Every year or so Xero pricing changes, or the plan names change or something else changes, and every year we update the repeating invoice templates for every client whose subscription we manage. For us that's hundreds of templates. It's fiddly, it's easy to get wrong, and the timing matters. Get it early and a client is charged the new price for a month too early when the old rate should still apply.
This year was different, and I'm genuinely excited about it.
Getting the direction right
I couldn't have worked this out on my own. I worked with an experienced AI consultant and that made all the difference. Without that guidance I'd have likely given up as I'd already found limitations in several different tools I've already tried.
What we built together using Claude is a process that does three things:
- Reads every repeating invoice in Xero and works out which ones are affected
- Applies one simple rule. A line only gets the new price when the billing period it covers starts on or after Xero's change date. The invoice date doesn't count, only the period.
- Produces a plain list: what's ready now, what has to wait, and what needs a human decision
That first run found all the subscription lines. Over 2 thirds were ready to update right now while most of the remainder had to wait for one more invoice at the old price. And 4 were one-offs that needed my judgement.
The tools, and the wall we hit
We read Xero through Zapier, which connects to Xero's API. That worked well for reading. But when we tried to update the first template, Xero said no. Its API won't let you edit a repeating invoice, only delete it. Deleting and rebuilding 170 templates wasn't an option I wanted to consider.
This is where something I'd been told earlier finally made sense: if you can click it on the screen, you can automate it. The AI opened Xero in a browser, went to the repeating invoice, changed the price, and saved it, exactly as I would. Then it checked the result back through the API. Seeing that happening in real time was quite something.
Staying in control
What I appreciated most is that I stayed in charge the whole way:
- Nothing changed in Xero until I'd seen the exact list and said yes
- Every change was checked against what Xero actually saved, not just what was typed
- When something unexpected happened (one click opened the wrong template), it stopped, told me, and proved that nothing on that template had changed
- Anything that didn't fit the rules, like part-month lines, came to me instead of being guessed
I actually did most of the updates by hand first, using the list as a checklist. At that point I hadn't realised the browser option was there. The AI then re-checked every one of them in minutes. The rest are now scheduled: an email lands in my inbox on the right days telling me exactly what's ready and by when. This time I'll let the AI make the changes through the browser, with me confirming the list first and checking the results after.
Why this matters for your business
This isn't really about Xero price changes. It's about the repetitive admin every business carries, the kind that slips when you're flat out. The same approach works for plenty of other jobs, as long as you keep control and can check the results.
If you'd like to talk about what that could look like for your business, sing out.