The closest thing Xero has to a user activity report is History and notes, under Accounting > Accounting tools. It lists who created, edited or deleted what, and when, and exports to PDF or Excel. Only administrators can open it. Xero keeps other records too, in several places, and none of them is a complete audit trail. Xero says so itself: in December 2025 it wrote that "providing a complete audit trail of every single event and change within an organisation is not in our plans" (Xero Product Ideas). This guide covers where each record lives, what it shows and the gaps you should know about before you rely on it. We checked this in Xero's Demo Company and against Xero's public statements on 19 October 2026, and rechecked it against Xero's help articles on 23 October 2026.
Reportpost is independent and not affiliated with Xero.
Where Xero records user activity
| Where | What it answers | Export |
|---|---|---|
| History and notes report | Who created, edited or deleted what, and when, across the organisation | PDF or Excel |
| History on each record | The full story of one invoice, bill, contact or transaction | No (read on screen, or via the API) |
| Assurance dashboard | How active each user has been over the last 12 months, bank lines reconciled manually or deleted, contacts with shared or edited bank details, and backdated invoices and bills | No |
| Login history | Who logged in recently | No |
The History and notes report
This is Xero's nearest equivalent to an audit log. In the current navigation it is under Accounting > Accounting tools > History and notes, and it also appears in the full list of reports. You can filter by start and end date, by user and by type of record, and export the results to PDF or Excel. Xero's help says only users with the administrator role can open it, and that it shows results 100 at a time, up to 1,000 (History and notes report). Each line shows the date and time in your organisation's time zone, the user, the type and a short description, such as a contact being created.
Three things trip people up:
- The dates are when the change happened, not the transaction date. Xero confirmed in 2024 that results are based on the date the action took place in Xero, not the date on the transaction. To find who backdated a bill last week, filter on last week, not on the bill's date.
- The detail is short. Users report that a line often says something was edited without listing every field that changed. Opening the record may show more.
- Some areas are left out. Xero's help says the report doesn't include changes to payroll transactions or expense claims, and excludes organisation settings, reporting, printing and exporting. Changes to financial settings are included.
Since June 2025 the report also shows changes to an account's name or type in the chart of accounts, including changes made by importing a chart (Xero's update). Xero said this is shown to users with the Adviser role (now called the administrator role).
To review one person's work, for example when a bookkeeper leaves, choose them in the User filter, set the dates and export to Excel.
History on each record
Invoices, bills, contacts, bank transactions and most other records have their own History and notes section at the bottom. It lists each change with the user and time, and users can add a note there. Xero has been adding detail: since 2024 invoice history shows when an issue date or due date was changed, and since February 2026 it records each time an invoice is sent, with the address in the To field (Xero's update).
The Assurance dashboard
The Assurance dashboard sits next to the report, under Accounting > Accounting tools, and also needs the administrator role. It has four tabs (The Assurance dashboard explained):
- User Activity: each user's role, the last date they logged in (shown only if they have activity in the History and notes report) and a heat map of the last 12 months, one square per day. Hover over a day to see how many transactions they created or edited, and where. You can include deleted users.
- Bank Accounts: bank statement lines that were reconciled manually or deleted, per bank account, with the user and the date of the change. Useful when a bank account is out of balance.
- Contacts: contacts that share the same bank account number, and contacts whose bank details were edited, with how often, when and by whom. Xero suggests it for spotting errors or fraud involving contact bank account numbers.
- Invoices & Bills: backdated invoices and bills, with how many days they were backdated and who did it.
Use it to spot patterns, then go to the History and notes report for the detail. Xero calls the User Activity view "not a full audit trail" (Xero Product Ideas), and the dashboard has no export. When asked in 2023 for reporting from the dashboard, Xero said it had no direct plans, and in 2024 pointed people to the History and notes export instead (Xero Product Ideas).
Login history
Under Settings > Users there is a Login history tab next to the list of current users. It only goes back about 60 days. Xero acknowledged in November 2025 that it "should show a period longer than 60 days" (Xero Product Ideas), and in April 2026 said login timestamps in the history report aren't something it has "immediate plans for developing" (Xero Product Ideas). Not every user can open it: in the Demo Company even the administrator gets the message "You don't have permission to view this page", so access seems limited to certain users. We couldn't confirm which. If you need a longer record, screenshot or copy it at least monthly.
What Xero doesn't record
- Who looked at what. History records changes. Xero's help says the report excludes reporting, printing and exporting, and users on Xero's ideas forum report that opening a record leaves no trace either, so you likely can't tell who read the payroll or the bank details.
- Changes to user roles and permissions. Xero said in December 2025 that recording these "isn't in our immediate plans" (Xero Product Ideas). Check Settings > Users yourself when someone joins or leaves.
- One user across many organisations. Practices can't see one staff member's activity across all their clients in Xero HQ (the open request). Each organisation has its own history.
- Some other actions. Users have asked for history on attachments and tracking categories, among others. See the History and notes ideas for the current list.
For changes to the figures themselves, the Journal Report is often more useful than any activity log: every posted transaction creates a journal, so you can see exactly which entries changed a balance. Xero suggests it, together with the Bank Reconciliation Summary, for investigating adjustments.
Building your own log with the API
Xero's Accounting API has a History endpoint on 16 record types, including invoices, bills (also stored as invoices), credit notes, contacts, bank transactions, manual journals, payments and items. Each entry has the user, the date and time in UTC, and a description of the change. The same endpoint can also add a note. There is no endpoint for the whole organisation, though, and no login or user-activity data: you have to call it once for each record you care about (Xero's API spec). With limits of 60 calls a minute and 5,000 a day per organisation (Xero's API limits), that works for recent or high-value records, not for a complete copy of a busy organisation's history.
Common questions
Is there a user activity report in Xero?
Yes. The History and notes report lists each change with the user, date and time, and exports to PDF or Excel. The User Activity tab of the Assurance dashboard shows each user's activity as a 12-month heat map, with no export. Xero's help says both need the administrator role.
Why does the History and notes report stop at 1,000 lines?
It loads results 100 at a time and shows at most 1,000. Click Load more for each extra 100. For a busy month, run it for shorter date ranges, or filter by user or type, and export each part.
Can I see who deleted a bank statement line?
Yes, if you have the administrator role. The Bank Accounts tab of the Assurance dashboard lists manually deleted statement lines and manually reconciled transactions, with the contact, transaction date, amount, the user and when they did it. By default it shows unreconciled deleted lines. You can switch it to show reconciled ones too.
What does "System Generated" mean in History and notes?
Xero made the entry, not a user. Xero's help says the transaction could be a repeating invoice that was created automatically, an online invoice saved as a bill, a bill received through the Xero to Xero network, or a bill created by Xero Expenses (View history and add notes to transactions).
Why does a draft invoice show so many edits?
Drafts save automatically, and each save can add an edit to the history even when nothing important changed. Xero groups edits by type, date and user and shows the number of edits next to the entry.
Can a note in History and notes be changed later?
No. A note you add to a transaction is saved as a history item, and Xero says you can't edit or delete it afterwards. That makes it useful as a record.
Is the account watchlist an audit tool?
No. The account watchlist is a panel on the Xero homepage that shows the balance of the accounts you pick, this month and year to date. You add an account by ticking Show on Dashboard Watchlist on it in the chart of accounts, and the list is the same for every user in the organisation (Show the account watchlist on the homepage). It is a quick way to see if a balance looks wrong, but it doesn't say who changed anything.
A simple routine
- Monthly: export the History and notes report for the month to Excel and file it with your month-end papers. Glance at the Assurance dashboard's Bank Accounts and Contacts tabs. If you need a record of logins and can open the login history, copy it too, since it only goes back about 60 days.
- When someone leaves or changes role: filter the report on them, export it, and check their access in Settings > Users.
Reportpost doesn't email these records, because it sends financial reports and Xero's API has no organisation-wide activity log. It helps in two other ways:
- Fewer Xero users to check. An owner, investor or board member who only reads the figures doesn't need a Xero login. Reportpost emails the reports to them as PDF or Excel, so they never appear in Settings > Users.
- Odd movements get noticed. A monthly Profit and Loss compared with last month, plus the Balance Sheet, Trial Balance and Bank Summary, puts the numbers in front of the people who would spot a change. The History and notes report can then show who made it.
You can try the demo with sample data.
Related: Xero month-end checklist, what Xero has said about the most-voted reporting requests and where every Xero export lives.