Rethinking the trial balance report

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The trial balance: It’s a fundamental report that’s as old as accounting – in fact, it was first mentioned by the “father of accounting” Luca Pacioli, way back in 1494! But even timeless classics need a bit of a spruce-up. That’s why we’ve given the Xero trial balance report a new lick of paint, and a whole swathe of new features and functions to go with it.

Out with the old, in with the new

Well not quite. If you love the original trial balance report and can’t bear to give it up, you can still find the old-style report in your Xero report center. However, we think the new trial balance report is pretty great.

It still provides all the usual functions you would expect from any good trial balance, like the ability to see the reporting period and the debit or credit balances of each of your accounts.

But we know that in the age of cloud accounting (something Pacioli couldn’t have foreseen) there’s much more useful information we can provide for your business or clients. We’ve listened to your feedback and we’re pleased to report we’ve implemented the following new features:

Comparative periods (up to 36!)
Filtering by tracking categories
Opening and closing balances
The ability to run the report on a cash basis (particularly helpful for those of you in the US)

And, because this is in our new report format, you have all the flexibility to customise the report further to suit your needs.

Reporting made fun(?)

Reporting isn’t always the job to get excited about. But thanks to the power of the shiny new trial balance report, it can be a lot more fun. So jump on in. Check and compare those balances. Think long and hard about any adjustments you need to make for year end, and find an easier way to extract balances for tax filing (if you’re not an NZ or AU accountant already using our great tax products).

A big thanks to Ros Black and the “Bad Assets” team at Xero who did the hard yards building this new report. We love feedback, so please leave us a note here with your thoughts.

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