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Particular need for changes in Payroll - leave and personal details

No Audit log and this request is 12 years old... kind of scary.

This is a basic assurance requirement. I've used a lot of other systems and I'm disappointed with Xero's payroll and timesheet capabilities they are unacceptable I advise businesses to steer clear of Xero if they have payroll or timesheet requirements for their business.

You should be able to see the audit trail by account code, by posting date, so you can track why the balance has moved from any previous published reconciliation

Very important as it crucial all changes are tracked for assurance and audit purposes, especially changes within the COA area

I wholly agree with Jason Grant comment December 29, 2023 09:37 in this thread.

The current audit trail & assurance dashboard was once a good starting point.
And while Xero capabilities have grown over the years. It seems the audit/assurance trail side of things has not kept pace.

If I want to check who has pulled what reports and when, there is no information. There isn't even an assurance category called "reports".

If I want to check who has made what changes to an employee's Pay Template (e.g. what was their rate of pay before it was changed), I cannot. I have to review payslips or start looking through payroll reports.

In my opinion, the lack of audit/assurance capabilities in Xero is exacerbated because of the limited options of User Permission levels that exist.

I feel Xero needs to invest time/resources into further developing the audit/assurance aspect of the software.

Being able to see history of Chart of Accounts - the archiving history - who did what etc

A full audit trail for payroll is one of the basic requirements for any payroll system given the sensitive information it holds and the scope for fraudulent activity. This should be priority on the developers list.

We definately need a more transparent audit trail for xero payroll. Surely the team and technology within Xero is clever enough to adopt this requirement and make it available to their fee paying clients!!!

The History & Notes is not an adequate Audit trail report in my opinion for the following reasons:

1. Export - It does not export to Excel
2. Visibility - It does not show all the details of the transactions and in journal form with previous versions (see first link below)
3. Filters - there are too few key filters (eg Date of transaction itself is not there)
4. Columns (similar to 2) - there are currenly not enough columns in the report
5. Detail - this column actually combines too much information in one field eg the amount and date shouldn't be concatenated
6. Technical log vs Audit log (see second link below) - these logs are not separated eg the date the document was uploaded is not part of the Audit (transaction) log.

For a classic Audit trail report see the old QB desktop audit trail report here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9rP24cQ0ps

For the 5 requirements for good audit trail in software, see here
https://tallysolutions.com/accounting/5-features-to-look-in-audit-trail-edit-log-accounting-software/

We have items "hard coded" to employees - resulting in either extra pay or deductions - but without a payroll audit trail - there is no way of seeing who entered these and when.
Audit trail for everything else - but not for Payroll????? Everything in payroll should have an audit trail.
This is something that needs to be fixed / added ASAP as it critical to any investigation.

I am currently going through an HMRC investigation for a client who was questioned about when payroll records were submitted to HMRC by the client. Unfortunately, several pay submissions were made due to errors in calculations which were subsequently corrected through reverting payruns and resubmitting them.
I have been told by Xero that "Once a pay run is reverted, the associated submission for that pay run is deleted from Xero permanently." This means that there are no records to prove that payruns are submitted on time to HMRC and then corrected at a later date. This is an unacceptable audit trail in Xero as it exposes customers to potential penalties from HMRC who, apparently, also do not keep such records. Come on Xero - audit trails are a simple requirement of accountancy packages. Surely, you do not want your clients to be exposed to potential penalties through no fault of their own?

Please provide the ability to see when changes are made to the default tax rates, or even all changes made to the chart of accounts.
The History & Notes section doesn't show this and the Assurance Dashboard shows nothing useful either.

essential for Payroll setup

We need to be able to see changes to our chart of accounts. Some VAT rates have been changed and we cannot see who or when it was done. This has caused a big problem for us and would be more than helpful if you could assist on this. An audit trail is so important for all areas.

An audit trail is critical - especially for payroll functions. Specifically pension communication sent directly through Xero and the ability to reproduce copies of the letters sent.

One of my clients is currently having a review from their pension provider and they have asked to see copies of the postponement correspondence sent to specific employees when they joined a few years ago. The client sent out the letters using Xero's 'E-mail postponement letter' function and thought nothing more of it.
Now there is no proof the letter was even sent! I've contacted Xero for help to get a copy of the letter or an audit trail and I was pointed to this thread and given no support as to how I can prove this was done or to get a copy of the letter.
Hopefully the staff members retained a copy of the email but I'm not optimistic they would have.

An audit trail in the employee record to say which letter was sent out with a date/time stamp and an ability to reproduce the letter is essential.
What a waste of time to email the letter and then download to save outside of Xero - what's the point - you may as well send the letters outside of Xero in the first place.

An audit trail for Payroll as pointed out below by a few other Xero users is a must requirement (for obvious reasons, examples in some of the comments below). This is critical, not a nice to have. When will this feature be available?

Seems like the issue continues..
We had a tax code notice come through for our director, which was incorrect, and on investigation got to the bottom of it, but whilst (just by chance) checking the director's details, notice the tax code was very wrong and looked like HMRC owed him..not correct. In addition, apart from his car we have never had any benefits so nothing would have been set up, but all of a sudden, 2 benefits have appeared, with £s next to them.
When querying with Xero, they said no history and blamed us.
Why, if we can see when we migrated in to Xero, send invoices/ statements etc, are they incapable/unwilling to help....cost to them??
We're going back to Sage straight away!!

Hi all

It's interesting that this was added by the Xero Team on July 25, 2012 (is that a mistake should it be 2022? Almost 11 years overlooking such a a key feature)

(BTW, a similar request - or should it be begging on our knees, pleading with tears - with more detail is over here if you want to vote again)

https://productideas.xero.com/forums/939198-for-small-businesses/suggestions/45050950-audit-trail-report#comments)

As it is I wll now sum up my marks on audit trail in QB and Xero, which I keep meaning to write up for an article for the press:

............................................................Xero .........QB

Audit trail report.................................... 2/10 ............5/10
(History and Notes is a mess and doesn't even export even if you wanted to play with the data yourself. See old QB desktop for maximum marks for a full audit trail report, with a journal view for each change of the transaction. Those were the days!)

Account transaction report .....................N/A ..........8/10
(can add Last modified and Modified By columns in QB, doesn't get 10 for a reason not relevant here)

Bank audit trail
(feed vs import column, running balance) ..9/10....... 1/10
(Unfortunately the banking section on QB is rubbish, bank reconciliation report can't be run until all transactions are ticked, and there is no bank statement there, anyway not for now, just wish they'd sort this out)

PS History and Notes on each transaction - doesn't interest me. This would be included in a good Audit trail report. If I am looking at audi trail on a transactional level, it is like looking for a needle in a haystack and leads to major stress levels! Oh Xero how many more years without an audit trail report?

This function would be great if it not only showed transactions edited (as in the history and notes log) but what users are viewing without editing.