Xero: New Sales Invoice trigger is not triggering as expected

Written by Owner

Updated at August 20th, 2025

+ More

Table of Contents

Symptoms Causes How to fix it Option 1: Trigger on submitted invoices Option 2: Trigger invoices when specific field(s) are completed

Symptoms

You’re using the Xero New Sales Invoice trigger in your Zap and you notice that some invoices are:

Triggering your Zap too early.
Missing information.

You’ve selected a status in the trigger but not all matching invoices are triggering the Zap.

Causes

This issue happens when you manually create invoices in Xero.

When you add a contact to a new manual invoice, it instantly saves it as a draft, which can cause your Zap to trigger before you’ve completed adding all the information.
Manual invoices will only trigger the Zap if you select the “Draft” status. If you select “Awaiting Approval” or “Awaiting Payment”, manual invoices will not trigger the Zap.

How to fix it

When you create a manual invoice, do not add a contact until you’ve added all necessary details. This ensures the invoice will trigger the Zap if you've selected the “Draft” status.

To trigger the Zap for manual invoices with a status other than “Draft”, consider these alternative options:

Option 1: Trigger on submitted invoices

Use the Updated Sales Invoice trigger instead of the New Sales Invoice trigger when creating your Zap.
- In the Status dropdown menu, select Submitted.
Add any action steps you need for your Zap.

To trigger the Zap, set the status of each manually created invoice to Submitted.

Option 2: Trigger invoices when specific field(s) are completed

Create a Zap using the Updated Sales Invoice trigger.
Add a filter step to only continue if a specific value(s) in your invoice is not blank. Use the Exist filter rule to check the desired value(s).
- To prevent the Zap from running too soon, choose the field(s) that are typically completed last as your filter condition.