Homepage - Simplify layout
The beta version of the new Xero layout. updated interface feels overly busy and cluttered, which makes navigation more difficult—particularly for clients who manage multiple bank accounts.
I believe users should have the choice to switch to the new layout when they’re ready, rather than being automatically transitioned.
Additionally, clients pay for Xero to streamline their financial management, not to have advertising pushed at them.
The current design detracts from the user experience and makes it harder to find and complete tasks efficiently.
Hi community, thank you for all the engagement and we can see the growing interest in improvements to help simplify your view of information on the new Homepage and navigate important information and insights with more ease.
Right now, our team have a few pieces of work underway intended to help with some of the pain points that have been raised here these include:
- More options for the sizing of widgets so you can reduce these frames and better position this information on your screen
- More customisation of information within a widget like being able to remove visuals
- Improving the experience of moving widgets when editing the homepage to make it more obvious when dragging and dropping them to different positions on the page
We’ve also roadmapped further changes for later this year, once everyone is on the new experience. I’ll share more updates as we progress.
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Ryan O'Daly
commented
The new UI is awful. The widgets make organising anything impossible. I just want all my accounts in one area, all my invoices/bills in another area, organised. Like the old homepage.
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Panagiotis Lysikatos
commented
I have to say, Xero has really outdone itself with another “improvement” in such a short time — this time on the new homepage. Gone are the days of boring, functional dashboards where you could actually see all your bank accounts in one simple vertical list. Now, thanks to the generous use of whitespace and sprawling widgets, I get to play hide-and-seek with my own bank balances every day — nothing screams productivity like scrolling for three minutes just to find what used to fit on one screen.
The Bank Accounts widget is particularly impressive. It refuses to be constrained to a single column, spreading itself across the page in a bold statement of design freedom. It’s almost as if Xero thought, “Why make bank accounts easy to scan when we can make users feel like explorers in a vast landscape of empty space?”
And the customisation! What a joy. You can rearrange widgets — as long as you do it exactly the way Xero wants you to. Truly “fully customisable,” in the sense that freedom exists within very tight boundaries. Want your homepage to work like the old dashboard? Ha. Good luck. Why would anyone even think of such a thing?
And the charts! My goodness, the charts. So large, so colourful, so… utterly unnecessary for anyone who spends their day reconciling transactions. But hey, at least the homepage now looks like a modern art gallery — nothing says “efficient accounting workflow” like a giant profit graph you have to scroll past to reconcile a bank account.
I eagerly await the next “improvement.” Who it will help remains a mystery. But one thing is certain: every change is clearly designed, implemented, and fully tested to make things work so much better. For someone. Somewhere. Possibly.
In short: if you enjoy hide-and-seek, scrolling marathons, widgets that pretend to be customisable but aren’t, and admiring charts instead of doing your job, this homepage is for you. For the rest of us mere mortals, it’s a brave new world of unnecessary changes for the sake of unnecessary changes.
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John Hedley
commented
Very strongly agree with pretty much everyone else that the new layout is far worse than the old one. Visual style is cluttered and far harder to interpret. Seems to take up a lot of screen real-estate for basic information. Looks like it's designed for mobile phone, I do not use Xero on a mobile phone. I really don't like the dynamic number of columns, three columns is too many and if the panels jump about means I never know where they are. I shouldn't have to be resizing my browser just to use Xero. And one thing I *really* hate are the smug icons that appear when there are no tasks. It is not for you to say whether I am able to relax in my chair or not. It grates every time I see them, at least add a clear option to turn them off.
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Helen Knight
commented
Totally agree the new homepage is awful - Overly cluttered and information there that is not needed. Xero is supposed to be a package for small to medium business and you are making it way to complicated for a simple small business. Please STOP changing things all the time, then saying it is an improvement and increasing the cost.
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Annie Thorne
commented
After various attempts to try and figure this out - I'm trying to act in good faith here, because I know I complain bitterly about every xero 'improvement' - and I've realised that the only way the new home page will work for me - by which I mean not drive me demented and have a constant migraine - is if I delete all the widgets. All of them. Literally all of them. And have a blank screen. Or maybe keep my most used couple of accounts. That's it. Anything else is a nightmare.
Well done Xero. You really have excelled yourself this time.
Meanwhile, there are legitimate requests for improvements/amendments - like making credit notes easier to handle, or putting back some of the things that were removed from invoicing (history still not correct, a year+ later) that go on and on for years, whilst we have to deal with this vanity project.
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David MacLellan
commented
The new dashboard is an awful user experience. XERO, do you not hear the sheer number of users expressing the same thing??
You could gain a lot of trust back with your base if you give us the option of using the classic dashboard view. Absolutely wrong move to keep this update and ignore your customers. Perhaps this will be a case for a future business class on what not to do.
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Ilya Titov
commented
New dashboard is terrible, stick with the classic, stop resetting it to the new one.
The problem is not how it looks, the problem is that the boxes move and are sorted in horizontal rows rather than columns. Its impossible to replicate the classic layout every time you change window size or drag a card the order is broken.
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Patrick Matthews
commented
The new dashboard is way too fussy and cluttered. Personally I do not need the graphical display especially as I have multiple bank accounts and other items on the dashboard.
Xero are pushing way too hard to sell more apps etc. They are permanentyl 'In your face' and very annoying.
I am even looking at QuickBooks as an alternative and so far it has an appeal because its straight forward accounting software. Sorry!! -
Tony Gowshall
commented
Very Simply Either, Either the Old Dashboard remains a Option or You Lose a Customer.
You Need to Understand the KISS Principal
Keep It Simple STUPID.
Simple to Understand You Force Stupid Ideas to Someone that Doesn't Want It They Leave.
So long, Farewell Goodbye.
Was a Great Simple Workable Product. Now is a Poor excuse of a Product with Change for the Sake of Change.
No Longer Good Value for Money
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Chris Mayhew
commented
I’ve used Xero since the early days and have recommended it to many other business owners over the years. One of the reasons I became such a strong supporter was because the platform felt simple, practical, and easy to use.
Now it feels like too much time and effort is being spent on redesigning dashboards and adding features that are unnecessary or more convoluted than what existed before. In my view, the current dashboard works perfectly well. It is familiar, efficient, and does not need to be replaced.
What is most frustrating is not just the change itself, but the lack of choice. Rather than allowing customers to keep using the dashboard that already works for them, Xero appears to be deciding that everyone must move to the new version whether it improves their workflow or not. That does not feel customer-focused.
Please stop fixing things that are not broken. Many of us chose Xero because it saved time, reduced friction, and made business admin easier. Constant changes to core areas like the dashboard do the opposite.
To be honest, this direction is now making me question whether Xero is still the right tool for my business.
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ANITA DENSON
commented
Overly cluttered, not necessary.Please make sure we can go to the sizing.It was perfect before. Accounting works on focusing on one area at a time!
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Daniel Coates
commented
Would like to see a total cash position widget like the phone app that totals all accounts up
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Dean Alexander
commented
I have been using Xero for almost 8 years. This new dashboard is overly busy and counterproductive. This is the worst update I have ever encountered using Xero. Please see sense and keep the old version until you can create something more practical for actual business owners. I am starting to be concerned that Xero may succumb to Doctorow's "Enshittification".
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Alex Harrington
commented
The new layout is a car crash. It looks lovely on the demo company, but on a company with lots of bank accounts it's hopeless.
You can't fix anything in place so nothing is where you leave it. It takes far longer to work through the widgets, find each bank account and reconcile it rather than just working your way down the list. Please please put it back or at least offer a way to pin the position of widgets so we can put them in to a sensible order
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Phil Hellary
commented
For the love of God, please add a setting to pin the modules in place on the new homepage. I change my browser window sizes all the time, which means that if I'm using the 'new' homepage view, everything moves around every time and I have to waste brain power on finding what I'm looking for instead of relying on it being in the same place every time. It's unbelievable that you're forcing this new design on people without having the option to pin things in place. I just want the same windows as I have with the old layout in the same location on the screen, no matter the size of the window.
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Tim Sheehan
commented
Why change it?
It seems like change for the sake of it - an illusion of improvement that is in fact worse. The end user establishes fast efficient habits from familiarity and then you ***** it up.
Your rubbish 'new invoicing' is a case in point. Which is still glitchy, makes unwanted changes or fails to implement stored preferences. Billing is unchanged and sadly reminds me how easy and reliable 'old invoicing' used to be..
You are enshittifying Xero -
Cheyenne Mitchell
commented
Stop changing the website. When it stops becoming convenient, I stop being a customer. If it isn't broke, don't fix it. We have been having to relearn your website every couple months since September of 2025.
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Lisa Broom
commented
Have you never heard the expression 'If it ain't broke, don't try to fix it' definitely applies in this instance.
App Devs should always have an option for the 'classic' layout permanently available, no one wants a new layout designed by people who only develop the product and don't actually use the product. Everything in the new layout is too big & noisy.
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Peter Burgess
commented
100% agree with recent comments - Xero, please let us access the old home page. The new home page is hopeless! Xero - are you listening?
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Annie Thorne
commented
Ugh, I've just - in good faith - tried again.
I thought that maybe after the influx of comments it might have been improved. But nope! Awful.
Nothing stays where it's put. Even after removing a load of things I neither want or need, in the hopes of creating more space.
Kelly, this new layout is horrendous! It screws the eyes and the brain. Please, either enable us to truly customise it to our own preferences - not just Xero's interpretation of what that should be, or allow us to keep the current version.
This feels like 'new' invoicing, all over again (which, by the way, I still loathe).