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This is a basic function. Who seriously wants their bank reconciliation admin staff to be able to view every penny the directors pay themselves, the investment accounts, and access to all other staff payments, bonuses etc?

What a weak answer from XERO.

XERO is not fit for purpose for small businesses.

We are handcuffed, as other suppliers have chosen XERO integrations (booking system and a CRM). Stuck with this inadequate product with no desire to listen to customers.

Employ another developer...

Oh dear, its not looking good for Xero. This is another basic function that should be available as standard, not in discussions or in development. You are arming all of these good people with clear requirements/problems to take to competitors.

How much longer do you need, you have had 12 years!!!!!

It's quite clear from the response that there is a fundamental issue with how the backend has been built in Xero. Which is pretty disappointing in all honesty given the size of xero. We will have to take a look at other options soon as we will be expanding our finance operations.

Not good enough. I will need to start looking at alternatives.

This is restricing growth as we take on more people, we cant use this for our sales and stock. its been 12 years plus - How long do you need...

You don't value your customers, otherwise you would be listening to their needs. Giving employees access to be able to perform their tasks should not also give them access to sensitive information. Xero, if you cannot give your customers the permissions requirements that is obviously wanted, then maybe we need to start looking for an accounting program that will.

we have several folks involved in the invoicing process who should not be able to see anything about our accounts or accounting, but who I'd like to be able to run reports on invoicing.

It is important that I can give certain staff access to edit an invoice without seeing our bank information. Also, they need to see how the customer paid their invoice, via Cash, Cheque or Credit Card. Right now, if my staff need this information they have to call me and I have to look it up for them.

It is important my staff can reach certain reports without seeing my bank feed.

I urge you to look at Quickbooks and see how their user rolls are. They are really well done. And to be honest, it is a standard for all accounting systems. Xero is ahead of many accounting systems in many ways but in this area they are far behind and it is making their customers suffer to stay with them. It is unfortunate. This needs to be a priority over EVERYTHING ELSE. Please, stop doing updates that are not nearly as important and fuel all your resources into this!

Xero seems to think AI is far more important than the basic functions, but their customers won't be around long enough to use the AI if the basic functions aren't there in the first place.
We are currently looking at alternative accounting systems because Xero it is not suitable for our growing business in its current state.

Hi Kelly,
I didn't even know that there was a broader feature request until Luke's comment below. However, I am appalled to see that the "User Role - Allow users access to specific reports" is "In development" with 293 votes (at the time of writing).
This feature request has 590 votes (at the time of writing), but is only under review!
How are our votes being taken into consideration? What can we as a community do to display our need for this feature, because it doesn't appear to be voting...

Textbook handling from Xero here on the whole user role issue : https://productideas.xero.com/forums/939198-for-small-businesses/suggestions/44960731-user-role-restrict-access-to-specific-settings

State that the issue is far more complex than it really is, then split it down to get people to vote more specifically and then close-off the original. Next, wait 12 months, still doing nothing, at which point you then merge all the individual ideas, because "they're all part of the bigger picture" around user roles! 🤷🏻

See you all in 12 months I guess!!

Every other platform in the market that I know of already offers detailed managing of user roles and access as standard.
a) This should already exist in Xero and
b) (if anything is ever done about it) No organisation should be made to pay more than another to use a business critical function.

This response is very disappointing.

If budget is a problem then why not have an extra level of subscription that allows this type of restriction for bigger companies instead of a blanket fixed system that is not fit for purpose?

We would happily pay a bit extra for the system to match our growing business.

over 18 months of research and still no further forward.

How hard can it be to have different levels of access for critical information such as bank accounts?

Surely this should have been one of the first features to incorporate when building an accounting system?

A year and a half later nothing has happened and Xero say's it is not something they are look at right now.
WTF - Xero this is a critical feature for your customers. Stop playing with how things look (and increasing the prices too regularly) and make the REAL changes we need.

Kelly, please provide a time sacle for this to be implemented - 12 plus years is a bit of a wait.

Thank you

This feature is absolutely critical for many businesses and is preventing us from fully moving forward with Xero as our complete accounting solution. Not being able to restrict access to individual bank accounts means we either have to expose sensitive financial data or limit staff efficiency - neither option is acceptable.

Having bank-account-level access control is essential for maintaining confidentiality, data privacy, and compliance with internal control standards. Ive read many of the previous comments, and it seems a high number of us have team members or external bookkeepers who only need access to specific accounts, and without this feature, we can’t apply the principle of “least privilege.”

The lack of this functionality poses real risks and creates unnecessary barriers for businesses that want to use Xero securely and at scale. Please make this a priority! It’s a vital step in strengthening trust, security, and usability for all organizations.

It is good to see so many contributions from frustrated business owners on this missing feature.

Not so good is the lack of communication from Xero given how vocal its users have been for so long now.

I wonder if it is the case that their stock price is more important to them than their customers!

I completely agree. Xero was excellent when my business was small and I was the only user. However, as we've grown, the all-or-nothing approach to bank account access no longer suits my needs. I want to give staff access to certain accounts, like the trading account and petty cash, without exposing everything else.
Please fix this - it is holding back my business

The lack of this functionality is costing businesses by either requiring a separate process or having a higher cost/overqualified resource to do basic reconciliations just to limit visibility on accounts. Please listen to your customers and prioritise this feature.