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We too would like to be able to easily see WHAT the transaction was, not just WHO it was to. We are diligent about entering that info into the "WHY" field during credit card reconciliation, but there's no way to see this info without manually drilling into each transaction. Perhaps an option to display columns as in other places. I spent over 8 hours going through ~200 credit card transactions yesterday to see what they were for and if they had been entered into WorkFlowMax2. It would be a killer feature if these apps were able to talk to each other for better cost management.

I am curious since no one else has mentioned cash vs accrual, and I know the details of the report behave differently depending on the setting, are those with problems all on cash accounting?

I also wonder if anyone has any experience in an audit with descriptions that only contain the contact name?

I have been told that a work around would be to export the report into excel and them manually enter the descriptions. So can anyone tell me if I have to resort to that, why use xero?

In my Account Transactions Report, Description column details show up as Payment: (Contact Name) if I have entered it as a bill especially if the bill had multiple lines. But if I just enter the information at the time of reconciliation, the Description details come through as (Contact Name) - (details of transaction) regardless of the number of lines. Why can't the description be in the description for all transactions?

I have asked about a year ago about this and was told they were aware of the problem but had no timeframe to fix it. I was also told a work around would be to change my report from cash to accrual, but as a farmer I need to stay as cash. Here we are a year later with a problem they are aware of but not fixed.

If it can work right for some transactions, why not all?

Hope Xero Team can emphasize on this issue as it would be good and standardise to sort by the description at first rather than sort by the contact name

This would be really helpful. We have a new manager who wants to know WHAT the payments coming out of a credit card account are for and not just WHO the payment was made to. The Bank Transactions report we were using for review and approval of transactions does not provide any sort of relevant description.

I'm never really sure of the point in commenting on these things just to repeat the same frustration expressed by everyone else. There will be several other identical 'ideas' with the same frustrated users, plus tenfold users who see the complete lack of action and don't even bother voting or commenting. Then there are the thousands of users who find this similarly irritating but just quietly get on with their working lives unaware that there is a product ideas forum where you can waste even more of your time writing comments that get ignored.

However, on the Account Transactions screen I would love to see the Contact in a contact column, the Description in the Description column and the Tracking Categories in a Tracking Categories column. Why not have the ability to select the columns that users wish to have visible - like every other database-type software (I acknowledge the initial request was about the Report, but the same issue relates to the bank account view).

The contact name is blocking the sorting criteria which has first been entered into the description box making sorting in the report unable to be used.

Please delete the contact information from Description. This is frustrating.

Hello,
So are you basically confirming we have no way of pulling a report with information that has already been entered in the system?
Description field should show the description and not the contact name, we already have a field for that.

You need to have fixed asap, but before you should assume it is a major issue you don't see this is a problem after so many people complaining about it for so long.

Can we also see "item" as a separate column as an option in Account Transactions.

"For example, when running the AT report for a bank account, transactions will show the Contact name in the Description field"

"we don't have plans for changing the behaviour of this in the near term"

Kelly, it's been over six months since you posted.

I'd think half a year is not 'the near term' so my question is: when will this defect in the software be addressed? Do you have a timeframe for a remedy? Is it hours? Days? Weeks? Months? Years?

Or is there no timeframe at all?

Is it the official position of Xero that "transactions will show the Contact name in the Description field" forever and ever? And we should stop waiting on a bugfix?

I thought it was me who was going mad! I KNEW there was a transaction with a specific description but searching DID NOT FIND IT. I eventually had to scroll through all account transactions.
really? Might as well have used paper.
GET THIS FIXED XERO

Maybe Xero should change the heading in the report:

FROM Description
TO Contact

That way when looking at the report we know what factual information is in the report. As in * if the heading is Description - I would automatically look for descriptions that have been entered in previous steps.
If the heading is Contact - I would expect nothing else, as disappointing as that is, at least heading would match the information in the report.

Contact = Contact
Description = Description

NOT as it is now..
Description = Contact

Agree, this should be attended to. Description = Description.
The work around is not very effective!

This is one of those things where you see it and realise the designer has never worked as an accountant and probably didn't bother consulting anyone who has. Such a baffling design choice. Why would you want the contact name in the description field? It only servers to make the report much less useful at best and totally useless at worst.

It's really badly designed.

My bank statements have Statement Details Description in them, that relate to the transaction, this shows in the Reconcile tab, but the Account Transactions don't have it as a field.

Description as Contact, but not the info that exists on the original statement, much less any description you've actually input.

I'd rather go back to Excel, at least you can get a decent overview

I agree with all the comments and eco how baffled I am that this had gone unaddressed since October 2022...

I had several exchanges with support specialists for the last week trying to get the report I need to submit to our Board. All but one of them have repeated that the report is "working as designed" which is a cop out of acknowledging that it has been ill-designed to begin with and a blatant dismissal (borderline gaslighting) of the fact that the report does not do what it needs to do, which is to pull the description data into the 'Description'!!!

It has been a long while since I have been so angry and upset at Customer Support services... Acknowledge this is wrong but not a priority. Don't tell me "it's working as designed" it makes you sound incompetent...

PS:
competent = having the necessary ability, knowledge, or skill to do something successfully
incompetent = not having the necessary ability, knowledge, or skill to do something successfully

Agree with all the comments.

At least 18 months now, can't believe there's no one response from XERO regarding this

Agreed!!