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AU PAYROLL: I strongly believe Xero should provide an option for the Payroll Employee Summary, Payroll Activity Summary and Payroll Activity Details reports to be run based on the pay period end date, rather than only the payment date.

This is particularly important for businesses that process monthly payroll where the wages relate entirely to one month, but the employees are paid in the first few days of the following month.

For example:

Pay period: 1 July 2026 to 31 July 2026
Actual payment date: 2 August 2026

Under the current Xero reporting method, because the payment date is 2 August, the entire July payroll is included in the August payroll reports.

From an STP, ATO and Payday Super perspective, I understand why the actual payment date is important and should be retained.

However, from an accounting, budgeting and management reporting perspective, these wages clearly relate to July and we need a practical way to report them as July payroll.

The current workaround is to enter 31 July as the payment date purely so the payroll appears in the July reports. This is not ideal, particularly with Payday Super, because the payment date is becoming increasingly important for determining when superannuation obligations are due.

In other words, the current reporting limitation can create a conflict:

If we enter the actual payment date:
The STP and Payday Super information is correct, but the monthly payroll reports do not reflect the period in which the wages were earned.

If we change the payment date to the pay period end date:
The management reports look correct, but the payment date recorded in the payroll system no longer reflects when employees were actually paid, which can affect STP and Payday Super timing.

Accountants and businesses should not have to alter a compliance-related payment date simply to obtain meaningful monthly payroll reports.

A simple solution would be to add a reporting option such as:

Report payroll by:

Payment date
Pay period end date

The existing payment-date reporting could remain unchanged for STP, ATO and Payday Super purposes. The additional pay-period option would simply allow users to analyse payroll according to the period in which the wages were earned.

This would significantly improve:

monthly management reporting
payroll reconciliations
budgeting and variance analysis
month-end and year-end reporting
comparison of payroll costs between accounting periods

With Payday Super making the accuracy of the actual payment date even more important, I believe this feature is becoming a necessity rather than just a reporting preference.

Please consider adding a Pay Period End Date reporting option to Xero Payroll.