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The mandatory update to using the new Reports in Xero from 31st July 2023 means the old version of reports will cease. This includes the much used Trial Balance report as accountants like myself tend to start from there when reviewing quarterly and annual work.

I notice the following list of issues with the New Report for Trial Balance:

1 - You can bookmark the old TB report and use this bookmark across clients. Also bookmark can be changed to show a particular date too i.e. 31st March. Bookmarking the new report always takes you to same client you initially bookmarked on (though typically new report reverts to last financial year so not too bad).

2 - Old TB report has header sections highlighted in blue which helps the report not look cluttered as it does in the new TB report.

3 - Old TB report would nicely group sections such as Revenue/Expenses etc, cannot do this on New report though you can see Account Type, this again adds to clutter on the new report.

4 - New TB report shows the previous year which is a plus, however income is shown as -ve or credit which whilst not wrong can take a moment to process the figure right next to it being positive albeit a credit. Possibly could do with the comparative also being shown as a Debit and Credit column (at least an option for this). Possibly alternatively an option to show the current year to date as just one column (though preference is always debit and credit column).

5 - New TB report runs a maximum of 100 lines by default, some larger clients have more than 100 lines and so requires an additional button press to be able to see all TB lines!

6 - New TB report also defaults to showing the Balance Sheet first then P&L. This ordering is then done by Account Code smallest to largest but can falter with 3 and 4 digit codes in the same TB i.e. I've seen 3 digit codes where the 0 has been removed i.e. 0700 being pushed all the way to the bottom of the report.

7 - New TB report always defaults to end of last financial year, the down arrow selection does not contain End of this financial year and so then has to be done manually.

8 - As above, end of last financial year is not bad as a default but say 6 months after that year end, it should default to current year if possible although per last point, changing options to include current financial year end would be good enough.

Again to reiterate as I did to the advisor on Xero Support, the above are not new ideas but those that are being removed as part of the drive to using the New Reports. These will result in additional time having to be spent, which we can all agree would be a backward step.