Parent customers in Xero: how to chase a group of companies as one account

Summary

Xero cannot make one customer the parent of another. Every company you invoice is a standalone contact with its own reminders and its own statement, so the one person who pays for a whole group gets chased separately for each company. Paidnice adds a parent customer above your Xero contacts: pick the companies, set their parent, and the parent receives one statement grouped by company, one portal view and one payment for the group. Xero is not changed.

• The gap: Xero has no parent and child customer link. Contact groups filter a list, but reminders and statements still run one contact at a time.
• The fix: In Paidnice, select the child customers, choose Set parent contact, then pick the parent. Statements, the portal, Stripe payments and statement interest roll up from the next run.
• The plan: Parent-child customers are on every Paidnice plan, starting with Essentials at £49 or US$69 a month.

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Why does Xero chase each company in a group separately?

Xero chases each company separately because it has no parent and sub-customer structure. Every legal entity you invoice is its own contact, and Xero's reminders and statements run one contact at a time.

That is correct for invoicing. A hospitality group might run its kitchen, its bar and its catering arm as three limited companies, each with its own company number, address and purchase order process. You invoice each one separately.

Payment is different. One accounts payable person at head office often settles the invoices for all three. From their side, your follow-up arrives as three reminder streams and three statements, each showing a fraction of what the group owes. Nobody sees the full balance in one place, including you.

Why can't Xero send one reminder to the parent company?

Xero cannot send one reminder to a parent company because its reminders work at invoice level, tied to the contact that holds the invoice. Xero's invoice reminders run on one schedule for the whole organisation, and each reminder goes to the contact on that invoice.

• Contact groups let you filter and bulk-select contacts, but a reminder or statement still goes out per contact. Nothing adds the group's invoices into one document.
• Statements are generated per contact. Ten companies in a group means ten statements.
• There is no setting that links one contact to another as its parent. The request for parent-child contacts and consolidated statements sits on Xero's product ideas board.

QuickBooks Online is different here: it supports sub-customers natively, and Paidnice carries that structure across when you connect a QuickBooks company. The gap is a Xero one.

What is the manual workaround in Xero?

The manual workaround is to build the group's statement yourself. Run the outstanding invoices or a statement for each company, export them, combine them into one email or one PDF, and send it to the person who pays.

It works for one month. It breaks when payments arrive mid-way through the run, when one company gets a credit note, or when the person who knew which contacts belonged together goes on leave. A duplicate "umbrella" contact with the invoices copied across is worse, because it double-counts the receivable in your ledger.

How do parent customers work in Paidnice?

Paidnice adds a parent layer above your Xero customers without changing them. You choose which customers are children, choose their parent, and Paidnice rolls the children's invoices up to that parent for statements, the portal and payments. Each invoice stays on the company it was raised against in Xero.

1. Open Contacts in Paidnice and tick the companies that belong to the group.
2. Choose Set parent contact, search for the parent (usually the holding company or head office), and select Set parent.
3. Check the link. Each child now shows its parent above its name, and the parent lists every child, so you can move between them in one click.
4. Set your statement policy to parent customers. In the policy, select Only apply to parent customers. The children stop getting their own statement and the parent gets one for the group.
5. Send or schedule the statement. It goes to the parent's contact, usually the accounts payable inbox at head office.

The parent does not need open invoices of its own. A holding company that is never invoiced directly can still be the parent, and its statement shows everything its children owe.

What changes once the companies are grouped?

Four things change once companies share a parent. The underlying Xero data stays exactly as it was.

• One statement for the group. The parent's statement lists every open invoice from every child, grouped by company with a subtotal for each, and a balance for the group at the bottom. The PDF carries the same grouping.
• One portal view. When head office opens their payment portal, they see each child company's invoices in one place and can download, print or save any of them.
• One payment. With Stripe connected, the payer can settle invoices across the group in a single payment, and Paidnice applies it against the individual child invoices in Xero.
• One interest charge. If you charge interest on statements, set that policy to apply only to parent customers. The parent is charged on the group's overdue balance, so the group gets one charge rather than one per company.

Example: invoice each company, chase the holding company

A food wholesaler supplies the three Ashby companies above. Each company orders separately, so the wholesaler's order system creates three Xero contacts and raises invoices against each one. That stays as it is.

Before grouping, the Ashby finance manager received a statement from each company record, each with a partial balance, and had to add them up to know what the group owed. After grouping, they get one statement with a subtotal per company and one total. They pay from the portal in one transaction, and each invoice in Xero is marked paid against the right company.

The same pattern fits an accounting or law firm whose client is one person with several entities: a trading company, a family trust and a property company, all invoiced separately and all paid by the same person. Make the client the parent and send one statement to them, not one to each entity.

Who do parent customers help most?

Parent customers help any business where one person pays for several companies you invoice separately.

• Holding companies with operating subsidiaries on one credit line.
• Manufacturers and distributors supplying groups with several sites or plants, each its own company.
• Franchise networks and dealer groups that settle through a central finance team.
• Hospitality, care and healthcare groups that run each venue as its own entity.
• Accounting and law firms billing a client's company, trust and other entities.
• Any seller whose order or point of sale system creates one Xero contact per site.

Parent customers vs sub-customers: which do you need?

The two terms describe opposite problems, and it helps to know which one you have before you set anything up.

In Paidnice the parent-child link covers the roll-up case, and the child customers are what other software calls sub-customers. If your problem is the split case, contact routing on a single customer is the fix, not a parent.

Related reading

The launch walkthrough, with the demo video, is in parent-child customers and consolidated statements in Xero. The reminder side of the same problem is covered in one Xero reminder for a contact across multiple companies. To set the statement run itself, start with automatic customer statements in Xero, and for the interest side see statement interest.

Common questions

Can you create a parent customer in Xero?
No. Xero has no parent and sub-customer structure, so every company you invoice is its own contact. A parent has to be added by a connected app such as Paidnice.

Can Xero send one statement to a group of customers?
No. Xero generates statements per contact. Without a connected app, combining a group's invoices into one statement is a manual export.

Does grouping customers in Paidnice change anything in Xero?
No. Invoices, payments and contacts stay on the company they belong to in Xero. Only the statements, portal, payments and interest that Paidnice sends change.

Does the parent need its own invoices?
No. A holding company that is never invoiced can still be the parent. Its statement shows the open invoices of all its children.

Will each company still get its own statement?
Only if you want it to. Select "Only apply to parent customers" on the statement policy and child customers are skipped.

Does it work with QuickBooks Online?
Yes. QuickBooks Online has sub-customers built in, and Paidnice mirrors that structure for statements and the portal. The parent setting in Paidnice is what adds the same structure for Xero.

Which Paidnice plan includes parent customers?
Every plan, starting with Essentials at £49 or US$69 a month for up to 150 invoices. Paidnice is priced by invoice volume, and your first 20 actions are free with no credit card.