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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If the 'Description' detail is not available in the Account Transactions report, this column should be withdrawn from the options available for selection.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.

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Peter Martin shared this idea  ·   ·  Report…  ·  Admin →
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submitted  ·  AdminKelly Munro (Community Manager, Xero) responded  · 

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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  • Warrnambool Legacy commented  ·   ·  Report

    It would be great if this issue could be fixed. It seems ridiculous that you enter all these details and then you can't print a relevant report as needed?

  • Tania Bogle commented  ·   ·  Report

    Agreed! The only workaround I can see is putting the description you want on the reports into the "reference" of the transaction instead of the invoice number. Then you can choose "reference" to appear in your report.

  • Amy Calcutt commented  ·   ·  Report

    Agreed - having the contact name under 'description' makes no sense at all. Why give the option to include the description in the report if it pulls the wrong data across. This is making our job much harder as we are having to go into transactions separately to check what they are for.

  • Sarah Hargreaves commented  ·   ·  Report

    Totally agree, lack of a proper description is adding hours to my task. I would also like to be able to reports on date of invoice, not just date of payment.

  • Sally Hughes commented  ·   ·  Report

    I have emailed the design team so let's see if ANYONE in XERO is listening :)

  • Cheryl Cowie commented  ·   ·  Report

    Looks like a LOT of people want this to happen but no change has been made.

  • GREG MANN commented  ·   ·  Report

    all these excellent comments but I cannot find any of the responses from Xero. where do I go to find them
    I would have thought at the very least a response shows respect to Xero users

  • Christine W. commented  ·   ·  Report

    Please fix this, it would be greatly appreciated.

    We need to be able to view full bank descriptions next to their coded account. Showing a reference / contact name instead of the actual description is a huge handicap on efficiency.

  • Bill Fisher commented  ·   ·  Report

    This is a complete joke - spend hours filling in the description details when reconciling then you can't export a spreadsheet with those descriptions. And the issue was raised almost a year ago - fix it please...

  • Prolec Accounts commented  ·   ·  Report

    Need this to be fixed ASAP! We need to be able to export a report with all the details for reporting. This report is now redundant and of no use, and has added hours to what was once a quick task! Quite frusrated!

  • Esteon Steyn commented  ·   ·  Report

    Spoke to Xero support personally about this - but was sent here... Please fix this. Can we please have someone from Xero support acknowledge that you guys are seeing this and working on it?

  • Nicola Grogan commented  ·   ·  Report

    Why has this issue not yet been resolved. Can we get a date on when this simple fix can be actioned?

  • Matthew Corey commented  ·   ·  Report

    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.

  • Lisa Lenne commented  ·   ·  Report

    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  ·   ·  Report

    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  ·   ·  Report

    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!!

  • Glacier Chong commented  ·   ·  Report

    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

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