AU Payroll - Reinstate order of payroll activity summary report
Sometime in the last week, the order in which data is presented in the Payroll Activity Summary report has changed from
- Earnings
- Tax
- Super
- Net payable
- Actual paid
to
- Earnings
- Net payable
- Actual paid
- Super
- Tax
Put it back, please, it makes no sense to have something other than Wages less Tax equals Payable. Also reinstate the highlighted total lines in this report and in the Payroll Employee Summary, I'm ashamed to send this to my client with their IAS, it's not readable enough.
The two screenshots I've attached are from two different clients, but the March one was created 1st May 2024 and the April one on 7th May 2024.
-
Freya Pieroz commented
As a side note, although the product idea regarding the Payroll Activity Detail report has been merged into this one regarding the Payroll Activity Summary report, they are two different reports.
Similar issues, though - the line items showing 0.00 x $n = $n is bad mathematics, no matter which report it's in, and the headings for the subtables only being at the top of the page instead of with each subtable makes the report unusable for anyone using a screenreader as well as not fit for purpose.
-
SEL Group Bookkeeper commented
Please see the two examples I have attached.
Yes it was the Payroll Activity Details report that finally irked me enough to contact you.
As you can see one is much clearer to read, can easily identify the employee and portion of report that belongs to said employee. The new format (compact or not) is very messy to read. Each employee detail seems to blend into the next with all the bold lines etc. Makes reviewing a nightmare.
I am disappointed that Xero does not seem to prioritise whether the people who use it daily can do so efficiently and easily but care more about what your future plans are (this was mentioned to me in another complaint about this)
The budget variance reports are now 3-4 pages long (used to be 2-3 tops). Again, a format change that was not user friendly.
My suggestion would be to allow old and new versions to be accessed so the person using the program can choose which version of the report is more usable to them. -
SEL Group Bookkeeper commented
Please revert Payroll Detailed Report back to old format - new format is so nasty to try to reconcile/check against entries due to SOOOO many page breaks in the new format.
Formatting is ugly and I have no idea why you keep messing with the report formats....new format changes create more pages to print too.... less ease with being able to read/identify issues....same with the Budget Reports. Just ugly and messy to look at. -
Freya Pieroz commented
In addition, the report now shows 0.00 units against payroll items which are not per-unit but instead are flat rate per pay. This is misleading - it either needs to show the number of times it's been used or be blank.
The two screenshots I've attached to this comment show the same client for two different periods. As you can see, the newer one is much less readable, with headings and totals fading into the mass of text and a giant white wasteland in the middle. The older one has line items that wrap, but the data has readable headings and the columns appear more evenly spaced (the activity statement code, units, and amount columns are approximately evenly spaced before you export, save for the left alignment of activity statement and the right alignment of units combining to give that white wasteland on the screen, but when you export, activity statement category has been given the same left aligned column width as pay item, with units and amount given much smaller matching columns squished over on the right aligned right.)