How bill sync works

Every purchase order can sync to exactly one bill in Xero. This page explains what that bill contains, when it gets created or updated, and — most importantly — what happens when the order and the bill disagree: what a push overwrites, what it leaves alone, and how payments and paid bills are protected.

One order, one bill

A purchase order is linked to at most one bill, and pushing never creates a second one:

The first push creates the bill (or, if a bill with the same bill number already exists in Xero, you get an error suggesting Connect existing bill instead — never a silent duplicate).
Every later push updates that same bill in place.
Re-pushing an unchanged order does nothing — the card reports “Already in sync.”

This also answers a common worry: if the order’s line items no longer match the bill’s, Logistified does not create a new draft bill on the side. The difference shows on the order’s Accounting card as “Local changes not yet pushed”, and the next push brings the existing bill back in line with the order.

What the bill contains

A push writes the order’s current state into the bill:

Bill number — the purchase order’s number.
Contact — the supplier’s linked Xero contact. If the supplier isn’t linked yet, the first push looks for a Xero contact with the exact same name and links it — or creates a new contact if none exists (see Accounting contacts).
Bill date and due date — the due date honours the payment terms set on the Xero contact when they exist.
Currency — the supplier’s currency; all lines on one bill share it.
Line items — one line per order line at its cost, plus separate lines for shipping and additional costs or discounts, posted to the accounts you chose in Settings → Accounting.
Bill status — Draft, Submitted for approval, or Authorised, resolved from your lifecycle mapping at the order’s current stage. A bill’s status only ever moves forward, never backwards.

When bills are created and updated

The bill creation mode decides when pushes happen:

Mode	Bill created	Bill updated
Manual	Only when you push from the order	Only when you push
Automatic creation	Automatically, once, when the order reaches the stage you chose	Only when you push — the bill is never touched again automatically
Full auto	Automatically per the lifecycle mapping	Automatically, whenever the order changes

Two things never trigger a push on their own: edits made in Xero (Logistified doesn’t react to them), and putting the order On Hold, into Dispute, or Cancelled (automatic pushes stop for such orders; a manual push still works).

What a push updates — and what it never touches

When a push runs, it makes the bill match the order. Concretely:

A push rewrites: the bill number, contact, dates, currency, the full set of line items, and (forward only) the bill status.

A push never touches: payments recorded on the bill, credit-note allocations, attachments, or anything else you’ve added in Xero that isn’t in the list above. Payments in particular live entirely outside the bill’s content — no push can remove or alter one.

If you edit the bill in Xero

Nothing happens immediately. Xero-side edits don’t trigger any reaction, and the “Local changes not yet pushed” indicator only tracks changes to the order in Logistified — it won’t light up because the bill changed in Xero.
The next push replaces the bill’s dates and line items with the order’s version, as described above.
Your status choices are respected. If you’ve already moved the bill further along in Xero than the lifecycle mapping would set — for example you approved it — the bill keeps its Xero status; the push only updates the content.
Some bills refuse changes entirely. A bill that Xero considers final — fully paid, approved for payment, or in a locked accounting period — is left alone. The push doesn’t force anything and the order’s Accounting card explains why later changes stay in Logistified only.

Paid bills are final — and paid status flows back

When Xero shows the bill fully paid:

Logistified marks the purchase order as paid.
From then on, no push ever touches that bill again — not automatically and not manually. The card reports “The bill is fully paid.”

Partially paid bills follow Xero’s own rules: if Xero declines the change, nothing is modified and the card tells you.