Xero dashboard explained: what each widget tells you, and what it leaves out

Short answer: the Xero dashboard (Xero now calls it the homepage) shows where things stand today. You get your bank balances and how many lines are waiting to be reconciled, what customers owe you and what you owe suppliers (both split into due and overdue), six months of cash in and out, net profit or loss for a period you choose, and a watchlist of accounts you pick. It does not tell you how much of the bank balance is already spoken for, whether things are getting better or worse over a year, or how long your cash will last. To read it properly, start with the reconcile count, then take the bills, tax and payroll due out of the bank balance, then look at what is overdue.

Xero has been moving everyone from the “classic dashboard” to the new homepage, and labels differ slightly by region and version. If a name below does not match your screen, the widget is usually still there under a similar title. Some of it also depends on your plan: Ignite has basic graphs, and customisable dashboards start on Grow (see what each Xero plan costs and includes).

What each widget shows, and what it does not

Widget	What it shows	What it cannot tell you
Bank accounts	For each account, the balance in Xero, the statement balance from the bank feed, and how many items are waiting to be reconciled	How much of that money is already owed to suppliers, the tax office or staff
Invoices owed to you	Total unpaid sales invoices, split into due and overdue	Whether customers are paying slower than they used to, or which customer is the risk
Bills to pay	Total unpaid supplier bills, split into due and overdue	Wages, tax and loan repayments, unless they are entered as bills
Cash in and out	Money in and out of the bank accounts by month, for the last six months, with totals	Anything older than six months, so you cannot compare with the same months last year
Net profit or loss	Income, expenses and the net result for the period you pick, without running a report	Why it moved, or whether the profit has turned into cash
Account watchlist	The accounts you choose, with this month and year to date	Anything about accounts you have not added
Recent invoice payments	The latest payments received against invoices	Who has not paid
Tasks	To-dos such as reconciling, and overdue invoices and bills	How urgent each one is for your cash

Two of these quietly mislead people more than the rest:

• The bank balance. Every report reads the balance in Xero, which is only right once the account is reconciled. If the two balances disagree, the bank balance doesn’t match guide walks through finding the gap.
• Net profit. Most businesses report on the accrual basis, so this figure counts invoices you have sent and not been paid for, and bills you have received and not paid. A good profit next to a falling bank balance is the classic profit but no cash pattern. The cash vs accrual guide explains the difference.

A worked example: reading the dashboard in five minutes

An Australian landscaping business with six staff opens Xero on a Monday morning:

• Business account: statement balance $40,100, balance in Xero $42,300, 9 items to reconcile.
• Invoices owed to you: $38,500, of which $14,200 is overdue.
• Bills to pay: $11,800 due in the next fortnight.
• Cash in and out: cash in has averaged $54,000 a month over the six months and cash out $52,000.
• Net profit for this month so far: $6,200.
• Account watchlist: GST $6,900 and PAYG withholding $3,200, both due with the next BAS (how to check the BAS report in Xero).

At a glance it looks comfortable: $40,000 in the bank, money coming in faster than it goes out, and a profit. Here is how to read it.

1. Start with the reconcile count. Nine lines are waiting, and the balance in Xero is $2,200 higher than the bank. Until they are reconciled the real figure is the statement balance, $40,100, and the profit figure is missing whatever those lines are.
2. Take out what is already spoken for. Bills due $11,800, GST $6,900, PAYG $3,200, and next Friday’s wages of $9,600, which is not on the dashboard at all (the Xero payroll reports guide shows where wages, tax withheld and leave owed do appear). That is $31,500, which leaves $8,600.
3. Put that against spending. Cash out is about $52,000 a month, roughly $1,730 a day, so $8,600 is about five days of spending that is not already committed.
4. Look at what is overdue. $14,200 of the $38,500 is overdue. If it arrives this week, the free money becomes $22,800, about 13 days of spending. The overdue list, not the bank balance, is where this week’s work is: open it from the widget and chase the oldest first, or use the who owes me money guide.

The dashboard was right about every number and still gave the wrong impression. Five days of uncommitted cash is not a crisis if customers pay, but it is not $40,000 of room either. For a fuller picture of how long the money lasts, put the same figures into the cash runway calculator.

What the dashboard leaves out

The dashboard is a snapshot of today. The questions owners usually care about need a longer view:

• Is it getting better or worse? Six months of cash in and out cannot show seasonality or compare with last year. The Profit and Loss by month can, and a 12-month cash flow chart built from the Bank Summary shows the low point of the year.
• How long does the cash last? Xero shows the balance, not the months of cover. The months of cash guide shows the sum and what is a healthy number.
• Are customers paying slower? The overdue total can stay flat while the typical time to pay creeps up. The debtor days calculator measures it.
• What is coming in the next few weeks? The short-term cash flow projection in Xero adds unpaid invoices and bills to today’s balance.
• Is the margin holding? Net profit for one period does not show the gross margin slipping. Xero’s Business Snapshot compares margin, profit and the time to get paid with the previous period on one page. The how to know if your business is doing well guide lists the five checks that do.
• Which reports to run, and in what order? The Xero reports guide picks the six an owner needs and works through one month with them.

How to set it up so it is worth opening

• Show, hide and reorder widgets with the customise option on the homepage. The layout is yours alone: other people in the organisation keep their own.
• Put the accounts that bite on the watchlist. In the chart of accounts, edit an account and tick the option to show it on the dashboard watchlist. Good choices: GST or VAT, PAYG withholding or PAYE, wages, your biggest cost (materials, stock, subcontractors), and a loan account.
• Enter wages, tax and loan repayments as bills or repeating bills if you want the bills widget to show everything that is due. Otherwise remember that it leaves them out.
• Reconcile before you read. A few minutes of reconciling first makes every other number on the page trustworthy.

Common questions

Is the Xero dashboard the same as the homepage? Yes. Xero has replaced the classic dashboard with a customisable homepage, and most people still call it the dashboard. The widgets are similar, with net profit or loss, recent invoice payments and tasks added.

Why is the balance on my Xero dashboard different from my bank? The dashboard shows two figures: the statement balance from the bank feed and the balance in Xero from your books. They differ until every line is reconciled, and the statement balance can lag the bank by a day or so.

Does the Xero dashboard show cash or accrual profit? The net profit or loss widget reads the same figures as your Profit and Loss, which for most businesses is accrual: sales count when invoiced and costs when billed, not when the money moves.

Can my bookkeeper and I see different dashboards? Yes. Each user’s homepage layout is their own, so hiding or reordering widgets does not change what anyone else sees.

How far back does the cash in and out chart go? Six months. For a longer view, run the Profit and Loss or Bank Summary by month for 12 or 24 months.

What should I check on the dashboard every week? The reconcile count, the bank balance less bills, tax and wages due, and the overdue invoices. Those three take five minutes and catch most cash surprises early.

The longer view, sent to you every Monday

ReportPilot reads your Xero figures and sends a short plain-English email every Monday: cash in the bank and how it has moved since last month end, how sales and net profit compare with last month, who owes you and how much is overdue, and bills due soon. Its dashboard keeps 24 months of sales, profit, cash and money owed to you by month, so you can see the trend that six months of Xero’s chart cannot. It asks Xero for read-only access, so it can read your accounts but never change them, and there is a 14-day free trial with no card.