How does beneficiary, unitholder and partner (owner) reporting work in Xero

Ensure your owner accounts are working correctly for all beneficiary, unitholder and partner reporting

One of the most challenging areas of Xero is owner reporting.

This is because accountants like to run a report which shows:

1. Opening balance
2. Advances
3. Drawings
4. Share of profit
5. Closing balance

Xero DOES have this report. 

Xero's reporting V Incumbent software

1. Incumbent software usually rolls over at period end. 
2. Xero does not roll over at period end.
3. The owner balances will accumulate over the life of the business. 
4. You will need to accept that, or, come up with further processes which add little value.

How Xero works

1. Xero does NOT roll over at year end
   1. You can change transactions in 2005 and it will update the 2025 reports immediately 
2. The beneficiary / shareholder / unitholder / partner / proprietor accounts report is a MOVEMENT report
   1. See image below - it shows the beneficiary accounts open, activity, close
   2. The balance sheet hows the BALANCE of these accounts
   3. These balances can be different
3. The beneficiary report shows opening and closing balances (black formula)
4. You should NEVER have opening balance ACCOUNTS
   1. They are NOT needed and create headaches
5. The benficiary report shows all accounts for beneficiaries (blue amounts)
6. Beneficiary reporting is in LIABILITIES, NOT EQUITY
7. Report codes have numbers on the end that represent the beneficiary number
   1. EG beneficiary 1 is LIA.NCL.ADV.1

We 100% recommend that you get used to accumulating owner accounts. Why?

1. To avoid excessive processes
2. When integrating with other apps, it is easier

Accumulating owner accounts may become an issue for your clients

To fix this you can:

1. Build a custom balance sheet - Group owners together, give it an opening balance, Save this as the master balance sheet
2. This means that if a client runs the balance sheet, they will see MOVEMENT, not balances

Example Report