customer. You still have not implemented discount functionality…. am I missing something here? A comment by one of your people in MARCH indicated it was coming soon. Nearly 5 months later I see no follow through.
Yes yet more voices, I am planning to move over to Xero from Kashflow due to the limitations there, we design online programs for our base of 2000+ contractors so I have some years of development experience, would you like us to fix this bug as I have coders that would be able to fix the issue. I will not be moving over to xero until the bug is squashed as all my accounts require the discount added at a later stage, they charge their clients first, then I have to discount each invoice when paid -20% and on various items that can be in multiples. URGENT you get this basic coding corrected.
Stephen
Adding to the chorus for an integrated (not via an Add-On) discount system.
We manufacture and sell; to large export customers and to small, local end-users. To date, Xero doesn’t appear to offer a rational Discount System to cope with a diversified customer base. Perhaps prices could be driven off specifically generated quotations?
Jonathan Sherman
Ditto ALL of the above. Making decision on whether I’ll use Xero or another. Was loving Xero until realized you don’t have this basic and IMPORTANT feature. For $30/mo and $360/yr you’re charging for more than basic functionality so I expect more than basic functionality. Might as well go back to QuickBooks–cheaper with all basic functions intact. PLEASE!!! DO YOU HEAR US??!! All of these people for past two years are YOUR customers. I want to be one, too (translate I want to give you my money!!!), but the message on this thread is that for 2 years this BASIC concern has been “heard” with NOTHING done about it. As a new potential customer this does not inspire confidence… please not only “hear” your customers but actually take action on this VERY reasonable basic function request.
CI
Still no discount column???????
Abbas Jaffar Ali
Been using for Xero for about a year now but no update on discounts. I’ve already registered a trial account with Saasu that does have discounts and evaluating it to see if we can move there.
I loved trialing this but working with agencies and % discounts is vital. Seems like quite a simple add, shame as if that worked this would be an option… back to quickbooks Mac US shoehorned to UK I go…
Stav
Tried doing as they said, by adding a new expense acc, wont let me save the discount! or am i doing it wrong.
In this video example when you add the ’10% discount’ you’re only adding a unit price of ‘-£10′. Is there a way that will calculate percentage discount off a sub-total and then derive the new total?