Xero reports already sit inside the software you pay for every month, yet in our work with Perth trade businesses we often see owners who never open them. The bookkeeper reconciles the bank and gets the BAS ready, and the owner runs the business off the bank balance.
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That works until a builder pays 60 days late, a quiet month lands on top of a quarterly GST bill, or tax time reveals that maintenance work has been carrying the installs all year. Each of those problems shows up in your Xero reports well before it hits the bank.
Here are the seven Xero reports worth running every month: where to find each one, what to look for, the red flags, and a routine you and your bookkeeper can run in under an hour.
Before You Run Any Xero Reports: Three Things to Get Right
- Reconcile first. Xero’s help for the Aged Payables Summary says to enter your purchases and reconcile your bank accounts before running it, and the same applies to all your Xero reports.
- Code job costs as direct costs. Xero calculates gross profit as income minus the accounts set up with the Direct Costs account type. If materials, subcontractors and site wages sit in overheads, your gross profit line tells you nothing.
- Know where to look. Most Xero reports in this guide live in one place: in the Reporting menu, select All reports, then search for the report by name.
Why these seven Xero reports? Between them they answer the questions a trade owner asks every month. Budget Variance and the Executive Summary are useful extras, covered briefly below.
| Report | The question it answers |
|---|---|
| 1. Profit and Loss | Did we make money, and is the margin holding? |
| 2. Job profitability | Which jobs and types of work make the money? |
| 3. Aged Receivables Summary | Who owes us, and how late are they? |
| 4. Aged Payables Summary | Who do we owe, and what is due first? |
| 5. Cash Summary | Where did the cash actually go? |
| 6. Balance Sheet | What do we own and owe right now? |
| 7. Activity Statement | How much GST is building up before the BAS? |
1. Profit and Loss: Did You Make Money Last Month?
What it shows: income, expenses and profit for a period, on an accrual basis (including unpaid invoices and bills) or a cash basis (only money actually received and paid). Of all the Xero reports, it is the one most owners already know.
How to run it: in the Reporting menu, select All reports, then open Profit and Loss. Set the date range to Last month. Under Compare with, choose three past periods so you see a trend. Click More, tick Percentage of trading income, then click Update.
What to look for: gross profit as a percentage of sales, which shows whether your pricing covers labour, materials and subcontractors before overheads. Use the accrual basis. On cash, one builder paying three progress claims at once can make a poor month look great.
Red flags:
- Gross margin sliding for two or three months while sales hold. Look for tight quotes, labour overruns or materials not charged out.
- Materials or subcontractor costs growing faster than sales.
- A surprisingly good month. Check its supplier bills have all been entered, because late bills flatter one month and land on the next.
Among the other Xero reports, Budget Variance is worth adding if you have set a budget in Budget Manager: it compares your actuals with that budget. For a line-by-line walk through, see our guide to the profit and loss statement.
2. Job Profitability: Project Summary or Profit and Loss by Tracking Category
What it shows: which jobs, or types of work, actually make money. A healthy overall margin can hide a job type that loses every time, and in our experience it is the view most often missing from a trade owner’s Xero reports. There are two ways to get it.
Option A: Xero Projects
Xero Projects tracks time and expenses against each job. In Australia it currently comes with the Ultimate and Ultra plans for up to 10 active users, with a per-user fee beyond that, according to Xero’s pricing plans article. Plan features change, so check yours. The useful reports:
- Project Summary: each job’s financials side by side. In the Projects menu, select All projects, click Reports, then select Project Summary.
- Project Financials: tasks and expenses against your estimates, for spotting overruns while the job is open.
- Project Details: estimates, expenses and invoiced amounts in one view, under Reporting, then All reports.
- Detailed Time: hours logged by your team, including time not yet invoiced.
Two catches. Set an hourly cost rate for each staff member so labour shows at its true cost. And Xero’s help notes that its other reports do not pull information from Xero Projects, so time logged against a job never reaches your standard Xero reports.
Option B: tracking categories
Without Projects, use tracking categories. Xero allows up to four, only two active at once, and recommends no more than 100 options in each, according to Xero’s guide to tracking categories. That suits job types (service, install, maintenance, strata) or crews, not individual job numbers.
How to run it: set the category up once under Accounting, then Accounting settings, then Tracking categories. Each month, open the Profit and Loss, use Compare tracking categories to select the options, click Apply, then click Update. As Xero’s Profit and Loss help notes, you can compare tracking categories or past periods, not both at once.
What to look for: gross margin by job type, and whether finished jobs landed close to their estimate.
Red flags:
- One job type earning a consistently lower margin while tying up the same crews.
- A big share of income or costs with no tracking option applied, so the split is incomplete.
- Uninvoiced time building up on the Detailed Time report.
For the method behind the numbers, see our guide to construction job costing.
3. Aged Receivables Summary: Who Owes You, and for How Long?
What it shows: how much each customer owes you and how long it has been outstanding, as at the report date. If you only open two Xero reports a month, make this one of them.
How to run it: in the Reporting menu, select All reports, then open Aged Receivables Summary. Choose End of last month as the date. Under Ageing By, choose Due Date so the columns show what is genuinely overdue. Click Update, then click any amount to see the invoices behind it.
What to look for: the older columns and who they belong to. The usual trade risk is concentration: one or two builders or head contractors holding most of the overdue money.
Red flags:
- A customer whose balance moves one column further right every month: a slow payer on the way to a bad debt.
- One customer holding a large share of everything owed to you.
- Credit notes or overpayments sitting unapplied, which usually means something was not allocated properly.
Xero can do some of the chasing. In the Sales menu, select Invoices, then click the Invoice Reminders link to email customers automatically when invoices are due or overdue. You can set up to five reminders, and they only go out for invoices marked as sent. Our guide to accounts receivable covers the rest.
4. Aged Payables Summary: Who You Owe, and What Is Due First
What it shows: what you owe suppliers as at the report date, including bills, credit notes, expense claims and overpayments, and which amounts are overdue.
How to run it: in the Reporting menu, select All reports, then open Aged Payables Summary. Choose End of last month, age by Due Date, and click Update.
What to look for: wholesaler and subcontractor accounts. For many sparkies and plumbers the wholesaler account is one of the biggest monthly bills, and letting it slip can put your materials supply at risk. Set what falls due this month against what you expect to collect.
Red flags:
- Overdue balances with suppliers you rely on every week.
- A total lower than you expected. Last month’s bills may not be entered yet, which means your other Xero reports are overstating profit too.
5. Cash Summary: Where Did the Cash Go?
What it shows: cash moving into and out of the business for the period. Most Xero reports describe profit; this one describes cash. A profitable month can still drain the bank if the money is sitting with customers or went out on a new ute.
How to run it: in the Reporting menu, select All reports, then open Cash Summary. Set the date range to Last month and compare with previous periods or the average; Xero then adds a variance column showing the percentage change. Click Update. To see non-operating movements separately, pick the common format called Working capital with Other Cash Movements.
What to look for: the gap between this month’s cash result and the profit on your Profit and Loss. A gap is normal. A gap that grows every month needs an explanation.
Red flags:
- Profit on paper but cash going backwards two or three months running.
- Large one-off payments that nobody in the meeting can explain.
The Cash Summary looks backwards. To plan ahead, pair it with a cash flow forecast.
6. Balance Sheet: What the Business Owns and Owes
What it shows: assets, liabilities and owner’s equity on a chosen date. Of the core Xero reports, it is the easiest to skip, yet it holds the numbers behind the nastiest surprises.
How to run it: in the Reporting menu, select All reports, then open Balance Sheet. Choose End of last month and, under Compare with, pick two or three past months. Click Update, then click any balance to see the transactions behind it.
What to look for: bank plus what customers owe you, set against what you owe soon: suppliers, credit cards, and the GST, PAYG withholding and super you hold for the tax office and your staff. That money is not yours to spend.
Red flags:
- Short-term debts larger than bank plus receivables. The Executive Summary report shows this as current assets to liabilities; under 1 means short-term debts exceed short-term assets.
- Balances sitting in suspense or clearing accounts month after month.
- A director loan account that keeps growing without a plan agreed with your accountant.
7. Activity Statement: Check Your GST Before the BAS Is Due
What it shows: the figures you report to the ATO, such as GST and PAYG withholding. If your organisation is connected to the ATO, outstanding statements load automatically and you can lodge from Xero. Unlike the other Xero reports here, it is a compliance form first.
How to run it: in the Reporting menu, select All reports, then open Activity Statement. For a period that is due, click Prepare under Needs attention. If you lodge quarterly, click View custom date report to check last month on its own. Xero’s Activity Statement guide covers the settings.
What to look for: the Transactions tab inside the statement, which lists the transactions behind each figure by tax rate or by BAS field. Your bookkeeper can catch a bill wrongly coded GST free while the month is still fresh. Your part is knowing roughly what the next BAS will ask for and setting it aside.
Red flags:
- Unfiled amounts you cannot explain. Xero adds late transactions to the Activity Statement as unfiled amounts, so each one means something was entered or changed in a period you already reported.
- No lock date after a statement is finalised. Xero suggests setting one.
- GST owing that is larger than the cash you have put aside.
A 45-Minute Monthly Routine for Your Xero Reports
Xero reports only help if someone reads them on a fixed day. This routine suits a business where a bookkeeper does the Xero work and the owner makes the calls.
| When | Who | What |
|---|---|---|
| Business days 1 to 5 | Bookkeeper | Reconcile every bank and card account, enter all of last month’s bills, send any invoices still in draft. |
| Business day 6 | Bookkeeper | Run the seven Xero reports for last month and note anything odd. |
| Business day 7 or 8 | Owner and bookkeeper | 45 minutes: receivables and payables, then cash and profit, then job profit, Balance Sheet and GST. |
| Same day | Owner | Pick up to three actions and put a name and a date against each. |
The questions to answer in that meeting:
- Is gross margin above or below the last three months, and why?
- Which job type made the most margin, and which the least?
- Which three customers need a call this week?
- Did cash go up or down, and does that match the profit?
- Is the money for GST, PAYG withholding and super set aside?
Once a report is set up the way you like, save it as a custom report so the layout is ready next month. And review your Xero reports in the same order every time, so a number that looks wrong stands out.
When Xero Reports Stop Being Enough
For many small trade businesses, these seven Xero reports cover most of what the owner needs. The limits show up when:
- You run more than one entity. Each Xero organisation reports on its own books, so a trading company plus an equipment or property entity means stitching Xero reports together by hand.
- You want job profit by crew, supervisor and job type at once. Two active tracking categories only stretch so far.
- Your job data lives somewhere else. Hours, quote win rates, callbacks and variations often sit in job management software, not in the ledger.
- You want trends without monthly exports. Two years of margin, debtor days and cash on one page is slow to rebuild by hand.
That is where a dashboard earns its place. Our SME Data Analysis and Power BI service connects the data you already have, such as Xero, job and payroll records, into dashboards that refresh on their own.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which Xero reports should a trade business run every month?
The Profit and Loss, a job profitability view (Xero Projects or tracking categories), Aged Receivables Summary, Aged Payables Summary, Cash Summary, Balance Sheet and the Activity Statement. Together they cover profit, job margin, money owed both ways, cash and GST.
How long should a monthly review of Xero reports take?
Once the bank is reconciled and bills are entered, 30 to 45 minutes is usually enough for the owner and bookkeeper to review all seven and agree on actions. The first month takes longer while you save the layouts.
Does Xero have a job costing report?
Yes, through Xero Projects, which in Australia currently comes with the Ultimate and Ultra plans. Its Project Summary, Project Financials and Project Details reports show job costs against estimates. Without Projects, tracking categories give you profit by job type.
Is there one Xero report that summarises everything?
The Executive Summary comes closest. It pulls figures from three other Xero reports (the Cash Summary, Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet) and calculates measures such as gross profit margin and average debtor days, but it will not show which customers or jobs sit behind them.
Where to Start
You do not need all seven reports perfect on day one. Pick a date next month, have the bank reconciled and bills entered by then, and start with the Profit and Loss and the Aged Receivables Summary. Those two alone will change which calls you make that week.
Add the others over the following months and keep the review to the same day and order. Once the routine sticks, your Xero reports become part of how you run the business, not something the bookkeeper files away.
Book a discovery call with ACS Consulting today. We can help you turn your monthly Xero reports into one clear view of job profit, cash and money owed that updates on its own.
Email: zoey@acsconsulting.com.au
Phone: 0452 665 021