Xero audit trail: how to see who changed, deleted or edited a transaction

Short answer: Xero does not have one “audit trail report”. It records the audit trail in four places. History and notes, at the bottom of every invoice, bill, credit note and contact, lists who created, edited, approved, sent, paid or voided it and when. The History and Notes report gathers those events for the whole organisation, so you can filter by type (Invoice, Bill, Contact and so on), search, set a date range and export to PDF or Excel. The Journal Report lists every journal Xero posted, and an edit to a posted transaction shows there as a reversal of the old amounts plus a new journal, which is the only place you can see what an edit actually changed. The GST or VAT audit report lists the transactions behind a tax return. What Xero does not give you is a before-and-after log of field changes: History and notes says an invoice was edited and by whom, not what the old amount was.

Which report answers which question

Question	Where to look	What you get
Who edited, approved or voided this invoice or bill, and when?	History and notes on the transaction	Each event with the user’s name and the date and time
What has anyone changed in this file since last month end?	History and Notes report, date range from the day you closed the month	Every recorded event in that range, by type, with the user; export to Excel
What did the edit change, in money?	Journal Report, filtered to the transaction or account	The original journal, its reversal and the new journal
Did anyone change a supplier’s bank details?	History and Notes report, Type = Contact, search “Bank account number”	Each bank account change on a contact, with the user and date
Which transactions make up the GST or VAT on a return?	GST Audit Report (Australia, New Zealand) or VAT Audit Report (UK)	The transactions in the period by tax rate, with the net and tax amounts

To open any of the reports, go to Xero’s reports (Reporting in the newer menu, Accounting > Reports in the older one) and search the report list for the name.

History and notes on a transaction

Open an invoice, bill, credit note, Spend or Receive Money transaction, manual journal or contact and scroll to the bottom. History and notes lists each event in date order: created, edited, approved, sent (with the email address it went to), payment applied, voided, and any note a user typed. Each line has the user and the date and time. You can add your own note here too, which is a good habit when you change something after a client has seen it (“credit note CN-0057 raised for the disputed sign, see email 20 Oct”).

It is the quickest way to answer “who touched this”, but a line that says Edited does not say which field or the old value. Xero’s community team said in December 2025 that a complete audit trail of every change is not in its plans and pointed users to the Journal Report and an improved History and Notes report instead.

The History and Notes report

This is the organisation-wide version: every event that appears in History and notes, in one list.

1. Open the report by searching Xero’s report list for History and Notes.
2. Set the date range. It filters on the date the action happened in Xero, not the transaction’s own date, so 1 October to today shows everything changed since 1 October, including changes to August invoices.
3. Filter by type (such as Invoice, Bill or Contact) and use Search for a name, invoice number or word such as “Deleted” or “Voided”.
4. Export to PDF or Excel for the file or the auditor.

Checking supplier bank details. Xero has no separate report of bank detail changes. Its team’s suggested method (June 2024) is the History and Notes report with Type = Contact and “Bank account number” in the search box. The contact’s name may not show in the list, so open the contact from the line to see who it was. Run this before each supplier payment run if more than one person can edit contacts: a changed bank account just before a large bill is paid is the classic invoice fraud.

The Journal Report: what an edit actually changed

Every transaction that affects the accounts posts a journal (the debits and credits Xero writes behind the invoice, bill or payment). When someone edits, voids or deletes a posted transaction, Xero does not overwrite the old journal: it posts a journal that reverses it and, for an edit, a new journal with the new amounts. All of them carry the transaction’s own date, but they are created in order, so the Journal Report shows a late change to an old transaction as extra journals on that old date.

Run it by searching the report list for Journal Report, set the dates to cover the transaction date, and filter or search by the account, contact or reference. Read the journals for one transaction together: original, reversal, new. The difference between the original and the new journal is what the edit changed. For the ledger by account rather than by journal, use Account Transactions, the general ledger.

Draft and Awaiting Approval invoices and bills post no journal, so changes to them only show in History and notes. An approved invoice with no payment is voided rather than deleted, and stays visible with the status Voided.

Worked example: an invoice edited after the VAT return was filed

These figures and names are made up. Calder Signs Ltd, a UK sign maker, is VAT registered and files quarterly. On 14 August its bookkeeper approved invoice INV-0412 to a customer for £3,600 including VAT, so £3,000 of sales and £600 of VAT. The July to September VAT return, including that £600, was filed on 6 October. Nobody had set a lock date.

On 20 October the customer disputed one of the signs. Instead of raising a credit note, the office manager opened INV-0412 and changed it to £2,400 (£2,000 plus £400 VAT). In November the bookkeeper notices that August sales in Xero are lower than the management report the client was sent. History and notes on INV-0412 says only “Edited by the office manager, 20 October”. The Journal Report for 14 August shows what happened:

Journal	Created	Accounts Receivable	Sales	VAT
1. Invoice approved	14 Aug	Debit £3,600	Credit £3,000	Credit £600
2. Reversal of journal 1	20 Oct	Credit £3,600	Debit £3,000	Debit £600
3. Invoice as edited	20 Oct	Debit £2,400	Credit £2,000	Credit £400

The edit took £3,000 − £2,000 = £1,000 out of August sales and £600 − £400 = £200 out of the VAT for a quarter that HMRC has already been told about, so the July to September figures in Xero no longer agree with the filed return.

The fix keeps August as it was reported and filed, and puts the change in the period it happened:

1. Edit INV-0412 back to £3,600, with a note in History and notes saying why.
2. Raise a credit note dated 20 October for £1,200 (£1,000 plus £200 VAT) and allocate it to INV-0412. The customer still owes £2,400, but the £200 VAT reduction now falls in the October to December return, where a credit note issued in October belongs.
3. Set the period lock date to 30 September, so a filed quarter cannot be changed again by anyone without the Administrator role.

Without the Journal Report there was no way to see the old amount: History and notes recorded that the invoice changed, and the Journal Report recorded what changed.

A five-minute audit trail check at month end

• History and Notes report from the day after last month’s lock date to today, sorted by type. Look for edits and voids dated in a closed month, deleted bank transactions and manual journals you did not post.
• Contacts: Type = Contact, search “Bank account number”. Every change should match a letter or email from the supplier, checked by phone.
• Journal Report for any transaction the first step flags, to see the amounts before and after.
• Then lock the month (the month end checklist has the order) so next month’s check only has new periods to look at.

Common questions

Does Xero have an audit trail? Yes, but not as one report. Each transaction and contact has History and notes (who did what and when), the History and Notes report lists those events for the whole organisation, and the Journal Report shows the accounting effect of every edit, void and deletion of a posted transaction.

How can I see who deleted or voided an invoice in Xero? Run the History and Notes report for the dates since it went missing, filter the type to Invoice, and search for the invoice number or “Voided” or “Deleted”. The line shows the user and when they did it. A voided invoice also stays in the invoice list with the status Voided, and its History and notes shows who voided it.

Can I see what was changed on an edited transaction in Xero? Not in History and notes, which only records that it was edited. For a posted transaction, the Journal Report shows the original journal, the reversal and the new journal, so the difference between them is the change. Drafts post no journals, so changes to a draft cannot be reconstructed.

Where is the History and Notes report in Xero? In Xero’s reports: open Reporting (or Accounting > Reports in the older menu) and search the report list for History and Notes. Its date range is the date the action happened, not the transaction date.

How do I check if a supplier’s bank details were changed in Xero? Run the History and Notes report with the type set to Contact and search for “Bank account number”. Each line is a change, with the user and the date; open the contact from the line to see which supplier it was.

What is the GST or VAT audit report in Xero? It lists the transactions behind a GST return or BAS (the GST Audit Report in Australia and New Zealand) or a VAT return (the VAT Audit Report in the UK), grouped by tax rate with the net and tax amounts, so you can check what makes up each figure before filing. The VAT return guide, BAS guide and GST return guide cover the returns themselves.

Where ReportPilot fits

An audit trail tells you when last month’s figures changed after the client saw them. ReportPilot is how they see them in the first place: it connects to each client’s Xero with read-only access (it never creates, edits or deletes anything, so it never appears in History and notes as a change), and every Monday sends the client a plain-English email with their key figures under your practice’s name, plus scheduled report packs after month end. The Bookkeeper plan covers 15 organisations for US$49 a month, after a 14-day free trial with no card (pricing). You can see a sample email first.

Related guides: Xero lock dates, the Xero general ledger, Xero user roles, the Xero month end checklist, the bookkeeping clean up checklist and the Xero VAT return.