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Trial balance - Compare MoM movement

On 31 July 2023 my old Trial Balance that shows the current movement per the months selected as well as the YTD figures will be discontinued. It will be replaced by a Trial balance that only shows the YTD figures and the comparative figures with the previous year. That doesn't help me at all when I have to do a monthly management report and can only see the YTD figures. I'm begging you, don't discontinue the old Trial Balance report! Or at least give me the option between displaying YTD figures and the movement for a specific period.

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Talitha Taljaard shared this idea  ·   ·  Report…  ·  Admin →
delivered  ·  AdminEthan M (Admin, Xero) responded  · 

Hey community, just popping back as promised! We’ve rolled out an update to the Trial Balance report this morning, adding in two new additional columns that show the monthly movement, similar to the older report. You can add in these optional columns from the Columns drop down menu - I’ve attached a screenshot for reference.

Thanks again for all your feedback on the new reports 😊

Show previous admin responses (3)
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  • Paul Sheehan commented  ·   ·  Report

    Show movement in the Trial Balance
    I see you are not allowing people to click the Critical button.
    When I do that, an error says "We couldn't submit your score at this time"

  • Jane Kelman commented  ·   ·  Report

    Talitha,

    I agree completely with what you have said and hope that Xero takes this seriously. I have been told that it is not even possible to customise a TB in the usual method so that is also a problem.

    Xero, please do not discontinue the old version of the TB.

    Jane Kelman

  • Peter Miles commented  ·   ·  Report

    They should be in the standard report format, not as an option. If you understood accounts it would never have been removed from the "New" version.
    regards
    Peter

  • Jocelyn O'Neill commented  ·   ·  Report

    We also need to view the monthly Debit and Credit amounts along with the YTD totals on the Trial Balance. Please DO NOT retire the old version of this report.

  • Daniel Murphy commented  ·   ·  Report

    It is absolutely critical that I can still view the monthly Debit and Credit amounts along with the YTD totals. Please DO NOT retire the old version of this report as the new report is NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE.

  • Ros Grevett commented  ·   ·  Report

    I cannot see how a "work-round" or a "hack" is an improvement!
    Please bring the option back as it is obviously required by many people including me....we await Xero's response

  • David White commented  ·   ·  Report

    It is really a concern the monthly TB movements have been removed from the "new" report. I can no longer view at a glance accounts that may have incorrect posts etc.

    The GL Summary hack is a solution but certainly not ideal.

  • Russell Dooley commented  ·   ·  Report

    I thought updating reports would improve them, not remove features.

  • Susanna Swan commented  ·   ·  Report

    Just in case it works for others - in one of the other ideas for this, the 'General Ledger Summary' report was suggested by Xero as an alternative and it actually does what I personally need it to do for reporting.

    No, it's not 100% ideal but it gives opening/closing balances (however do note they are not in CR/DR format but instead a net result format) and you can run it for any time period (useful for quarterly reporting). There are features like 'group by account type' etc that would be helpful to add IMO but for me the report works better than the TB.

  • Laura Dorrian commented  ·   ·  Report

    We cannot compare large values, YTD month to month. Therefore, having YTD as a comparison feature doesn't help or work.
    Please bring in the month-to-month report.
    That is what the Trial balance is for, to show the overall movements in the month. checking variances and keeping track of random increases.

  • Fiona Keenan commented  ·   ·  Report

    I also agree - removing the Months figures is a big problem. We require the monthly amounts for our FBT calculations and for the monthly management reporting, as well as the YTD figures. I can't understand why such useful and important information would be completely removed from a report? Also the old Trial Balance was nicely laid out with accounts sitting under headings of Revenue, Expenses etc, but now that layout has gone.
    Also asking if the old report can please NOT be discontinued, until this issue is resolved?

  • Vanessa Edie commented  ·   ·  Report

    Agreed with Talitha, this will make producing management accounts tricker to produce

    Thank you for raising how important this is as a client

  • Talitha Taljaard commented  ·   ·  Report

    No, not really. I just pulled the new report as at Feb 2023 and compared it with one month, Jan 2023.

    On the new report what I got is the YTD as at Feb, compared to the YTD as at Jan. Now I have to go and deduct the YTD Feb from the YTD Jan just to get February's movement.

    Whereas in the old report it's already there. No need for special extra formulas and the risk of calculations going wrong. Just the information I need. Movement for the month, along with the YTD figures if I need them.

    You can't take away the option to just pull one month's information. We don't always need the YTD, especially not when we do monthly management reports. Then we need to see the monthly movements.

    Also, if your opening balances aren't 100% correct due to journals not being ready yet or a number of other factors, then the YTD is also very misleading and can lead to horrid mistakes in your balance sheet.

    That is when you need the movement reports. To remove that opening balance from the equation and just see what happened in the span of time you're pulling in your report.

  • Karen Wakelin commented  ·   ·  Report

    Hi Kelly
    No it doesnt from my point of view. When reporting I need to show the credit and debit columns for the month reporting in AND the YTD credit and Debit columns. Not to compare YTD figures by month.

  • Ros Grevett commented  ·   ·  Report

    Totally agree regarding excluding existing elements. Extremely important for reporting to clients

  • Peter Miles commented  ·   ·  Report

    Reports
    The new version Trial Balance does not have the period movement, only YTD. Teh period movement visibility is a useful tool for identifying missing activity and errors. Not the only tool of course, but still one that is useful. Is there any good reason why the period activity was removed ?
    The report changes are meant to be improvements, this does not usually include the removal of existing elements.