Xero – How to Access and Reset the Demo Company

The Xero demo company is a great way to practice using the system without affecting the accounts of your real business. The demo company contains dummy data that you can use to practice any bookkeeping tasks you like including payroll, fixed assets maintenance, bank reconciliations and much more.

Once you have finished practising your bookkeeping skills in the demo account you can reset the data. Any changes you made – such as reconciling a bank account or running payroll – will be removed from the demo company’s accounts. Next time you use the demo company, the data will be the same as it was before you ever used it.

How to Get Into Xero’s Demo Company

If you haven’t used the demo company before you will need to activate it. First, log into Xero and click on the Company Name in the top left hand corner of your screen.

Then, click on My Xero.

In the My Xero screen, click on Try the Demo Company underneath the Organisations section.

The demo company will now activate. Any time you want to access the demo company from now on, simply click on Demo Company in the drop down menu in the top left hand corner of your screen.

How to Use Xero’s Demo Company

Once you are inside Xero’s demo company, you should see that it is filled with dummy data. There are transactions in the bank accounts, invoices owed to you, bills you need to pay and much more.

To practice bookkeeping tasks, simply navigate to the relevant area of Xero to see what data is available to use. For example, to practice processing a pay run, click on Payroll → Pay Employees.

Here you should see both draft and completed pay runs containing dummy data.

From here you can click into the pay runs to see details of the employees and transactions, or you can practice processing a pay run by clicking on + Add Pay Run.

This is one of many training tasks you can perform in Xero’s demo company.

How to Reset Xero’s Demo Company Data 

At the bottom of the Organisations section you should find a link called Reset.

If you click on the link, a popup will appear asking if you are sure you want to reset the demo. If you are sure, press the Reset demo button.

Xero will reset the data in the demo company and return you to the Dashboard. Any changes you made to the demo company will now be gone.

That’s all you need to do to reset Xero’s demo company back to its original state. You can now practise something new or repeat any training exercises you want to do again.

If you would like to learn more about Xero, check out our massive Xero Australia Course Bundle and our YouTube channel.