I hope you don’t mind me saying this. But sometimes I feel like a “Xero Nerd”. On second thought, maybe nerd is not the right word, how about a “Xero Evangelist” . Yes, that sounds much better, it’s more sophisticated, ain’t it?  It’s all because I’m getting to the point where I’m falling “head over heels” with Xero. Anyway, enough beating around the bush, so let me get to the point of this article.

This article is all about my favorite reports that I like in Xero and why I think they’re great.

So let’s start off with the Tracking Summary Report

A handy report for helping you slice and dice some of the accounts in Xero. More precisely, the Tracking Summary Report allows you to report on your accounts from a tracking point of view. Using this report, you can  generate a list of your tracking options showing the activity in a particular group of accounts for a particular time period. Needless to say, you need to have tracking categories set up in Xero and actually using the feature with transactions to be able to run this report.

What display on this report?

• All options in the tracking category that have transactions assigned to accounts within the Account Group during the period of the report will display.
• The accounts reported on will be all the accounts that belong in that group in your Chart of Accounts or the groups you have changed or set up if you have created your own layout for this report.
• If none of the options for the tracking category have transactions assigned to the accounts covered by the report, no activity will display (perhaps just an opening or closing balance depending on where and when you last used the tracking option).
• If there are transactions occurring in the Account Group chosen that were not tracked, these are displayed as ‘Unassigned’.
• Opening and closing balances are displayed for each category option across all accounts used by that option based on the To and From dates entered. The balances are based on the financial year to date for revenue and expense-based account groups and a balance of all transactions for asset, liability and equity-based groups.
• Net activity shows the outcome of all transactions in and out of the accounts belonging to the Account Group.

Some things to Note:

• The report will be run based on all the options you have created for the chosen category.
• If you only have one category, this will be selected by default.
• You can only report on one category at a time.
• If you have categories listed that you have never used, the report will will have no values to display.

So here’s what I Like about the Tracking Summary Report:

• You see summary information or additional notes on the report*.
• It’s customizable
• You can change the layout of the report
• Depending on the status of the report and your role you will be able to export, archive or edit it.

*If you are viewing a report that has been saved or published by your financial adviser

So what’s your take? Do you Like It or Don’t Like It?

Xero Reports Feature List #2 coming soon. So stay tuned…..