Enter your idea

Kelly,
If the running balance is for each account group, then the total balance should ONLY be placed at the end of each account group, not a total for all accounts selected.
Your responses to this query are concerning and dismissive, do not actually address the problems, and call into question whether you have qualified accountants on the consulting team for the software, since even as a STUDENT, I can see several glaring problems with this method of calculating. For a program being marketed as an industry standard, you really need to be taking into account the issues being brought to your attention.
Yes, accounts have debit and credit transactions, and yes, we understand that they both need to be checked in order to have a working running balance. The problem is that those account final balances are not being identified as Debit or Credit accounts, and if you have multiple accounts in the report (for example an Asset account and a Revenue account), the Revenue balance should be calculated as a 'negative' against the Asset in order to represent a true and accurate representation of the business, not just added together. One of the BASIC accounting principles is about not overstating the value of the business, and the significant oversight in the calculation of the running balance values places many businesses, who may be relying on your software to provide that accurate image, at risk.

Kelly please can we get an urgent response to this issue - it has been over a month now thanks.
The change would be very simple for Xero to fix

FILE ATTACHED

Hi Kelly, see all the comments below since your last reply.

You state that "The report must include the Debit and Credit columns for the running balance to work "

I agree with the fact that it must include both columns BUT would argue the running balance does not work correctly.

The running balance should be the Credit column MINUS the Debit column NOT a cumulative total - as adding them together is not actually a
" Running Balance " at all,. It is simply "adding two numbers." !!

Therefore if you had 3 apples and I took 2 apples away, using Xero logic your running balance would be FIVE apples ....................when in fact you would only have ONE.

Please see attached so you can see an actual example of the issue -

A Credit of £663 less a Debit of £336.78 should produce a Running Balance of £326.22 but it shows £999.78 ( which is the numbers added together) not Debits subtracted from Credits.

If you need to keep the Running Balance as it is (for some reason) what we need is for :-

An extra column included which is headed ( for example ) "plus/minus" or " profit/loss" and for it to subtract the debits from the credits.

IF the number it generates is positive it needs to be unbracketed BUT if the number it generates is a negative number THEN the figure needs to be shown in brackets.

XERO is accounting software and, with respect, as stated in my original request, what you are showing in your reports is totally contradictory to the usual accepted Accounting Rules.

Surely, you can't accept this and not leave it as "something we have no plans to change at present" ?

PLEASE RESPOND TO US ALL URGENTLY

Strangely, Kelly's post here doesn't actually address the issue we are discussing??

The Account Transactions report, following a programming change in June 2026, now provides incorrect totals where there is a mix of revenue (credit) and expense (debit) values. In effect the credit values - which are shown without brackets - are treated as debit values in the overall report totals n.b. credits for expense accounts, shown with brackets, are dealt with correctly within the report totals. Having raised this with support, I've been told that this is a 'feature' of the report and to use/develop a different report (GL Details report) instead. Be wary using any report totals!

This seems to be reporting correctly now. Fab!

Woops, na, it's still wrong. Except for bank accounts, wherein money paid out shows in the Credit col correctly, and is treated with (brackets) which is correct as a reduction of equity. But all the P&L accounts are wrong.

And now the report does not support this at all.

May 22nd 2026 and still wrong. Sadly that report doesn't have the Layout Editor, so we can't fix it ourselves! :(

Edit the layout of account transaction reports (custom reports) or customise it so that the expenses ("Spend money") get subtracted from the income ("Receive money"). This would make custom reports endlessly more useful as they would show what profit or loss there is for each custom report.

In my Xero, the Running Balance column DOES calculate credits minus debits, but it does NOT put brackets around negative numbers. Every running balance line item is shown as a positive number, even when it is actually a debit.
I'd argue this is even less helpful. And if you add a column for Net, the total assumes all numbers were credits.

Related to this, I've just discovered that if the debit and credit columns are unselected, the opening balance doesn't show - apparently this is because it needs to show in one of these columns. The system needs updating so that the opening balance shows in the running balance column in brackets if a credit balance and positive if a debit balance.