Xero: Generate Reports

The GST Audit report shows the individual transactions that make up the amounts on the older BAS report. This report can not be run by itself, it gets created when you run the activity statement.

About the GST Audit report

The GST Audit report displays transactions that make up the amount of GST owed by or to your organisation, for the GST reporting period.  Transactions are grouped by tax rate, with a separate section for each rate used.

You cannot run this report by itself, Xero generates it when you run the activity statement.

Xero includes transactions on a cash or accruals basis, according to your selected GST accounting method. Invoices and bills must be approved and expense claims must be authorised, to be included in this report.

Match GST Audit report subtotals for each tax rate to Xero's automatically populated totals on the activity statement.

Xero excludes transactions listed under the 'BAS Excluded' section of the GST Audit report from the activity statement. These transactions have 'No Tax' on a transaction or 'BAS Excluded' on a line item.

If your organisation uses a cash basis for GST reporting, a part payment on a multiple lined bill or invoice will be apportioned over the separate transaction lines in the GST Audit report.

For example, say you have a $440 (GST inc) bill that is split between cleaning and office expenses. If you apply a part payment of $220, Xero will split the payment over the two transaction lines and GST. Cleaning will be gross $100 (GST $10.00) and supplies will be gross $100 (GST $10.00).

About the Reference column

The reference column displays the transaction reference if any.

Not the following exceptions:

Accruals basis

• For manual journals, the Reference column will display the journal number of the posted journal.
• For sales invoices, sales credit notes and sales invoice payments, if there is no reference, the invoice or credit note number will display.
• For bill payments, if there's no reference on the payment, the reference on the bill will display.
• For a wages payable invoice, if there's no reference, the payslip reference will display.
• No reference displays for opening balance journals, expense claims, expense claim payments or depreciation.

Cash basis

• For sales invoice payments and bill payments, if there's no reference on the payment, the reference on the invoice or bill will display.
• For a wages invoice payment, if there's no reference on the payment, the payslip reference will display.
• No reference displays for expense claim payments.

A Payroll Summary report displays the total of wages, taxes, deductions, and employer expenses for the selected month, quarter, or year-to-date period.;

Regarding payroll, in Xero you can:

• Process or cancel a quarterly JobMaker claim
• Customise, export or print your payroll reports
• Employee Contact Details report
• Employee Pay Run Summary report
• Payroll Activity Details report
• Leave Balances report
• Payment Summary Details report
• Payroll Activity Summary report
• Leave Requests report
• Leave Transactions report
• Payroll Employee Summary report
• Superannuation Accrual report
• Superannuation Payments report
• Timesheet Details report
• Timesheet Summary report
• Employee Remuneration report
• Transaction Listing Summary report
• Transaction Listing Details report

Payroll Activity Details Report

This report allows you to view a breakdown of payroll activity within a chosen date range.

The totals are split out by pay item for each employee.

Note: You must have Payroll Admin permission to run this report, and any other payroll reports.

1. In the Accounting menu, select Reports.
2. Under Payroll, click Payroll Activity Details.
3. In the Employees field, select an individual employee or select All to report on all employees.
4. In the Date Range field, select the period you want to report on.
5. Click Update to run the report.

Payroll reports show pay runs based on their payment date. So a pay period ending 31 July, with a payment date of 2 August, will appear in reports run for August.

Customise a payroll report

Customise some payroll reports by grouping results and selecting the columns you want to include.

Organise your report using groups and filters. You can also show or hide columns on your report, and extend the width so that it is the full width of your screen. 

TIP: Grouped data and applied filters are included when you export or print a report. Any hidden columns, however, still display on the report.

Group report results

Depending on the report, you can group results by employee or employee group, pay item or pay item type, earnings rate, or timesheet category.

For example, Group by Employee groups report lines under employee names. The default Standard View shows each line separately without grouping.

From the Standard View field, above your report results, select a grouping option.

Apply a filter

Enter text into the search field to filter your payroll report. You may want to filter your report by a specific employee, pay item, or employee group.

Once a filter is applied, a filter label appears above the report results. To remove the applied filter, click the label.

Select columns

Show and hide the columns on your report, and show it on the full width of your screen. Hidden columns still display in the exported or printed version.

To show or hide columns, select the show/hide column drop-down, then clear or select the column checkboxes.

Widen the report view, so you can see all of the columns you selected, by clicking the wide view icon. Click it again to narrow the report view.

Export or print a payroll report

Once you have run a payroll report, export it to a PDF or Excel, or print it to keep a copy of these results. You will not be able to save payroll reports as a draft or publish, or archive or favourite them.

Export a payroll report

1. From the bottom of the report, click Export.
2. Select PDF to download in PDF format, or select Excel to download in an Excel format

Print a payroll report

1. From the bottom of the report, click Printto open a printable version in a new browser window.
2. Click the Print icon in the top right corner.

Run the Bank Reconciliation Summary to check if your actual bank balance and the balance of the bank account in Xero match.

If your balances do not match, run this report to check for missing, deleted or duplicated transactions.

Run the Bank Reconciliation Summary

1. In the Accounting menu, select Reports.
2. Under Accounting, click More reports to expand the section if the report is hidden.
3. Click Bank Reconciliation Summary.
4. Choose a Bank Account and select a Date, then click Update to view your report.

You can also access the report from the Manage Account menu within a bank account or by clicking the Reconciliation report link next to the Manage Account button in the bank reconciliation screens. If you view this report directly from the bank account, the account name is already selected.

Report tabs: Bank Reconciliation Summary, Bank Statement, and Statement Exceptions

The report has three tabs, the Bank Reconciliation Summary, Bank Statement and Statement Exceptions. From the Bank Reconciliation Summary tab, you can switch to the Bank Statement or Statement Exceptions tabs to compare the unreconciled items on your Bank Reconciliation Report with any outstanding, imported statement lines.

Bank Reconciliation Summary tab

The report breaks up into sections to show what your actual bank balance is, based on the data you entered into Xero on any given date. This figure is not taken from your online bank balance, it's calculated using the data in Xero.

If your transactions and reconciliation are up to date on the report date, your balance in Xero and your statement balance for that day should be the same.

A reconciled bank statement line or account transaction matched to a future dated item will appear in the report as unreconciled. The report won't recognise a match if the bank statement line or account transaction is dated after the date of the report.

From the Bank Reconciliation Summary tab, you can click on any individual transaction in the lists of transactions already in Xero to view the original transaction.

If you are using multicurrency, the report footnotes show the conversion rates for the figures converted into your base currency. They also show if the exchange rate was the official XE rate of the day, or if a user in your organisation entered it.

Totals explained

TIP: An Imported Statement Balance and Balance out by error message will show, if an end balance has been imported for the date that the report has been run for and if there is a discrepancy between this end balance and the Xero Statement Balance.

Accounts are fully reconciled, but your balances do not match?

• Cross-check your bank account transactions and imported statement lines to make sure nothing is missed or doubled.
• Check your conversion balance to make sure that the balances that you loaded when you started using Xero were the exact balance of your bank account and accounts from your previous accounting system.
• Use the Bank Statement and Statement Exceptions tabs on this report.

Bank Statement tab

The Bank Statement tab shows you:

• A list of all statement lines downloaded for the current month by default
• The date the item was imported from the statement into Xero
• Whether the item was reconciled
• Where each statement line came from (auto bank feed or manual file import from online banking)

It also shows you all imported statement lines for the date range you chose. Click the date link to view that bank statement that was imported into Xero.

If you only want to see reconciled bank statements lines select the Reconciled Only checkbox.

Statement Exceptions tab

The Statement Exceptions tab shows you any items that do not match the normal import statement to reconcile to item in Xero process. It shows things like:

• Items that are in Xero and are manually reconciled
• Imported statement items that are deleted in Xero
• Duplicates

If you are having trouble getting your online bank account balance to match the balance showing in Xero, this is a useful place to check for any anomalies.

In Xero, you can run either of the two versions of the Profit and Loss report to view your organisation's income, expenses and profit for a reporting period.

A quick snapshot of income, spending and profit is also available on the Xero mobile app for both iOS and Android.

Run the report

TIP: Run the older version of the Profit and Loss report to view foreign currency conversion details.

The Profit and Loss report displays accounts with an income or expense account type. It's not possible to include accounts with a different account type.

1. In the Accounting menu, select Reports.
2. Under Financial, click Profit and Loss (New).
3. Set Date Range.
4. (Optional) Click Comparison period(s) and select additional periods to compare with your selected report period. The periods will change depending on what reporting date range is set. For more in-depth comparisons, in the bottom left corner, click Edit Layout and adjust the column settings.
5. (Optional) If your organisation uses tracking, you can filter by tracking category.
6. (Optional) Click the settings icon for additional options, including:
   • Select an Accounting basis, either Accrual or Cash
   • Option to include or exclude Prepayments
   • Option to Show decimals
   • Option to Show percentage of Trading Income
7. Click Update.

Report Settings

In Xero, you can run the Balance Sheet report to see your organisation's financial position as at a selected date. 

Run the report

The Balance Sheet displays accounts with asset, liability and equity account types. It is not possible to include accounts with a different account type.

1. In the Accounting menu, select Reports.
2. Under Financial, click Balance Sheet (New).
3. Set a Date Range.

4. (Optional) Use the dropdown arrow under Comparison period(s) to compare periods. The periods will change depending on what reporting date range is set.

   For more in-depth comparisons, in the bottom left corner, click Edit Layout and adjust the column settings.

5. (Optional) Click the settings icon to show or hide decimals and to select the Accounting Basis.
   • Accrual displays revenue earned and expenses that occurred during the report period.
   • Cash displays revenue received and expenses paid during the report period. For example, bill or invoice payments, spend or receive money transactions.
6. (Optional) If your organisation uses tracking, you can filter by tracking category. The filters you choose will appear in a text block on the report. You can edit or remove the text block if you wish.
7. Click Update.

TIP: Retained Earnings in your Balance Sheet is the Net Profit from previous years' Profit and Loss reports. It also includes any other adjustments made for distributions etc. To see how it's made up, run the Account Transactions report for retained earnings, from your Xero start date.

An audit trail is a chronological record or set and source of records or paperwork that validates or invalidates accounting entries. An audit trail relates to the security issues of the company. That is, an audit trail provides documentary evidence of who has accessed a computer system, and what operations this person has performed during a given period. In accounting, an audit trail is often used to provide a basis for account reconciliation. It may also be used to provide a historical report to plan and support budgets. In addition, it is a useful tool in providing a record of sales in case of a tax audit.

As an example of the audit trail’s importance, a situation may arise where an improper activity of an employee takes place. If an employee does not have access to certain computer records but tried to gain access, such activity will be recorded in the audit trail. In other words, a database platform with a trail should not be accessible to ordinary users. For this reason, it may be useful to apply a role-based security model in the software. The software can operate with closed-looped controls as required by many companies when using the audit trail functionality.

It should be noted that audit trails are sometimes used to investigate cyber crimes. For instance, to reveal a hacker's identity, companies can follow the trail the hacker left in cyberspace. Hackers unknowingly provide audit trails through their Internet service providers' activity logs or through chat room logs.