Sales and collections over earlier periods: Ask Alex charts
A single total says little on its own. When Ask Alex answers with net invoiced sales or net recorded invoice collections for your dates, a chart sets that total beside the same measure for the three periods before it.
By Manny Sidhu · Practical guide · Published · Updated
Which answers get a chart
A chart appears under a new answer on the Ask Alex page when the answer includes a total of net invoiced sales or net recorded invoice collections for the dates you chose. If an answer holds both totals, the chart shows net invoiced sales.
The chart shows that total only, so customer rankings are not charted, and neither are balances such as outstanding invoices or payroll headcount. There is no chart when an answer compares revenue between two periods, when any part of a question could not be answered, or when a saved answer is reopened from Recent questions.
How the earlier periods are chosen
The chart has four bars: your selected period and the three periods of the same length just before it. When your dates are whole calendar months, the earlier periods are whole months too, so a July to September quarter sits beside April to June, January to March, and October to December of the year before.
For any other range, each earlier period has the same number of days and ends the day before the next one starts.
Every bar is calculated and has a receipt
The selected bar is the figure from your answer. Each earlier bar is the same measure, calculated by code for its own dates, with no AI involved. The receipts for every bar are listed under Dates, calculations, and receipts below the chart.
All bars share one scale that starts at zero. Amounts above the bars are rounded, and the exact amounts are listed underneath.
Zero and No data are different
A verified total of zero is shown as zero. When the records for a period are missing or incomplete, that bar says No data and explains that this is not a zero. Periods before the year 2000 are outside the supported history and also show No data.
A bar that could not be read, for example because Xero's request limit was reached or the time ran out, can be read again with a Retry button.
The change against the previous period
Above the chart, the selected total is shown with its percentage change against the previous period, and a sentence says whether it is higher than, lower than, or matches that period. No percentage is given when the previous period's total is zero or negative.
These changes describe recorded totals. They are not a judgement about how the business is doing.
An illustrative example
Illustrative example, not customer data: an answer gives net invoiced sales of A$150,000 for August. The chart shows July at A$140,000, June at A$131,500, and May as No data because those records were not synced. The selected total reads +7.14% against July, and each of the earlier bars that has a figure has its own receipt.
Charts and your questions
The earlier bars load on their own after the answer appears, and you can keep asking questions while they load. Charts have their own usage limits and do not count toward your questions.