4. Expanded Feature Catalog (What Practices Ask For), Xero Only
These are features Xero users and practices ask for, drawn from Xero's product-ideas forum, competitor feature lists and the job itself. Each is classified with the same honesty as the stated idea. Being in demand doesn't mean you should build it. Several are already free elsewhere.
Legend: TS = Table stakes, D = Differentiator, X = Distraction, L = Liability. Priority: P0 = v1, P1 = by month 6, P2 = later, — = don't build.
4.1 Why Xero only
| Option | Why not at launch |
|---|---|
| QuickBooks Online | SaasAnt has 4,000+ reviews there. Revisit only if paying Xero practices also run QuickBooks clients and ask. |
| MYOB, Zoho Books, Sage | Not researched. Each is a separate API and certification. |
| Airtable, Google Sheets | Different buyer. Sheets is SheetBridge's territory. |
4.2 Demanded features, classified
A. Bulk changes (the core)
| Feature | Demand signal | Category | Priority | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bulk void of approved sales invoices (removing payments first) | 253 votes, Xero: "not planned" | D (with snapshot) | P0 | Free tools exist. Your edge is the preview, the snapshot and restore-as-copy. |
| Bulk void of bills | Separate product-ideas thread (votes not captured) | TS | P0 | Xero already allows bulk void of up to 200 bills from one list. Cover the other cases. |
| Bulk delete of draft and submitted invoices, bills and credit notes | High | TS | P0 | Xero bulk-deletes drafts natively. You add submitted/awaiting-approval items and cross-list selection. |
| Bulk recode: account, tax rate, tracking category on invoices, bills, credit notes, spend and receive money | High in cleanups | D | P0 | The lead feature. Check locked periods and reconciled items first. |
| Bulk edit of contact fields (default accounts, tax, payment terms) | Medium | TS / D | P1 | Cheap to add, useful at client onboarding. |
| Bulk archive of tracking options, accounts, contacts | Product-ideas thread on archiving tracking categories | TS | P1 | BulkOps already does tracking archives. |
| Bulk delete of unreconciled spend/receive money | Medium | D / L | P1 | Only unreconciled items. Never touch reconciled bank lines. |
| Bulk change of invoice dates or due dates | Medium | D / L | P2 | Can move items into locked or filed periods. Needs hard pre-checks. |
B. Safety and proof (the differentiator)
| Feature | Category | Priority | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Preview of every change before writing (before → after, per record) | D | P0 | Non-negotiable. No job runs without it. |
| Snapshot of the before-state of every record | D | P0 | Kept 90 days, then deleted. |
| One-click reverse of recodes, imports and edits | D | P0 | Only where the API allows. State it per action. |
| Restore as a new copy for voided or deleted records | D / L | P0 | Xero can't un-void. Label clearly. Invoice numbers may need a suffix. |
| Change log per job (who, when, which org, which records, before/after), exportable as PDF and CSV | D | P0 | The practice's proof for the client file and for its own professional-indemnity risk. |
| Pre-flight checks: lock dates, reconciled items, paid or part-paid invoices, multi-currency, filed tax periods | D | P0 | Stops the failures that cause 1-star reviews. |
| Dry-run on the Xero demo company | TS | P1 | Cheap to build, and it helps with trials. |
| Approval step (a senior approves a junior's job before it runs) | D | P2 | Firm tier. |
C. Import (supporting)
| Feature | Category | Priority | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| CSV/XLSX import of invoices and bills with line items, with saved column mappings | TS | P0 | Xero does this natively for simple cases. Yours validates against the file and is reversible. |
| Import of payments applied to invoices | D | P1 | Xero's native CSV import doesn't cover it (verify). Useful after migrations. |
| Import of manual journals with tracking | TS | P1 | Xero imports journals natively. Add it for completeness. |
| Scheduled monthly import from a CSV drop (email or cloud folder) | D | P1 | The retention feature. Recurring journals, bills from job sheets, payroll journals from outside payroll. |
| AI-suggested column mapping | TS | P2 | Suggest only, shown in the preview. Never train on API data (Xero's terms ban it). |
| PDF or statement extraction | X for you | — | statementkit/'s job. |
D. Practice features
| Feature | Category | Priority | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Practice dashboard: all client orgs, all jobs, status | D | P0 | Makes per-practice pricing make sense. |
| Auto-disconnect idle client orgs after 30 days | TS (for you) | P0 | Keeps you on the Plus tier's 1,000-connection cap. |
| Users and roles | D | P1 | Firm tier. |
| Month-end checks ("12 bills coded to Suspense", "3 invoices with no tracking") | D | P1 | Retention between cleanups. Read-only, low risk. |
| Client-facing report ("what we fixed in your books") | D | P2 | Helps practices bill for cleanups. A soft referral loop. |
| Xero Practice Manager / Xero HQ integration | X | P2 | Only if practices ask. |
E. Things people ask for that you should not build
| Feature | Category | Priority | Why not |
|---|---|---|---|
| Continuous two-way sync with other apps | X | — | Zapier, Make, n8n. |
| Bank-feed or bank-rule copying between orgs | X / L | — | Bank-feed data has separate rules. Not researched. |
| Automatic "fix my books" by AI without preview | L | — | One wrong mass change on a client ledger ends the practice's trust in you. |
| Browser extension to do what the API can't | L | — | Banned by Xero's terms. |
| Tax or VAT advice | L | — | Checks are checklists, not advice. |
| Multi-ledger migration engine (QuickBooks → Xero, full history) | X (for now) | — | A separate business with services competitors. Pivot option only. |
4.3 Net effect
Of roughly 40 demanded features, about 12 are real differentiators, and about 10 belong in v1. They are mostly safety and proof, not new actions. The actions themselves are cheap to clone. What's hard to clone is the trust that the tool won't break a client's ledger.