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Current Behaviour

When using comparison periods in Xero financial reports (such as Profit & Loss), the report automatically displays periods in reverse chronological order (newest to oldest).

Whilst users can manually reorder columns using the Edit Layout function, this change only applies to the specific report layout and does not dynamically adapt when different reporting periods are selected. As a result, users must manually rearrange the columns each time they run reports for different months, quarters, or years.

Problem

For businesses that regularly prepare management accounts, board packs, investor reporting, or trend analysis, reviewing financial performance from oldest to newest is often more intuitive and aligned with standard reporting practices.

The current approach creates several challenges:

Manual reordering is required every time a new reporting period is selected.
Saved custom report layouts do not maintain chronological ordering across different reporting periods.
Exported reports require additional manual adjustments before being distributed to management, investors, lenders, or external stakeholders.
The process becomes increasingly time-consuming for organisations producing regular monthly or quarterly reporting packs.

Suggested Enhancement

Introduce one or more of the following options:

A report setting allowing users to choose the default comparison period order:
Oldest to Newest
Newest to Oldest
An organisation-wide reporting preference that controls the default ordering for all financial reports.
Dynamic custom report layouts that retain the chosen column ordering regardless of the reporting periods selected.

Business Benefit

This enhancement would:

Reduce manual report preparation time.
Improve consistency across financial reporting.
Better support management reporting and trend analysis.
Eliminate repetitive manual column adjustments.
Improve usability for finance teams, accountants, CFOs, boards, and business owners.

Expected Outcome

Users should be able to run and export Profit & Loss and other financial reports with comparison periods automatically displayed in chronological order without needing to manually rearrange columns each time.