---
title: "Activity statements in Xero: what they show and auto-send"
description: "An Activity statement in Xero shows every invoice, payment and credit note in a period; an Outstanding statement shows only what is owed. Which to send, and how Paidnice attaches either on a schedule."
url: https://www.paidnice.com/blog/schedule-activity-statements
---

# Activity statements in Xero: what they show, and how to send them automatically

Written by

Denym Bird
Personally tested

Co-founder & CEO of Paidnice

Denym walked through Xero's Outstanding and Activity statement types, covering why Outstanding hides paid invoices, why Activity lists every payment and credit, and how a Paidnice Auto Statement policy attaches both.

Reviewed by Ashley Schroder

Co-founder of Paidnice

Updated Nov 11, 2026 · 3 min

## Summary

An Activity statement in Xero shows a customer's full transaction history over a chosen period: every invoice, payment and credit note, paid or unpaid. An Outstanding statement shows only invoices still owed. Send Activity when a customer wants to reconcile their account; send Outstanding when the goal is getting paid. Paidnice attaches either or both to one scheduled statement policy, as a PDF or a CSV.

- **Not the tax form:** This is Xero's customer Activity statement, one of the two statement types on the Send statements screen, not the Australian Tax Office Business Activity Statement (BAS).
- **The setting:** In a Paidnice statement policy, select Activity statement (standard) under Statement attachments. Its default period is on the Standard tab of Organisation Settings, Statements.
- **Availability:** Activity statements are for Xero only. The PDF needs the standard activity statement; any Xero organisation can send an activity CSV.

## What is an Activity statement in Xero?

An Activity statement is a customer statement type that shows every transaction over a chosen date range, paid and unpaid, unlike an Outstanding statement, which shows only what is currently owed. Xero offers both types on its manual Send statements screen (Contacts, then the customer, then Send statements), where you pick Outstanding or Activity before emailing.

This is not the Business Activity Statement (BAS) that Australian businesses lodge with the ATO for GST. Xero's customer Activity statement is a document you send to a customer about their account with you.
Free: Payment reminder email templatesCopy the reminder emails for before, on and after the due date.

## Activity vs Outstanding statement: which should I send?

Send an Outstanding statement when the goal is getting paid, because it lists only what is owed and the aged balance; send an Activity statement when the customer wants to reconcile their account, because it lists every invoice, payment and credit in the period. Many businesses attach both.

|  | Outstanding statement | Activity statement |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Purpose | Show what is owed now | Show the full account history for a period |
| Paid invoices | Not shown | Shown |
| Unpaid invoices | Shown, with overdue age | Shown, in date order |
| Payments | Not listed (only the remaining balance) | Listed with dates |
| Credit notes and prepayments | Shown, deducted or ignored, per your credit settings | Listed as transactions |
| Overdue only? | No, every unpaid invoice, current or overdue | No, everything in the period |
| Best for | Monthly collections, aged debt | Reconciliation, disputes, year-end |

## How do I enable Activity statements in Paidnice?

You enable Activity statements in Paidnice from a statement policy by selecting "Activity statement (standard)" under Statement attachments; the policy then attaches one to every [scheduled statement](https://www.paidnice.com/xero/auto-send-statements) send.

1. **Open your statement policy**: open the group, go to its Policies tab and open the statement policy.
2. **Select the attachment**: under Statement attachments, select "Activity statement (standard)".
3. **Choose the mix**: keep "Organisation default" selected to send the Outstanding statement as well, or clear it to send Activity statements only.

The Activity statement (standard) option shows only on Xero, and only for organisations that still have the standard activity statement. Newer organisations do not have it.

![Schedule Activity Statements screenshot 1](https://www.paidnice.com/assets/wf/681ca3b8e75704ad61a069a4_Activity-Statements.avif)

## How do I preview an Activity statement and set its date range?

You preview an Activity statement for any contact on the contact's Statement tab in Paidnice, and you set the default period on the Standard tab of Organisation Settings, Statements, under Activity Statement Preferences.

![Schedule Activity Statements screenshot 2](https://www.paidnice.com/assets/wf/681ca3d0a8d253697acd7a01_activity-statements-2.png)

1. Select any contact in Paidnice and open the Statement tab.
2. Switch from Outstanding to Activity at the top, and pick the dates.
3. Use "Download Activity statement (standard)" to review the layout before any customer receives one.

![Schedule Activity Statements screenshot 3](https://www.paidnice.com/assets/wf/681ca3e604dd2c03adab095d_activity-statements-1.png)

1. Go to Organisation Settings > Statements > Standard > Activity Statement Preferences.
2. Set Default period from and Default period to. Left blank, the range runs from the start of the month 18 months ago to the end of the current month.
3. The range applies to every activity statement PDF.

You can set a future end date to include upcoming scheduled invoices, so customers see what is coming due.

## What if my organisation has no standard activity statement?

Organisations without the standard activity statement cannot attach an activity PDF, but on Xero they have two other options:

- **An activity spreadsheet:** a CSV template that lists every transaction in its own activity period, up to 36 months, with a running balance and a closing balance. See [Xero statements as CSV](https://www.paidnice.com/blog/xero-customer-statement-csv).
- **A recent activity section:** a custom PDF template that adds recent activity, up to 36 months, to the outstanding statement.

You can also offer an activity download in the [customer portal](https://www.paidnice.com/blog/let-customers-download-statements), or hide it.

## Why send an Activity statement at all?

An Activity statement reduces payment disputes because the customer can reconcile every invoice, payment and credit against their own records before the next statement arrives, instead of querying a single unexplained balance.

As Laura Carrie from Bustle Studios put it: "Having Paidnice meant that I got to outsource the ickiest part of my job. It frees up a lot of my time plus makes the process of making payments for overdue invoices easier for the customer."

## Getting started

Activity statements are available on every Paidnice plan connected to Xero, and the whole [automatic statement](https://www.paidnice.com/automated-customer-statements) run, Outstanding, Activity or both, is set once in a statement policy. Signing up is free and needs no credit card. Contact our support team for a walkthrough, or turn the attachment on in your policy today.

Read the transcript: How to Automate and Send Activity Statements in Xero

Hi there. I wanted to show you some of the new features that we're working on here at Paidnice. Now, the first one here is the ability to send activity statements.

Now, previously, you've been able to send automatic statements as as as per normal via the auto statement policy. Now, it's really simple to set up as as as you've previously been aware of how to do it. You can send automatic statements on a on a monthly basis, weekly basis, however you so desire.

Now we also enable the activity activity statement style. So you can do it here by attaching an activity statement as a PDF. Now you can attach this alongside an over outstanding statement or you can exclude the outstanding statement in general and just just have the activity statement go.

Now, the activity statement, if you're familiar with them, is essentially it shows you all the activity that's going on, including things like like if we look here, I've done some overpayments here for this client, as well as, some partial payments. Now, these things don't necessarily always show up on a normal statement. Things like overpayments, we can make those show up.

But on an activity statement as we can see here we can include everything from you know starting from the the opening balance of the time period all the way down to the bottom of when the statement was generated including all the payments against them and the like as well. So as you can see there it sort of looks pretty tidy and shows you a whole running balance along the side there too which can be pretty helpful if that's how you like to account for things. Now the ability to once once we obviously once the emails get sent to the clients with the automatic statements they they can include obviously the PDF which I showed you as well as a link to the portal that we've got here in Paidnice.

Now the in here the client can also download the activity statement here as well as the outstanding statement too if they so desire if they wanted to get another copy of them. The other thing that you can do as well is you can set the statement period. So, if you go over to your organization settings and you pop over to advanced, you'll go down here and you'll also see other other things that you can add to your statements as well.

So, you can decide how the credit notes work, overpayments, prepayments as well. So, you can either include those, exclude those, etc. So, that's in the advanced settings.

If we go over to the statement settings, you can see all of the different statement settings in here. Now, if you come down here, you'll see statement activity statement preferences. Now in here is where you can set the default period from either you know 18 months ago or you know you could you could do different time periods right so let's say let's say you wanted to do the school term or you wanted to do a specific a different business year or or whichever it may be you can do that and you can set that period here and and and from from time in the past time in the future and then it will the the activity statement will always just show that the specific time period. So yeah, that's that's that's activity statements.

## Paidnice features in this article

- [**Customer statements** Sends branded customer statements on your schedule, with one button to pay.](https://www.paidnice.com/automated-customer-statements)

## About the editorial team

Written by Denym Bird Co-founder & CEO of Paidnice

Denym started Paidnice in 2022 after customers paying late left his own business short on payroll. He has led it to $1 billion collected on time across more than 1 million invoices, and writes about credit control, late fees and getting paid on Xero and QuickBooks.

Reviewed by Ashley Schroder Co-founder of Paidnice

Ashley is a co-founder and lead developer of Paidnice and has built accounting software for more than 10 years. He builds the ledger connections that put reminders, late fees and payments into Xero, QuickBooks and ERPs such as NetSuite and Business Central. Before Paidnice he co-founded A2X, ecommerce accounting software for Xero and QuickBooks.

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