We recently marked 15 years since Xero was registered as a company, which is a long time in technology. In 2006, Facebook had only just opened up to the world, and Internet Explorer was the world’s favourite web browser. I’ve loved hearing stories from our founding team about the incredible changes they’ve seen over that time in our technology and the way we work.
Continually improving your experience
Of course, we’re planning to be around for many more Xero Days to come. I like to think we’ll be around to support multi-generational businesses with cloud-based tools well into the future. This long-term thinking isn’t just important for the way we work, but also the technology that underpins our platform as we continue to scale globally as a company.
That’s why we are ramping up our investment in technology. It’s no coincidence that this correlates with our biggest hiring drive ever. From this year, we’ll be getting more Xero teams around the world to focus on continuously upgrading and improving our technology, to make sure it doesn’t slow us down over time. This builds on our capability to deliver new features faster.
This kind of work is essential for a tech company like Xero. Just as you need to upgrade your phone every few years, or refresh the apps on your device, we need to keep upgrading Xero’s technology to make sure we can build the features you need and help you make the most of new tools in the years to come (imagine how many of these innovations are still merely ideas in people’s minds?).
What you can expect in the months ahead
We make changes ‘under the hood’ of Xero every single day. But as we focus more heavily on this work, you may notice that some of our products are updated with a fresh new look. It’s a sign that our teams are working hard to upgrade the underlying technology. But it also gives us an opportunity to release some new features that I think you’ll really like.
We’ll also be making some bigger changes that will have an impact on the way you work. This may mean things like switching to a new version of a product, finding the information you need in a new place, or changing a workflow while we roll out product updates in stages.
I recognise that these changes may be hard, but we believe they will create a better experience for you in the long run. Every feature in Xero represents countless hours of development, care and attention from our teams, so these are not decisions we make lightly. But when it comes to technology, change is inevitable and necessary.
Please know we’ll do everything we can to support you and reduce the impact of any changes we make. We understand these kinds of things can be frustrating when you’re busy running a small business or practice, but we’re committed to keep you updated and make things as seamless as possible.
Standing the test of time – 15 years and beyond
Finding a balance between what our customers need today, and what they will need in the future, isn’t easy. But we truly believe this work will be a game-changer for Xero – so we could reimagine what is possible in Xero and help make it even easier to run your business on Xero.
As we update Xero’s technology, we’ll be able to speed up development across these products and you’ll start to see many things you’ve been asking for come to fruition.
Personally, I’m excited to see what the next evolution of Xero will bring. I want to say a big thank you to everyone in our technology team who are working so hard behind the scenes to make this as easy as possible for you. As always, please do reach out if you need support or want to share your feedback – we’re always listening.
This sounds wonderful, huge news! Since I started using Xero years ago it felt like it was the same version that came out 10 years ago, but I love the UI design of the new invoicing, cash flow dashboard and can’t wait to see other workflows and spaces on the site updated to the fresh new look. ? I don’t expect any frustration in the new updates, but rather delight. Thanks for all the great work on this!
Hi Ethan, thanks so much for your comment. We’re thrilled to hear that you are delighted with the latest updates in Xero. I have passed your feedback to the rest of the team here.
Changing the ‘look and feel’ is such a waste of time. It’s accounts software not a social media platform. What I really want is software with an interface that doesn’t keep changing because of a whim of the current designers.
Hi Mike, thanks for your comment. We are not making changes for the beautification, there is a purpose and strategy behind the redesign that supports a better user experience. We appreciate that not everyone will like the change but we are committed to upgrading our technology and design to build consistency across Xero.
I second that,
Stop changing things that don’t need changing.
I can no longer select a customer on new invoice by the “Account Numbers” of our customers. Xero has at a whim will only let me select by billing entity, which usually don’t have the name it, I cant find anybody.
At the moment I can’t login at, Getting “HTTP Error 400. The size of the request headers is too long.” not happy
Hi Jeff, sorry to hear that you are having some issues here. Can you please raise a case with our support team in regards to the error message that you are receiving so we can take a closer look into what may be causing this. Thanks!
The new reconciliation page is a nightmare. If there is one transaction to reconcile then it requires scrolling through 3 screens. We use Stripe for online purchases so each deposit can contain multiple transactions – I actually felt seasick scrolling through so many screens. Please bring back the old format or at least the option to use the old format.
Hi Helen, thanks for sharing your feedback with us – we understand that the redesign with take some getting used to but there is a purpose and strategy for the future. We strongly believe that the changes will support a better user experience and we will continue to improve and iterate on it as we move ahead.
Totally agree with Helen the new reconciliation page is awful it is not user friendly the text does not need to be that big. Xero need to address this.
I agree – it’s awful. Xero are tone-deaf. Beeny says “the redesign with take some getting used” – rubbish. No amount of time will change the fact that you can only see 1 or 2 transactions on the screen – who works like this?
Yep in agreement with the others …..minimise the text back to how it was, its soooo time consuming and not at all user friendly. Please let us have the old screen back!
exacty what is the ‘purpose and stategy’ behind the UI interface on the bank reconciliation screen. Surely you can minimise the size of the text and pages. Not everyone works on 27″ + screens and the relentless scrolling through pages is time consuming and it’s totally counter productive. As you would be aware many Xero Partners have complained about this and we have not received a reasoned response to this issue.
I agree with Helen – it is far too big to be functional. I have a large screen and it doesn’t fit one transaction I am reconciling on the one page without having to scroll. Please give my RSI a break!
Please please give us the option to change back to being able to see more than one HUGE transaction at a time! I am constantly scrolling to see what I need to. It is making me vaguely seasick with all the motion on-screen. It’s user unfriendly and not pleasant to look at. I have put up with it for a number of weeks and there is no way I will be getting used to it as suggested by you.
I’m sorry to hear that, Tina – I have passed your feedback on to my Product team along with the other feedback that has been shared here.
I’m having the same problem, the JUMBO size is ridiculous !!! Do Xero not realise we need to fit a lot in our screen to reconcile, scrolling is not an option when you are trying to count multiple lines of a transaction ….?
Make it stopppp ?
I will echo all of the above points about the new reconciliation screen. It’s way to big and you have to scroll up and down so far to be able to see the relevant information. This is especially the case if you’re reconciling a payment or receipt against multiple invoices/bills.
Please change it back to how it was before.
Yes, I want to agree with everyone. The software is supposed to enhance efficiency not hinder it. Please listen to what people are saying. The size is completely unnecessary. If it is designed for people with vision issues, perhaps you can offer that as an accessibility option.
Could not agree more. It is awful and I am not visually impaired.
Kelly (Xero) pointed us to this BLOG. It’s good that Xero has plans. Hopefully the ten years of ignored requests about user access settings to bank accounts is part of this. It has been ignored despite a substantial number of requests ver a decade. Many see this as a critical requirement to run their business efficiently.
Personally, I believe Xero is a good platform with two flaws:
1. User access / visibility settings to bank accounts, and
2. A business response that ignores requests from users for a decade.
I have seen half-made promises before. I have seen discussion forums restructured. I have seen ‘it’s a hard job’ comments for a decade.
I have not seen any action to address this function.
I am often asked to recommend accounting platforms and my first question is; “would you be concerned if anyone using basic accounting functions in Xero can see how much staff are paid or the transactions associated with other business areas?” If the answer is “Yes” then Xero is not for them.
Sad really as many of the features are well-delivered but, for many, this will be a show-stopper and they have the right to know this up-front.
Hi Klaus – thank you for taking the time to share your feedback with us, which I have now passed on to our Product team.
Hi
My comment from yesterday was removed. Just wondering why? I have very genuine reasons for thinking this latest change is significantly worse than the previous reconciliation screen.
Hi Helen, your comment was not removed – I have just replied to you so you should now be able to see it published above. We also responded to your comment on social media yesterday, and have passed your thoughts onto our team. Thank you for sharing your feedback with us.
I totally agree with Helen, the updated reconciliation page is a nightmare, it’s just plain HORRIBLE.
It’s clunky and cumbersome and this is definitely a massive step backwards.
What we had before looked clean and was very simple to read and use. If it isn’t broken don’t fix it!
What we have now is VERY LARGE meaning that you have to constantly scroll and can’t get a quick picture of what’s to be done.
It is definitely not an improvement.
I am very unhappy!
I cannot agree more!! I can only see ONE item at a time now on my screen now to reconcile, it is Kindergarten sized typeface that I have to keep zooming in and out when switching to different screens! ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE! Extremely unhappy. Bank recon used to be fun, now it is an ordeal.
The new Bank Reconciliation view is not an improvement, it is a step backwards.
I think many users would prefer if you put functionality and usability over aesthetics for their accounting software.
If the users need to scroll back and forth a few times just to see what they are doing on a single transaction because the font is too big and there’s too much blank space – I would consider this bad design. We come from spreadsheets! We could do with a little less space and more transactions!
XERO is becoming impossible for clients with the ever changing ‘beautification’, if anyone complains or asks for changes or product improvements we get told it’s passed to the product team, users are not really being listened to. After 14 years using Xero … it seems almost every time we log in something else has changed. Clients are constantly moaning to us. If you could stop engaging new engineers who all take their own spin on things and leave things that are not broken maybe users will be praising rather than complaining.
Please Help. Xero has updated the colors and text font of the Reconciliation page. The font is SOO BIG that the text is unreadable.
Even if I make the screen 90% the text is unreadable, there are too many light colors on the page.
Please reverse to a normal Rec page as it was before.
The new design of the reconciliation screen looks horrendous. Why do we now have beige background with neon green highlights when a transaction matches? It looks awful, truly awful. It’s also now too big, which means way more scrolling than necessary, especially when the whole thing jumps upwards when you click on find and match, and looks childish and unprofessional. I know the reply I get will likely be along the lines of “we have a strategy” but that’s really a non-answer. You’ve made something that was a joy to work with unpleasant to look at and clunky to use.
The new recinciliation is really awful, please revert to the previous version. All of the boxes are now much larger which means more scrolling up and down which seems quite unnecessary and because of the extra spacing it takes much longer to do a visual search to find anything. I thought by resizing the browser window would help but it makes no difference. I am getting negative comments and complaints from all of my Xero clients
Hi, it may look all nice and neat but its actually a pain in the b***. It takes up way more space than the old platform, you now have two pages to go through for what would have been on one. Seriously dont need all that empty space, squeeze it a bit more together! And I agree with previous comments about user access, spend more time on that and less on useless stuff no one has asked for.
thanks
I hope that any feedback on this new design is being passed back to management, and not just dismissed.
The design team in charge of the UI of bank reconciliation have seriously failed on what Xero is trying to deliver.
Simple things like
* reducing font size
* reducing amount of space between items
* changing grey background colour to white
These three things would dramatically improve to end user experience.
As it stands, the new look and feel of bank reconciliation instead of making things easier, has made the screen practically unworkable from a day to day standpoint.
When reconciling a payment to a supplier of multiple invoices, you can no longer see the reconciling balance on the screen, you are constantly having to scroll down.
Please take the feedback from your customers seriously and review the changes made to the User Interface.
Your three suggestions are spot on – exactly the suggestions that I would make. The spacing and padding makes the page much less useful than before.
Hi, thank you all for your feedback on the recent updates to the bank reconciliation feature. The purpose behind the latest changes is to set up the foundations for the future of our products, creating ways for us to deliver new features that weren’t previously possible. We are reviewing all your feedback as we continue to improve and iterate as we move ahead so thank you again for sharing your thoughts with us.
Maybe you need to elude to what the new features are that justify making the new reconciliation screen a total disaster to work with.
The bookkeeping process has just been made harder not easier…we need to understand the justification for this, not an arbitrary statement deployed to pacify.
The only thing that would fix this for me is the ability to search in the feed. Otherwise we scroll page after page …now made worse
This really comes across as a “La La La we’re not listening” response from Xero. Or perhaps “the redesigns will continue until morale improves”?
If everyone is saying that it’s making their lives less productive, you really need a convincing argument as to why it’s better for us. How could making the reconciliation page bigger and having fewer things on each screen be “creating ways for us to deliver new features that weren’t previously possible”?
Please listen to your end users Xero!
Your so called enhancements are not enhancing our experience, rather hindering it.
You’ve just doubled our processing time for all the extra scrolling we need to do to see transactions on the bank feed, and the page itself is hard to look at for long.
Don’t alienate those that usually advocate for your product.
I totally agree with Helen, Margaret and so many other people on this new reconciliation view.
Why are Xero insisting this change is a positive thing, when you are getting such strong negative feedback? The new view for the reconciliation page is a nightmare, it’s HORRIBLE. It’s clunky definitely a massive step backwards.
Why on earth do we need such a large view, and then have to constantly scroll up/down to see items? (To see even 5 or 6 items, the screen zooms out so far I cannot see the details!) YUCK – and unworkable
Xero – making change is fine, but this change is ridiculous. You need to re-assess what you have done here… listen to your customers – we are NOT happy.
This is absolutely NOT an improvement. You can try to wrap it up in ‘a feature’ or ‘future’ – it’s not. You’ve gotten it wrong… and now need to quickly revert things – or add an option to change the layout to the old style for your customers.
We are very unhappy!
I agree 100% with everyone’s comments above after I have been redirected to this page as a result of my feedback that the new reconciliation screen is way too big; slowing my processing down and driving me crazy!
I was advised to zoom my screen down, but then when I go to another page in XERO I have to change the zoom % again.
Please consider our comments urgently.
I’m with Nicole (and everyone else) – I was also given the advice to zoom the screen down, but that makes every other Xero screen too small to be able to read. So many of us use more than one page at a time. All of these changes have made everyday bookkeeping so much less efficient.
In a nutshell, you have turned one of your best features into your worst feature.
Please talk to some of your users and get them to demonstrate how they are using Xero and what this feels like to them, and then make it better. I’m not asking for it to go back, but you do need to listen!
Agree with all the above comments/feedbacks, less Ethan. The new rec interface is not an upgrade at all, it’s a downgrade. The font is XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXL, horrible and not working effective. You end up spending longer time to reconcile JUST 1 single transaction. What about if you have hundreds to do? Does a company needs to employ someone special for the department “Financial Xero-reconciliation”? This is a laugh. Xero just a question: why you haven’t try this as a trial with your customers and see their reactions, instead of investing in something which doesn’t bring anything good on the table? Or why you don’t give the option to your customer to chose which interface they want to use, instead of forcing them to work with your new “failure upgrade”? Xero I think you should take these feedbacks very seriously, as it’s seems like now after being a leader on the accountancy software market, your are taking advantages of your users thinking they will still be using your platform despite these awful changes.
Totally agree with everyone’s comments on the new reconcile interface. It is DREADFUL…the font is way too large, there is far to much free space…the endless scrolling up and down just to see what I’m doing is giving me some kind of motion sickness! I have to keep leaving it and coming back it is so frustrating to work with. Like others have commented, I have to keep rescaling my screen – pretty sure there is no ‘benefit’ in forcing people to have to change their individual computer settings in order to make it more comfortable to work with. The sooner it reverts back to the old style, or an option to use the old ‘view’ is provided, the better!
Seriously??? This blog is arrogant… admit you got it wrong… thanks for being innovative but time to revert back to readable reconciliations and no unfiled amounts…
Xero needs to listen to thier users. If they are making the platform difficult to use (which by the feedback is obviously the case) people will change platforms. I only switched from MYOB because the new MAC upgrade stopped supporting the MYOB version i was using and was forced to choose another program.
Xero has been fairly good except for a few major issues like user permissions. I want my account receivable employees to be able to view an aging receivables report but NOT to be able to access my P&L and Balance sheet reports but thats not an option with xero.
in MYOB you can pick and choose what you want each employee to have access to.
Also a report on sales commissions paid and owing would be handy. I really miss having that.
I agree will all of the comments. The new “upgraded” reconciliation interface is completely un-user friendly. They should be spending money on improving known issues with the platform as mentioned above rather than turning something that every one was happy with into a reason to switch platforms…….
New UI is horrible. You have taken you best feature and made it your worst.
You need to revert back immediately.
I agree with all the comments – what’s good about
making the bank rec take longer – especially when
you have a Stripe account with 1000’s of transactions a month. I agree with those that say it is a step back. Give users the choice to use the previous layout or new one … please, it would save some of us so much valuable time.
Will go back to Sage if not.
Absolutely horrible – beyond words can express,
after this “update” the font is so large that when going to Find match Tab – it cant show the full line of inv or payment description so we dont know anymore which to choose and need to open the invoice tab and go one by one
this update literally doubled our processing times and something needs to be done here
or provide a solution how to display the full lines now!
you cant just double the amount of work for accountants and leave like it is – how do we bill this extra time to clients now?
The new UI is terrible. And there is a forum topic related to it here.
https://central.xero.com/s/question/0D53m000079iwRCCAY/the-new-format-is-terrible-change-it-back
If the aim is to switch all parts of Xero to this format, I believe we will be moving all our clients to other platforms.
I agree with the comments here about the new interface and the blown up screen that requires CONSTANT scrolling. This is not at all a more user friendly experience, it takes far longer to reconcile accounts and is very frustrating. Furthermore, information that used to be on the old interface is not longer featured on the new one (as an example, the information coming through on the bank feed side has been simplified, leaving out details like the last digits of credit card numbers – information that is necessary in order to reconcile the transactions). This new interface is unworkable. I also request to change back to the old UI.
Further to my previous comments above, I just had a quick look at bank rec on my phone. Looks fantastic.
Which leads me to believe that the new design has been done with devices in mind.
But honestly, how many people perform bank reconciliation on their phones?
I would say 95% of your customers perform the majority of their tasks on a desktop or laptop.
This design needs to go back to the drawing board.
The new UI is really really challenging to work with and much more inefficient.
Totally agree with everyone comments, the new reconcile window is HORRIBLE and pretty much useless unless you zoom out to 50% which gave me a migraine last night and making me seasick. If I needed a bigger font, I would increase my font size on my computer
Do your programmers, tech team and even your customer support team use Xero day to day to do reconciling – if not, then maybe they should before they go and change a layout? Are you just blowing smoke when replying or are you actually listening to what your users are saying that this was a bad idea and you need to revert it back?
I agree with Lauren, if you don’t listen to your users, there are other options available. I’ve been a partner for the last 10 years and the reconcile window was one of my favorite reason to get people to switch from QBO and I’ve rolled with the changes over the years but this one is really bad.
Please revert it back or give us the option of the old layout.
Hi Xero team,
so obviously people are not happy with the new UI.
I am one of those people, it is totally horrendous to work with. It is far too big, it makes me feel sick scrolling through the page.
Your standard answer is that it is done with a purpose and strategy for the future. What is that purpose and strategy? Because if it is ignoring requests from loyal customers to fix existing problems and shove so-called ‘improvements’ down their throat that nobody asked for, I am going to consider moving to another bookkeeping program. Surely it is not hard to give us back the old layout? I haven’t found any of the latest updates useful, and I am not using any of them. Why don’t you listen to your customers and fix things that are broken, and leave things alone that people are happy with?
I agree 100% with everyone’s comments above that the new reconciliation screen is way too big; slowing my processing down and driving me crazy! I have tried to zoom my screen down, but then when I go to another page in XERO I have to change the zoom % again.
Please consider our comments urgently!! The sooner it reverts back to the old style, or an option to use the old ‘view’ is provided, the better. And take the feedback from your customers seriously and review the changes made to the User Interface.
I agree with all the other comments
The Bank reconcilation screen is Un usable
In a nutshell, you have turned one of your best features into your worst feature.
What are Xero doing to fix this ?
It is far too big font, why has it been changed
Can we please have a setting to adjust the Reconciliation page to “Compact”, the amount of scrolling on my laptop up and down just to add one transaction is ridiculous. Plus it really helps me to see as much as possible on one screen all at once, easier to spot possible anomalies lie duplicate payments etc. As it is a have to physically move back away from my screen to be able to read this page.
I just saw the comment about this possibly being optimised for mobiles. I’m 45, I’ll be around for a while, I’m tech savvy, and I know mobiles dominate usage stats for most websites, and I suspect Xero is no different. I use mobile regularly to add a quick receipt or file, or create a bill or expense claim.
But I have ADHD and thus very little working memory, so I do most of my work that requires concentration on a laptop so I have a decent size screen space and the ease of having several pages open at once. For example, expecting a bill to be matched in Reconciliation and it’s not, I need the bill in one tab and Reconciliation in another to flick between the two with keyboard shortcuts or even two windows open side-by-side, double check what’s gone wrong. I can’t do this on a mobile.
The large sizing in Reconciliation is also hard to work with for me for similar reasons. I’m now constantly scrolling to double-check things whereas before I could just LOOK. Please give us the ability to choose view size.
I have been using Xero for several years and usually love the updates, this new bank reconciliation screen is terrible. It is taking two to three times longer to reconcile transactions. This new reconciliation feature might be great for a business that have basic reconciliation needs, for our business this is not ideal and very cumbersome. It is not ideal to be constantly scrolling up and down or changing the screen settings to 60% resolution every time we reconcile a transaction.
I also noticed the yellow prepayment background feature has been removed, the majority of our transactions are a combination of payment types. The yellow background for the prepayments was a great reminder we are in the correct transactions type when reconciling multiple complex transactions.
Is there a way to revert back to the old reconciliation screen?
I agree with all the comments regarding the new bank reconciliation page. It is so user unfriendly and I hope Xero listen to the user feedback on this.
Thanks everyone for continuing to share your thoughts with us. We are collating everything being shared by our community across various channels, including Xero Central, social media and here on the Xero Blog, and our teams are reviewing all your feedback. We want to assure you all that changes like this aren’t made lightly and are part of our goal to update legacy technology and give you a better overall Xero experience that lasts into the future. We always appreciate hearing your views and the passion across our community – thank you and keep safe.
agree way too big, not very user friendly and looks clunky!
I actually embrace change however if it is of beneift, can you actually tell us what the benefit is and not just some sales pitch “purpose and strategy for the future”.
Can you advise what the purpose and strategy is?
Hi faceless Xero responder
You obviously are NOT listening, are you?
To quote your arrogant response to all our plea’s for an enlightened reply as to why this interface change was made, you say…
“We want to assure you all that changes like this aren’t made lightly and are part of our goal to update legacy technology and give you a better overall Xero experience……”
So, can you please explain that statement when you’ve actually made our overall Xero experience worse…NOT better!!
Liz (aka Very Frustrated Bookkeeper)
Hi Liz, sorry that you feel frustrated. We are collating and reviewing all the feedback we are receiving about the latest changes to the bank reconciliation screen and we recently provided more information on why we’ve updated the design, which you can find here. We will continue to listen to our community as we test, learn and refine the experience.
Thanks Beeny for your reply
So, I did as you suggested and went ‘here’ And the answer I got from “here” is….
“Our updates to bank reconciliation extend beyond the design you see on your screen – they leverage Xero’s powerful automation capabilities to help you save time” THEY’RE ACTUALLY COSTING US MORE TIME!!
“As always, your opinions are important to our continuous improvement…So please do reach out if you need support or want to share your feedback – we’re always listening” AFTER ‘REACHING OUT’ NUMEROUS TIMES NOW, IT’S OBVIOUS YOU’RE NOT REALLY LISTENING AT ALL!!
But thanks for another wild goose chase and the canned standard response…although it is getting a little weary now.
Regards, Liz
Completely agree with all these comments – that the “new look reconciliation” is just plain awful.
Font too big, takes up too much screen space and as someone pointed out you can only see a few lines instead of about 20.
My email to support was replied with basically we have plans for the future and pretty much that is the way it is and too bad and referred me to this link! Come on Xero really???? Listen to your users and the people who are paying you!
PUT it back they way it was. You now have MANY annoyed customers.
I’m in total agreement with the negative comments regarding the layout for the bank reconciliation. It is truly terrible. I feel like I’m in my first year at school with big print and wide lines! I don’t understand why everything is being dumbed down. I’m not a child and my eyesight is fine.
I also dislike that everyone in the office is able to read my reconciliation screen from a distance.
I’m living in hope that you’ll listen to the comments of everyone and provide the option to change the view back to what it was.
Not only is the Bank Recs new layout annoying, large and scrolling is the new thing, we now have the new contacts layout.
They have removed the ability to search by Account number! – really – lets give the users this function for years and then take it away. And whats with the big fonts again.
When you have a large contacts database some with similar names it really is necessary to be able to search by other fields besides the account name. You give xero feedback (nice and constructive) and they respond with standard feedback ‘that we are doing this to improve the system and too bad you dont like it because we do’
XERO listen to your customers please!!
Hi Denise – thanks for sharing your feedback. I’m sorry to hear that you’re not a fan of the latest updates to the bank reconciliation screen – I have passed your thoughts on to my team. In regards to Contacts, I’m happy to let you know that improvements to search by email and account number are on our roadmap to rebuild so you will see this functionality return in coming iterations.
Dear Xero
For a user who has had a brain haemorrhage with residual hand and arm disabilities, your recent changes have made my life – using your software – a lot more difficult.
With the HUGE font on the reconciliation page and from this morning the Contacts page I have to scroll many more pages to do my job. Contacts used to be 7 pages – now it is 13 pages!
Please give me a choice of using the “old” set-up. As you haven’t given any thought to people with a disability you are are risk of us going to a more understanding financial software package. I am already looking at Brightpearl.
Yours in hope
Julie
Hi Julie, thanks for your comment and sharing with us the difficulties you are facing with the latest changes to the Bank Reconciliation and Contacts screens. I’m so sorry to hear that the changes have made your life more difficult. I have shared your feedback with our Product Team – we are listening to all the feedback that we are receiving for both the Bank Reconciliation and Contacts pages.
Since the update I can no longer search by customer account number!
If you are improving your systems, please do not deleted useful functionality! Please bring this back.
Hi Stacey – thanks for your comment. Improvements to search by email and account number will be prioritised by the team based on customer feedback.
I TOTALLY AGREE A BUSINESS NEEDS TO SEARCH FOR CUSTOMER AND ACCOUNT NUMBERS…….FOR GOODNESS SAKES HOW RIDICULOUS. WE ARE LOOSING TIME AND MONEY WHILE THEY ARE BEAUTIFYING!!! REALLY…WHO CARES.
AND WE NEED TO BE ABLE TO TALK TO HUMANS IF WE HAVE ISSUES…..
Hi Kathryn, I’m sorry to hear that the latest updates have impacted your workflow. Thanks for your feedback, which I have shared with our Product team. We are not making changes purely for the beautification, this is part of a technology upgrade and the work beneath the surface will enable many of the feature requests that we know our customers want in the future.
For the contact list screen, why have you removed the ability to search for an account via email? If you have thousands of contacts, only allowing search by contact name is not useful. Can we revert view back to previous please?
Hi Yoshi, we’re prioritising improvements to search by email and account number based on customer feedback so thank you for sharing your feedback with us.
Aargh, Contacts is the next Victim of the Xero ‘improvements’.
Why can’t you right click to open multiple contacts in different tabs now?
This is awful, incredibly frustrating, is slowing me down considerably and is far from an improvement. Xero, please can you explain how you think this is an improvement – other than it looking prettier?
PLEASE will you make the ‘right click open in a new tab’ function available to contacts again ASAP?!!
I totally agree with everyone’s comments about the bank rec screen ‘improvement’ being WAY TOO BIG, for all the same reasons – mainly confidentiality and the fact that you have to keep scrolling up and down to reconcile Match transactions.
I am not opposed to change, but for the sake of improvement – not for the sake of change. If the functionality behind the scenes is improved, then fine, but it’s not fine when the user interface is negatively affected.
Hi Rachel, thanks so much for your comment and sharing your feedback with us. I have passed it on to our Product Team who are reviewing all the feedback we are receiving in regards to the latest updates to the bank reconciliation screen and to contacts.
I have been using the new layout for several weeks now which I use daily, I did have an instant dislike of it but then decided I needed to give it a chance. However after using it for several weeks and really trying to find why the change is necessary all I find is constant scrolling due to the large sizing of it this is not good for anyone who uses a keyboard on a daily basis. Also the previous colouring was to me more standout and easier for me to see. I understand things sometimes need to be changed but when things are working well for your customers that would seem a good thing. I find Xero a great system generally but this change is causing me to slow down due to the amount of scrolling that is required and repositioning of items on the screen.
Please change it back.
New bank reconciliation layout is poor.
Really like the new invoice layout. it got rolled out to me this week. Much better than the old new one with the posting account in tiny below the invoice line, that was crap.
I got the new contact view today. the white menu bar across the top, blocks the search box. So much for the care and attention! Also its not clear how you add a smart list prob needs a ‘Create smart list’ button at the bottom of the dropdown like the contact groups at the bottom of the list.
And you seem to have got rid of the ability to right click and open a contact in a new window. That is a major pain for me, lot easier to open the contacts i need in multiple windows and then close them as i go rather than have to go in, back out, wait for the list to load, scroll back down the list, go in, back out, wait for it to load etc.
62 comments. Show all
Seems like further updates have been applied this morning.
This has drastically reduced search functionality in several areas that we have found already. A very simple function like searching on customers via account number doesn’t seem able to be done now, nor searching for a suppliers ABN.
Severely reducing functionality, particularly basic search ability, seems to be going backwards rather than advancing the system.
The greatest competitive advantage in my mind that Xero had – past tense it seems – was it’s flexibility and being user friendly.
Hi John, thanks for your comment. Improvements to search by email and account number are on our roadmap to rebuild and you’ll see this functionality return in coming iterations.
I really do hope that Beeny Altheton response “Improvements to search by email and account number are on our roadmap to rebuild and you’ll see this functionality return in coming iterations” is true and a high priority on the roadmap as the removal of being able to search by account number is bizarre and shows a lack of understanding of how businesses with a large number of customers – we have over a 1,000 with a lot of duplicate names – work. It is a very backward step particularly since you can now only see about 5 customers on the screen so lots of scrolling and having to check address with customer if they phone in. The account number should be the easiest identifier to locate a customer not the hardest!
Seriously beginning to think that we have outgrown xero and that xero isn’t really interested in the mid-sized market.
It was fine when we were a start-up nearly a decade ago but now the creaks and gaps show.
We’ve been with Xero for 11 years, we were one of the earlier subscribers when they came to the UK, I met one of the founders Hamish Edwards back at an event back in 2010. After all this time they are still making the same mistakes many years later. Basic functionality is still missing and years later they’re up to the same tricks. Making a huge fan affair about changes, changes that only appear aesthetic, or new minor functionality that no one uses and trying to be all California silicon valley about how great these changes are, whilst continuing to ignore basic functionality that was common practice since accounts software was first built.
We moved from Sage and often referred to customers by account numbers…. OF course Xero didn’t have accountant numbers, they are too cool for this sort of thing, even though we can’t have completely different accounts with the same name, so now we have to think of ways to change the name…. adding a . or ‘ to the end of a name. Then low and behold a few years later Xero add account number functionality, and make out like they’ve just invented 6G internet, my first thought was that Sage has been offering this since 1984….. really cutting edge Xero… and you still can’t have accounts with the same name!
One of my biggest grievances with Xero has been the inability to search by postal code , I understand that in countries like New Zealand and the USA postal codes cover large areas, but in many parts of Europe, postal codes are quite specific and its great tool to find a customers quickly, so we came up with the solution of setting postcodes as our account numbers and bingo, easy searching.
Low and behold Xero launch a new contact pages and of course in their infinite wisdom, they have removed the search by account number functionality and of course only allow you to search by name, how about search by any part of the address? If you really wanted to be cutting edge why not allow you to search by any box, rather than the contact name, google and apple’s search functions makes Xero rather arbitrary search system look pathetic
Judging by the comments, Xero are going to add this back in, but this raises bigger questions, why did they remove a functionality? Surely they have no justification to remove something, just keep it and built upon it! Second who is Xero listening to when it comes to product development? They clearly don’t appear to be listening to their customers because I am one of many who have voiced comments of the same ilk. I don’t just think Xero’s own online forums and comments are enough, they need to talking to their customer base, by phone calls or when allowed by visiting people and finding out what works and what doesn’t. I can’t believe any customer would tell them to remove search by account numbers, it’s a clear example of their product team being in a total echo chamber or no one from customer services passing on the research they may have done.
Believe me many times I have considered migrating to another accounts program, for many years I was told that Xero was still the best overall, but many years later and more competition has meant that this claim is getting harder to believe and I am now going to start researching other accounts systems.
Please whoever from Xero manages these comments, make sure comments like mine and others get seen by people who can get things sorted, they can even contact me directly. I don’t think that comments like “I’m pleased to let you know that improvements to search by email and account number will be prioritised” are good enough, this needs to be sorted instantly and in future fundamental changes should not be implemented until major changes have been properly tested and consulted with a broad selection of different customers.
It’s my opinion that Xero needs really have a long hard look at itself, it should spend it’s time making the basic functionailty the best in the market and then it can spent its time adding superfluous fluff on top of a solid foundation, sooner or later if they aren’t careful another start up will get it right and Xero will find subscribers leaving in droves. Currently Xero is an elaborate Disney princess castle, built upon a foundation of matchsticks.
Hi James, I really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts with us in regards to the latest updates – and I’m sorry to hear that you feel that we can do a lot better. Please be assured that I have shared your feedback with the team who are working to upgrade our technology and redesign experiences so we can deliver the features you want.
I agree, the removed function to search by account number has a serious impact on our daily operations. This was a great feature and Xero needs to re-instate this as an absolute priority!!!
Hi Sandra, I’m pleased to let you know that we will be bringing back this functionality in upcoming iterations.