How to email the Xero trial balance to your accountant at month end

If an external accountant prepares your year end or VAT returns, they probably want the trial balance every month, and they'd rather not ask you for it each time. Xero can produce it, but it can't email it on a schedule. Here's the manual routine and how to automate it.

The manual way in Xero

Go to Accounting, then Reports, and open Trial Balance.
Set the date to the month end you want. The trial balance is a position as at that date.
Choose accrual or cash basis.
Click Update.
Click Export and choose PDF or Excel. Accountants tend to prefer Excel, since they can pull it into their working papers.
Attach the file to an email and send it.

The common mistakes are leaving the date on the wrong month and sending the PDF when the accountant wanted Excel. Neither is serious, but both lead to a back-and-forth you could do without.

Timing matters

A trial balance is only useful once the month is closed: bank reconciled, accruals and depreciation posted, payroll journals in. If you schedule it for the 1st, your accountant will get a trial balance that changes by the 5th. Pick a day after your normal cut-off and use the "last month" period.

Automating it with Reportpost

Connect your Xero organisation. Access is read-only.
Create a schedule and choose Trial Balance. Many people add the Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet, so the accountant gets the full set in one email.
Set the period to last month, or use financial year to date if your accountant wants cumulative figures. For year end you can also choose last financial year.
Choose cash or accrual. This applies to the Trial Balance, Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet, so make sure it matches what your accountant works from.
Set it to monthly, with the day, hour and timezone.
Choose Excel for the accountant, or a CSV per report if their software imports those. You can also send a PDF alongside for your own records.
Add the accountant as a recipient, and anyone else who should see it, up to 20 in all. Write a subject such as "Trial balance, month end" and a message. Replies go to you.

Send test sends you a copy right away so you can check it.

Limits to be aware of

Reportpost sends the standard Xero Trial Balance. It doesn't add adjusting journals or a review, and it doesn't replace the conversation with your accountant.
Custom report layouts aren't available through the Xero API.
If an accountant is already invited to your Xero organisation, they can run the trial balance themselves. A scheduled email is for when they'd rather have it arrive without logging in, or when you want a record of what was sent each month.

For bookkeepers with many clients

If you send trial balances for several clients to the same firm, each organisation gets its own schedule and recipient list, so one client's figures never go into another's email. We cover that setup in automating month-end report packs.

Tidying up an existing pack

If you already export PDFs from Xero by hand, the free Combine Xero reports PDF tool merges them into one file with a cover, contents and page numbers. It runs in your browser, so nothing is uploaded.

Cost

US$12 a month for one organisation, US$39 for 10 and US$99 for 40, excluding VAT. The 14-day trial doesn't need a card.

See how Reportpost works