Invoice prefix, footer and late fee

Put your own prefix and footer on invoices, and optionally add a one-off late fee to invoices left unpaid.

Updated 18 October 2026

Why this exists

Invoices that look generic, or that sit unpaid with nothing to prompt payment, leave finance staff chasing families by hand. These optional settings let you put your own prefix and footer on invoices and add a single late fee to invoices left unpaid. Families are told the late fee in advance, on every invoice and on your cancellation policy page.

Three optional invoice settings. All are off until your centre sets them, so invoices look exactly as before.

Before you start

You need the settings.edit permission and two-step sign-in. The card is Invoice prefix, footer and late fee on Settings > Billing and cancellations. If it says "Not switched on yet", ask your centre's admin.

Prefix and footer

Prefix: up to 8 letters, digits or dashes, shown before the invoice number on invoice pages and in overdue reminders. It is for display only. Xero still receives the plain number, so families and Xero see slightly different numbers.
Footer: up to 600 characters of plain text, printed on the invoice page for staff and families.

Late fee

Switch the late fee on.
Choose a fixed amount (up to $50) or a percentage of what is still owing (up to 10 per cent, never more than $50).
Choose how many days after the due date it applies (7 to 90).
Save. A sentence describing the fee is printed under every invoice footer and on your cancellation policy page.

Each day, the app adds the fee once to each invoice still unpaid past that point. It goes on the family's ledger and appears on their next invoice.

When no fee is charged

An invoice issued before you switched the fee on, or before you last changed its terms. Only invoices that carried the sentence can carry the fee.
Draft, void or paid invoices, and ones credited to nothing.
An invoice you put on hold. On the invoice page, choose Put the fee on hold and pick disputed or on a payment plan.
An invoice that already had a fee. It is charged once, never repeated.

Waive a fee

On the invoice page, waive the fee with a reason (you need invoices.edit). If an issued invoice already shows it, that invoice gets a credit note for the fee.