Account transactions report - Show description of transaction line
Account Transactions Report
It doesn't make sense that you can separately select the 'Contact' column and the 'Description' column, but that the 'Contact' details show in the 'Description' column.
It feels like the 'Description' column in the Account Transactions report is wrongly pointing to the 'Contact' data!
If the 'Description' detail is not available in the Account Transactions report, this column should be withdrawn from the options available for selection.
It would be great to get this issue fixed.

Thank you for your engagement on this idea. To help explain a little on how this works in the Account Transactions(AT) report - what shows in the Description field when running the report is dependent on the type of account you're running the report for.
For example, when running the AT report for a bank account, transactions will show the Contact name in the Description field. This is because the detail that is entered on each description line in the body of a transaction relates to the account the line item is coded to.
To see the detail, you'll need to run the report for the account code, not the bank account. This is also how the report works for some other accounts such as the system sales tax account, Account Receivable, and Accounts Payable.
If you're trying to find the account a bank transaction or system account line has been coded to, you can add the 'Related account' column to the report which should help with look ups.
We appreciate what's being asked in this idea and will continue to keep an eye on the idea here, however we want to be open we don't have plans for changing the behaviour of this in the near term.
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Matthew Corey commented
Could agree more. It seems redundant and pointless to have contacts option, but then in the description field include the contact.
When doing searches or trying to group like transactions, it becomes more difficult because the contact detail is included in the report which means you can't then sort by pure line description as the contact details get in the way.
IE You might want to search for a group of similar transactions that are associated with specific actions - IE flights for specific employees, but the flights are spread across 3 different suppliers, you can't easily group all of these flights for that 1 employee together because it the contact name gets in the way.
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Anita Wildman commented
100% agree - have voted
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Lisa Lenne commented
Description is there for a reason. Why would Xero post a Contact as a Description?
These types of decisions on reports like this definitely question the ability for the designer to grasp what is required here.
When did description mean Contact?
Why input a Description if you are going to omit it in the critical reporting?
Beyond belief.Contact = Contact
Description = Description -
Kate Berezina commented
I am totally agreeing with other Xero users regarding the “Account Transaction” report.
Our company needs it to see the reason of spending money – exactly the “Description” field of “Spend money” transaction.
As well as other users, we have multiple credit cards for our employees. To create a monthly “Spendings” report I need to open each Bank transaction manually and copy/paste the description field from Xero to Excel files.
Xero Support suggested using “Account Transactions report for the Chart of account” for accounts corresponding with credit cards accounts. However, there are several expense accounts involved in transactions related to several credit cards, so extracting transactions would be even more complicated.
I support the request from other users: Could you please fix the link between “Account Transaction” report columns and transaction fields:
Contact = Contact
Description = Description
Thank you. -
Xero Subs commented
Would really love to see this report more useful - client has 40 odd credit cards they would like to run a transaction report on each credit card and actually see the description that the credit card holder has put on the transactions, not just "payment: Quest Hotel".
Currently they run 3 different reports and then use a vlookup formula in excel!!
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Justine Thomas commented
utterly farcical
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Glacier Chong commented
Yes, I'm totally having the same issue, is Xero not looking into this issue?
My contact and description are the same when i generate the account transaction. It's ridiculous because i keyed in the description individually during the bank recon but now its not reflected in the account transaction. Its frustrating for us.. Please look into it Xero -
Cherry Tang commented
This is needs to be fixed asap!!
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Patrick Norman commented
This seems like something that should have been in place at inception. We can't even customize the report to get this information ourselves. It has to be done manually combining two reports out of the software.
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Ann Plush commented
This is a pretty simple issue, I don't see why it can't be fixed.. And while you're at it, enable split transaction visibility too!
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Trevor Courtney commented
Please fix this now or I'm heading back to Quickbooks this year.
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John Davies commented
Another thing about Xero changing the description of an item to just the supplier contact name. At times we order the same item from different suppliers, so if we go searching for how many of an item we've purchased over the past year, we're going to end up with a list of supplier names which might have items we haven't purchased or need information about. How many of the programmers in Xero have actually worked in a small business that orders many different items, from the same supplier as well as different suppliers?
The difficulty in trying to search for important information will be so much more difficult AND time consuming. -
Stephen Humphrey commented
It is maddening that you cant get the Description in the reports. I cant believe this isn't possible.
Please Xero action this request asap
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John Davies commented
It's just common sense, a contact name is known, the range of items costed that a contact's bill lists, can be quite large, the same name (contact's name) on every different item purchased on that bill, as that items description, is crazy.
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John Davies commented
Whose bright idea was it to change something that has worked logically for years !! The description of the expense from a supplier we know doesn't need the suppliers name in the description. Absolute stupidity and nonsense and a total stuff up for something that has worked so successfully in the past. Do fix it ASAP
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Trevor Courtney commented
I
I'm going to just copy the previous post because it says it all. Fix this already."Its an absolutely stupid feature that will take the Xero Development team 5 minutes to resolve.
Contact = Contact
Description = Description
NOT: Description = Contact + Description" -
Accounts Department commented
Its an absolutely stupid feature that will take the Xero Development team 5 minutes to resolve.
Contact = Contact
Description = Description
NOT: Description = Contact + Description -
Richard Hollis commented
It's been like this for ever but completely agree. When you want to see detail against bank for example, you can't without going into every transaction. Contact and Description gives exactly the same information.
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Jennifer Feranda commented
Invoice description should flow through to payment description for reporting.
My company runs daily receipt reports with a combination of invoiced and non-invoiced items. The Description column on the account transaction report does not show a description of the invoice for which the payment was made, but rather shows the contact name for the invoice. This information is redundant as this is already part of the option for the Contact column.
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Frank Burnham commented
Account Transactions Report Description Cash Basis - please use the same transaction description text for cash basis reporting as it is displayed for accrual basis reporting. Currently cash basis description text is limited to "Payment: [Vendor Name]" which is utterly useless in performing analytical procedures of scanning to see the general business purpose for a cash basis report. This is a very common practice by CPAs to quickly gain an understanding of the nature of transactions in a given account for tax compliance reasons.
Currently users must drill down in each suspect transaction to the originating bill to see the actual description text entered by a client.
QuickBooks uses the same description text regardless of the basis of accounting for reporting purposes for this very reason. Just sayin....