Every business will have a combination of expenses. Some things like fuel and coffee are expenses you incur on the spot. Then you have other expenses like bank fees and merchant fees that are debited straight from your bank account. Then the last type of expense are bills you need to pay in the future. This might be your electricity bill that is due 14 days after the date or stock from a supplier due 30 days from the end of the month. 

It can be hard to plan how much cash you need in the next 30 days to pay these bills. Thankfully you can easily see this and plan these payments in Xero

Step 1 : Ensure you enter all of your Bills

This will only work if you enter your bills into Xero in the purchases section. For those who have a few bills each day to pay we always recommend using a system like Shoeboxed to automatically enter these bills for you. Otherwise you can enter them manually. 

Step 2 : Add the payment date

Once you have added your bills head over to the purchases section in Xero (Select Accounts > Purchases or from your Dashboard click Bills you need to pay) and click on Awaiting Payment. 

You will see a column with Planned Date. You can either add a payment date to each Individual bill by clicking the + button or alternatively schedule multiple bills for the same date. 

To add the same date to multiple bills just select the bills you want to pay on the same date and click the Schedule Payments button. This will then add the same date to multiple bills. 

Step 3 : Your cashflow

Once you have planned dates on all of your bills Xero will automatically show you the amount you have planned to pay on each date. This is great for understanding the exact amounts to be paid each week so you can plan your cashflow.