Xero how to
Archive a practitioner in Xero tracking
Archive the practitioner's tracking option rather than deleting it. Xero holds an archived option as a status rather than removing it, so the transactions already coded to that practitioner keep their tracking. Archiving settles the reporting question on its own. It does not settle the payout question: funder money keeps landing for weeks after a last working day, so the final payout waits for it.
Key facts
- The three statuses
- Xero's API holds a tracking option as ACTIVE, ARCHIVED or DELETED, so archiving is a status the option carries rather than a removal10
- Reading archived options back
- A request that asks for includeArchived gets back categories and options with a status of ARCHIVED10
- The slots the template uses
- Practitioner in the first tracking slot and Location in the second, both matched by name, which is why a practitioner is an option and not an account14
- Where the option is set
- In Splose the Xero tracking category sits on the practitioner's own user record and flows onto their invoices, so the practice system has to be changed as well as Xero8
- The tail that waits on a person
- WorkCover Queensland disburses payment each night once the invoice is approved, so the length of this tail is the length of the approval9
- The plan managed tail
- Three to five days end to end for a well run plan manager, against commercial terms of 14, 30 or 45 days elsewhere in the market4
- What a payout is built from
- Every revenue feed matched against the live bank feed before anyone is paid, which puts the final payout on receipts rather than on billings12
- What is being split
- A 70/30 or 60/40 split is commonly seen in allied health practices, so a day of late receipts moves a real amount of money13
- What a paid invoice still accepts
- To, Due date, Invoice number, Reference, Branding theme, Description, Account, Tracking and Project can be changed without removing the payment, and other fields need the payment removed first15
What archiving actually changes
A practitioner leaves and the practice has three questions to answer in Xero, not one. What happens to the revenue already coded to them, what happens to the claims that have not been paid yet, and what the last payout should contain. Archiving the tracking option answers the first question. It leaves the other two open, and they are the ones with money attached.
Tracking in the canonical allied health template is two slots: Practitioner in the first and Location in the second, each matched by name. Revenue is split by who pays in the account code, so a practitioner is an option inside a category rather than an account of their own. Archiving is therefore one change to one option, and the chart of accounts does not move.
That design keeps this a small job rather than a migration. A practice that had given each practitioner their own revenue account would be closing accounts and breaking last year's comparatives. The tracking categories page covers how the two slots are set up.
Archive rather than delete
Xero's own published API specification is the clearest statement of what archiving is. A tracking option carries a status, one of three values: ACTIVE, ARCHIVED or DELETED. Archived is not an erasure. The option is still an object Xero holds, with its identifier and name intact, and a caller can ask for it back.
Categories and options with a status of ARCHIVED will be included in the response10
- Archiving takes the option out of the everyday picker, so new invoices and bills stop being coded to a practitioner who has gone.
- The option keeps its name and its identifier, which is what a report needs to label a column for a period that has already closed.
- The category itself stays active, so the other practitioners are untouched and the second slot is still free for Location.
- The specification also carries a DELETED status and does not say what happens to transactions already coded to a deleted option.
One caution on sourcing. Xero Central's article on renaming, deleting and restoring tracking categories serves a JavaScript shell to an automated fetch, so the statements above come from the specification. The nearest Xero sentence about reports is a community manager's reply on Xero's product ideas site, to a request that retired categories be dropped from report menus.
running for an older period that would include transaction lines that were categorised to an archived tracking option11
The person who raised it said retired categories still show up in reporting options, and Xero's reply treats an archived option as something an older report period would still pick up. That is a forum thread rather than documentation, so confirm it in your own org before a year end pack rests on it.
The order to do it in
The order matters more than any single step. Archive first and the practice system can still push an invoice at an option Xero has retired, which is how a sync error queue fills up in the week after somebody leaves.
- Stop the practice system assigning new invoices to the practitioner, so nothing new reaches Xero carrying their option. Where: Before Xero: the practice system's practitioner settings.
- Let the invoices and payments already lodged finish syncing, so the option is not archived while transactions are still arriving against it. Where: Sales, Invoices.
- Archive the practitioner's option inside the Practitioner category, and leave the category itself active for everyone else. Where: Accounting, Accounting settings, Tracking categories.
- Leave the option archived rather than deleting it, so the name the past reports were built on is still a name Xero holds. Where: Accounting, Accounting settings, Tracking categories.
- Run the practitioner's revenue on a cash basis by payment date, which is the figure a receipts based payout is built from. Where: Reporting, All reports, Profit and loss.
- Watch the funder clearing accounts for claims lodged in the practitioner's last weeks that have not been paid yet. Where: Reporting, All reports, Account transactions.
The tail after a last working day
A practitioner's last day is a date in a diary. It is not a date in the bank. The claims lodged in their final fortnight are still sitting with funders, and each funder pays on its own clock, so the money that belongs to that practitioner keeps arriving after the option is archived.
Read the stages as separate clocks rather than as one countdown. A practice whose last week was mostly bulk billed is almost square within a fortnight. A practice whose last week was mostly workers compensation is not, and the difference is the practitioner's own caseload rather than anything the practice controls.
One tail sits outside the funder rows entirely. The accountants writing the receipts basis cheat sheet put app based patient payments at two to four weeks, and ask practices to pull a wider date range so the late ones are captured. A practitioner whose final month carried those payments comes square later than the funder table on its own suggests.
How long the tail runs, by funder
| Funder | The lag recorded against this funder |
|---|---|
| Medicare bulk bill | Payments for bulk billed services reach the nominated bank account in two to three working days |
| Veterans affairs allied health | About three quarters of claims are adjudicated within 15 seconds and the rest inside two business days, with reports 48 hours after processing |
| NDIS agency managed | Two to three business days from submission for a compliant claim from an endorsed provider, and up to ten days where the claim needs review |
| NDIS plan managed | Three to five days end to end for a well run plan manager, against commercial terms of 14, 30 or 45 days elsewhere in the market |
| WorkCover Queensland | The insurer asks providers to allow about 15 business days for a payment to be processed, then 24 to 48 hours for the funds to transfer electronically after the remittance posts |
These are the same rows the funder pages are built from, so the tail on this page and the money flow on the Medicare bulk bill page cannot drift apart. Read them as the shape of a normal run rather than as a promise: a claim that needs review sits outside them, and a declined claim does not land.
The final payout waits for the bank
Practices that pay a share of billings can close a practitioner out on their last day. Practices that pay a share of receipts cannot, because the receipt has not happened yet. The accounting firms writing for allied health put payouts on the receipts side, and the reason is a reconciliation one.
Every revenue feed is matched against the live bank feed before anyone is paid12
The same firm names the two errors that show up most in a final payout: confusing the date a payment was receipted with the date it arrived in the bank, and matching a deposit on amount alone and paying the wrong practitioner. Both are easier to make on an exit run, because the person the money belongs to has gone and nobody is checking their own figure.
The same cheat sheet puts stale practitioner records on that list. It asks practices to mark practitioners inactive once they have not been present for two financial years, because matching on incomplete data falls back to the closest guess. Archiving the option is the Xero half of that housekeeping.
So the archive and the payout run on different clocks. Archive the option when the last invoice has synced. Run the payout when the tail has landed, on a cash basis by payment date, with the tracking option still doing the splitting even though it is archived.
Who the late money belongs to
A receipt that lands after somebody has left is a contract question before it is a bookkeeping one. Receipts based agreements commonly allow a tail period, and its length differs between agreements. This page does not settle it, and neither does the product: it is a setting the practice fills in from its own agreement.
What the books can do is make the question answerable. The tracking option stays on every transaction it was coded to, so revenue by practitioner on a cash basis keeps working after the exit date: the practice can see what landed inside the tail window and what landed after it. Write the tail period down before the last day rather than after it.
When revenue is on the wrong practitioner
Exits surface coding mistakes, because somebody finally reads the practitioner column. Either way the invoice takes a new tracking option directly: Tracking is one of the fields Xero accepts on a paid or partly paid invoice without the payment being removed, alongside Account, Description and Reference.
- Editing the invoice leaves the payment, the bank line and the clearing balance where they are, because none of those fields is the one being changed.
- The other route is a manual journal between the two tracking options, which leaves the invoice untouched and moves the revenue.
- A journal is worth it where a run of invoices has to move at once, because the edit is per invoice and the journal is one document.
- Either way, do it before the final payout is calculated, because the payout reads the tracking option rather than the invoice.
Do the correction before the option is archived, because archiving takes the practitioner out of the picker a new journal would choose from.
What Ledger Map does with it
Ledger Map holds one standing map for the practice, approved before anything syncs, and the practitioner tracking option is part of it. When a practitioner leaves, the map is the one place the change is made, so the practice system mapping and the Xero option do not drift apart quietly.
For the tail, each funder deposit is posted as one balanced document set against that funder's clearing account, with the claims underneath it carrying the practitioner who earned them, and one exact match is left in the bank feed for a person to accept. The receipts behind a final payout are therefore matched to a real bank line rather than to an invoice total. How it works shows the map and its approval step.
Questions
Should I archive or delete a tracking option when a practitioner leaves?
Archive it. Xero's API describes an option as carrying one of three statuses, ACTIVE, ARCHIVED or DELETED, and an archived option is still held with its name and identifier. The specification does not say what happens to transactions already coded to a deleted option, so archiving is the change that keeps last year's reporting intact.
Will last year's reports still show the practitioner after I archive them?
The option is still there to be read: a request that asks for archived records gets categories and options with a status of ARCHIVED. Xero Central's article on renaming, deleting and restoring tracking categories could not be read by an automated fetch for this page, so confirm it in your own org before you rely on it for a year end pack.
When is it safe to run the final payout?
Once the funders the practitioner actually billed have paid. Terminal settlements are short but the terminal guide does not date the fund's own payment, the Medicare payment run takes two to three working days, and a WorkCover Queensland authorisation is reported to take up to 15 business days before the funds move. Pick the window from the caseload rather than from a fixed rule.
Who does money that arrives after the last day belong to?
That is a contract question. Receipts based agreements commonly allow a tail period, and its length differs between agreements, so the practice sets it from its own contract. The books make it answerable by keeping revenue by practitioner working on a cash basis after the exit date.
Do I archive the tracking category as well as the option?
No. The option is the practitioner, and the category is the slot they sit in, so the category stays active for everyone still working. Archiving the whole category would take the practitioner column off every report at once.
A paid invoice is on the wrong practitioner. Can I still fix it?
Yes. Tracking is one of the fields Xero accepts on a paid or partly paid invoice with the payment still on it, so open the invoice and change the option. The payment, the bank line and the clearing balance are all left alone. A manual journal between the two options does the same job in one document where a run of invoices has to move.
Read next
- Xero how toXero tracking categories for a clinic
- Xero how toReport by tracking category in Xero
- Xero how toXero payroll tracking for practitioners
- FundersWorkCover Queensland payments in Xero
- ProblemsAll practice revenue lands in one Xero account
- ProblemsSplitting Cliniko revenue by location in Xero
- HubXero how to
Sources
Open questions
- Xero Central's article on renaming, deleting and restoring tracking categories would not serve a body to an automated fetch, so the claim that historic reports keep an archived option rests on the API's archived status and on a community manager's reply in Xero's product ideas forum, rather than on a Xero help article. A person should confirm it in a live Xero org before this page is published.
- The API exposes a DELETED status alongside ARCHIVED, and the specification does not say what Xero does with transactions already coded to a deleted option. This page therefore describes archiving and stays quiet on deleting.
- The tail period a final payout covers is a contract question, and the corpus deliberately leaves it open: the product exposes it as a setting rather than deciding it.
- Whether an archived option is still offered as a report filter is undocumented. A customer in Xero's product ideas forum reports that retired categories keep showing in reporting options, which is the closest reading available, so check it in a live org.
- The ranked results behind the differentiator were read from one search engine through an automated fetch, because the session's own search tool was out of budget. The live AI answer panel for the query was not captured, so a person should look at it before publication.
- Xero Accounting API specification, tracking categories and options
Xero. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 30 Aug 2026.
primary
- Delete discontinued tracking categories from reports
Xero Product Ideas. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 9 Jul 2025.
secondary
- First principles: paying practitioners on receipts
Health and Life. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 23 Jul 2026.
secondary
Review
Last reviewed 4 Sep 2026 by Shane
General information for Australian allied health practices, not tax advice. Confirm a treatment with your BAS agent or accountant before you post it.
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