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Xero, and auditors, encourage users to add helpful description to bills but those descriptions are not searchable via the global search bar. This feels unintuitive and slows down everyday tasks.

Many organisations need to quickly locate historic expenditure based on what work was done and not just the supplier name or account. This is especially important for the future users of the system who do not hold any information in their heads.

I would love to see the search box changed so we could search for a word in an invoice/ bill etc. For example I knew we made a purchase last year for a product but couldnt remember which supplier it was from. On my previous accounting software you could search for any word that would have been typed into the reference or description and it would have come up but this doesnt happen on Xero. The search can also struggle to find a customer number too, it only seems able to find the name. It would save a lot of time if this was changed.

If it's already possible to search by description via Reporting, why can't it be added to the general search?

The current search functionality on the main screen top bar should search across all text fields including description, reference, etc.

There should be an advanced search page that allows more granular searching, filtering and sorting including using of common search syntax like AND NOT OR etc.

Yes the Account Transactions report lets you do this somewhat but the amount of user actions (clicks and inputs) needed to just search on description is just too cumbersome. Perhaps as a stop gap, a text box for searching in the description (or any text field) can be added on the main screen of the Account Transactions report.

Xero should prioritize this global search feature request, users being able to access their own data in a meaningful and exhaustive manner should be a critical part of the product roadmap.

Please add to the search function, that it can find something entered in a bill description field. Eg. We have a 14 or 30-day account with several suppliers. So on entering a bill, we enter the bill number in the Reference field. Then say we enter Shredder or Blower in the Description field.
If several months down the track the shredder or blower is faulty, we can't find the bill easily. Have to manually open every Bunnings or Officeworks bill & look at the transaction.
The Description field search is very valuable in Reckon. And I feel would be very much appreciated by everyone in Xero.

FFS add a function to search for invoice line items (with a bit of filtering)

It should be easy to:
• Search for a line item so you can see what it was sold for the last few times
• Search for a line item within a specific customer so you can see recent pricing

This has been competing products forever (e.g. Kashflow) and is easily the feature I’ve missed since switching – I missed it within days, I still miss it and would have used in the last day or so.

It would be very helpful to be able to search the Particulars fields in statements as often a transaction appears with a different name to the trading name and can be hard to identify. If this function was available I could check if I already have a transaction with this business.

I found a workaround by creating a custom report that includes the Description. After running the report, I simply search within it for the name—or any other detail—I need. While it’s not the most efficient solution, it works and has the added benefit of giving me a reusable report.

I’ve wasted hours trying to figure out what I was doing wrong, only to realize that Xero doesn’t have a proper search function. At this point, I’m seriously considering other accounting software, because a reliable search feature feels absolutely fundamental.

UPDATE!! WORKAROUND FOUND!! NO THANKS to XERO team.

Guys. If you want to be able to search for ANY item in an invoice, do this.
Add an email address either to your contact, or send a copy of the invoice to an email address you have access to.
Then, just search the email address for the item you are searching for. BAM!

Solved my issues as I have to import my invoices, and there are no available searchable fields remaining.

The ability to search for any data in a line item of a transaction is a very important feature that should be implemented as soon as possible. We frequently have requests to search whether a client payment has been included as part of a weekly multi line item bank deposit. Currently we need to manually search through these weekly deposits to determine whether a client payment has been applied. The current Search function without the ability to search for data in a line item of a transaction is very unreliable and can lead to inaccurate results if a user is not aware of this limitation. Let's get this done ASAP. Thanks.

Can we please get some progress on this feature???
Paying this much for a package that doesn't include a suitable search feature is maddeningly frustrating!

Search items by Description
being able to search anything and having all documents with this key word pop up is a critical component of our business, we are leaving QuickBooks due to major faults in gst calculation etc, but this is one aspect we have used every single day please please look into this i can see many other business that need this function also.

Is someone going to let us know if the search bar section will be developed soon? I am really batteling coming form another software company to Xero to see this is not able to work here. Please assist urgently. We want to be able to search everything, not just invoice number
If we could just type one item in and all invoices including this popped up?

Being able to search the expenses to check for double dipping is critical for our business. Not being able to search or sort by amount or supplier is frustrating. Event being able to sort by date would be helpful

I'd just like to be able to export a search result list to excel, or even have any logical order in the results

Has there been any further thoughts about making this happen as my clients find it difficult to find what they are looking for quickly and easily, ie if an invoice is for various listed items it would be helpful if they could just type one item in and all invoices including this popped up?

Yet another voice yelling into the void that this is a necessary feature... Though after 10 years and the update, I don't really have hope this will ever get implemented.

Hello Zero. just want to bring this to your attention again that this is important. Critical in fact.

Here's a screenshot taken today of how Global Search is currently working for me. As you can see, I've got a contact open, and a Global Search for that contact yields no results. I get a similar lack of useful results or lack of results full stop more than 50% of the time.