The Mark as Pending button is your first go-to tool when you’re having trouble exporting invoices or payments to Xero — especially when the issue relates to contacts or customer information.

This guide will help if you:

• See errors like "An existing contact could not be found using the specified contact details. The contact name field is required to create a new contact"

• See errors like "The contact with the specified contact details has been archived"

• Have an invoice that shows as Completed in the exporter, but it’s not actually in Xero, and you need to re-export it

• Are trying to export a payment, but HirePOS can’t find the matching invoice in Xero (even though it exists)

• Clicked "Mark as Complete" by mistake and need to undo that action

• Are working across multiple Xero organisations, and the same customer exists in more than one Xero file

If any of the above applies, the Mark as Pending button will help reset the export status of that invoice or payment, and give HirePOS a clean slate to try the export again.

Clicking Mark as Pending:

• Changes the export status from Completed back to Pending, which means the record is ready to be exported again

• Tells HirePOS to “forget” the remembered links between the record in HirePOS and the customer/contact or invoice in Xero

Once this is done, HirePOS will try to export the record again as if it were the first time.

1. Go to the Xero Exporter in HirePOS

2. Locate the invoice or payment that’s having trouble

   • If the record was previously marked as Completed, it may be hidden by default

   • Click the Filters button and disable the Hide Completed setting

   • You can also search directly by invoice number for quicker access

   • If the record still doesn’t appear, double-check that your Date From / Date To filters (at the top of the screen) include the correct range for the invoice or payment

3. Click the Mark as Pending button

4. Click Export to try again

If the issue was related to contact or customer details, this will often resolve it. You should now see a successful export, or a new, more specific error to help guide the next step.

HirePOS tries to be efficient when exporting to Xero. The first time you export something, it remembers which Xero contact or invoice it linked to, and stores that behind the scenes. This is what helps speed up future exports for the same customer or invoice.

However, problems can occur when:

• The customer/contact in Xero was changed or archived

• You’re exporting to a different Xero organisation, where that contact doesn’t exist yet

• You manually edited customer details and they no longer match what HirePOS expects

• You marked something as complete when you shouldn’t have

When you click Mark as Pending, it clears out those old links and forces HirePOS to look up the customer again — or create them fresh if needed — making it far more likely that the export will succeed.

Behind the scenes, the Mark as Pending button does two key things:

1. It resets the export status of the record from Completed to Pending (if it isn't already pending).

2. It removes stored Xero identifiers (e.g., ContactID, InvoiceID) from the record in HirePOS.

HirePOS normally stores these Xero IDs the first time an export is successful, allowing faster and more reliable linking in future exports — even if the customer name or details change slightly.

However, if you're working across multiple Xero organisations, those stored IDs often cause problems. A ContactID from Org A will not exist in Org B, so HirePOS cannot resolve the customer properly when you switch organisations. Clicking Mark as Pending discards the ID, forcing HirePOS to search for the contact by name (and other details) instead. If it’s found, it’s used. If not, a new contact is created. The new Xero ID is then stored for future use — specific to the currently connected organisation.

This mechanism also applies to invoices and payments, allowing HirePOS to re-link records when relationships break down due to archiving, changes, or org switching.