Save content
Have you found this content useful? Use the button above to save it to your profile.
AIA

Software review: MYOB Accounting Plus v16. By Nigel Harris

by
15th Aug 2007
Save content
Have you found this content useful? Use the button above to save it to your profile.

MYOB Accounting Plus version 16Version 16 of MYOB Accounting Plus appears to be an incremental step on from version 15. There have been some useful improvements over the years, and users of earlier versions can check these out on MYOB's website. There have certainly been some advances since I reviewed version 13 in December 2005, although the look and feel is similar. And it still comes with a full printed manual.

Accounting Plus is the top of the MYOB range, and carries a modest price tag of £349 for such an impressive collection of features. Accounting Plus is aimed at the more demanding business user who requires professional time billing, a multi-user setup, multi-currency and/or multiple stock locations.

MYOB Accounting Plus version 16: Key points
MYOB's top-of-the-range small business acounts package is gaining fast on mainstream rivals and provides a good collection of features to meet the needs of most small businesses - an excellent option for sole practitioners or small professional services firms who bill for time and projects. Those who need fewer facilities should check previously reviewed cheaper packages: MYOB Accounting and BusinessBasics editions.

Strengths

  • Highly customisable accounts, with excellent reporting to different job and sub-job levels
  • New automated sales quotation to order conversion routine
  • Automated bank reconciliation using online banking data downloads
  • Good features for professional firms, including ability to include time and materials on the same invoice
  • Payroll and basic customer relationship management modules included
  • Compatibility between Windows and Mac versions and good import/export facilities

Weaknesses

  • While easy to use, MYOB also makes it easy to enter errors that are less straightforward to correct. Bank reconciliation has been improved in this respect, but there are still question marks over VAT
  • MYOB Accounting Plus allows users to post outside of VAT quarterly report dates, and subsequent errors can make it difficult to reconcile the VAT account.
  • Some of the advanced features, for example bank reconciliation, may be beyond the skill levels of less experienced users

Pricing

  • £349, a very good deal for such a fully featured product, especially with the built-in payroll module.

For £100 less the MYOB Accounting version probably meets the needs of most small businesses. Both editions include stock control and integrated payroll. However, MYOB's biggest attraction over the years has been that it is the leading mainstream SME accounting system available for Apple Macs. An MYOB Accounting Plus for Windows company file can be opened across platforms in MYOB Accounting Plus for Macintosh and vice versa, a facility we use regularly in our office as we support Mac users on MYOB, but only run the program under Windows in the office.

New features in MYOB Accounting Plus Version 16

  • Turn a sales order directly into a purchase order without re-keying the sale, which would be handy if you are buying goods to order
  • You can now undo bank reconciliations if you make a mistake
  • New payroll verification report
  • Should you need to, you can now pre-date recurring transactions and search recurring transactions by name, amount or next due date
  • Print or email remittance advices to suppliers, which is useful if you are using electronic payments and need to tell the supplier which invoices you have paid
  • A new utility allows you to synchronise MYOB contacts with Outlook (Windows) or AddressBook (Mac)
  • The import and export functions have been improved for payroll, customer, supplier and stock data.

Main features
Accounts in MYOB are highly customisable, allowing you to track categories for fund or division accounting and track four levels of account detail. The ability to create and track accounts for jobs and sub-jobs has always been a strength of MYOB and this feature remains easy to set up, use and report on in Version 16.

Entries in the bank account can be posted via the Bank Register, which works similarly to the equivalent screen in QuickBooks, although there are also Receive Money and Spend Money windows if you need to enter a batch of transactions or record more detail for each item.

If you use online banking you can import electronic bank and credit card statements directly into MYOB and the system will perform an automated reconciliation using cheque numbers and amounts as the matching criteria and allow you to add any unmatched transactions – typically direct debits and bank charges and interest. I have no idea whether other accounting packages offer this facility, but I have yet to see any clients using it. Businesses which struggle with bank recs could improve the accuracy of their accounts by using this simple facility.

The sales ledger in Accounting Plus copes well with the complexities of billing on the basis of time spent, and can combine time and materials on a single invoice. As with all the current accounting packages, you can design professional sales invoices for printing on plain paper by adding boxes, shading, background graphics, logos and so on.

There is basic CRM functionality in the contact management module and customer records. Missing from other basic accounting packages, but nicely incorporated here is the facility to change quotes and orders to invoices and switch back and forth, a very basic requirement that Sage has failed to introduce in its Instant Accounts software. MYOB will also track the source of your sales.

The purchase ledger has similar features, with the necessary additional options to facilitate multiple stock locations and a comprehensive set of tools for stock and purchase order control and reporting.

MYOB has clearly targeted the professional time billing module in Accounting Plus at small professional firms that do not currently use a computerised time and fees package. From my experiments with the software it looks like an excellent option for a sole practitioner or small firm. You can bill for time spent with a client or on a project and write off or carry over unbilled time; expenses can be automatically charged to specific jobs. The reporting module offers a good range of customisable reports and these can be output to both email and fax as well as exporting them to Word, Excel, or as PDF or HTML files.

VAT remains my main concern with MYOB. One of the biggest strengths of Sage Instant/(Line) 50 is the very robust VAT reconciliation which picks up errors such as postings made to prior periods. The VAT reconciliation report in MYOB is totally date-driven and since the software allows the user to override ‘out of range’ warnings when posting dates it is easy – as a number of my clients have demonstrated – to find that you cannot reconcile the VAT account. Admittedly QuickBooks has the same weakness if you use VAT cash accounting. Running the month end routine may reduce this risk, but in practice few users ever do this. For unregistered businesses and those who I can trust to enter and control their data meticulously I am happy with MYOB, for the others I still recommend Sage or - provided they are VAT invoice accounting - QuickBooks.

The integrated payroll module is included in the Accounting and Accounting Plus versions and is a real bonus. In the latter it also includes the employee timesheets section, so time can be recorded for both pay and client billing purposes. There appears to be no limit to the number of employees on the payroll, unlike other suppliers who charge for additional blocks of, say, 10 employees, which quickly ramps up the cost of the software. The annual licence is only £63.83, so it must be one of the cheapest payroll systems. Since it includes Revenue-approved online filing of P35s, etc you can effectively have this software free while the online filing incentives are available!

Conclusion
I liked version 13, and this looks like an improvement. But as an incremental release on the previous edition, there are no big surprises and I can’t see anything that would make a satisfied version 15 user want to rush out and upgrade to the new edition.

Although I am still unhappy with the VAT reconciliation, I am a lot less worried when clients come in with MYOB these days. It is fast catching up with QuickBooks and has a lot of features missing in the cheaper versions of Sage. The payroll is exceptionally good value.

At the moment MYOB accounts software also comes with a free voucher for £50 of Google AdWords and for a limited “Summer Offer” period, all the accounts packages and payroll are half price. So if you agree with me that they look like good value for money, they are currently twice as good!

Related articles

  • MYOB version 16 introduces Outlook integration and new pricing
  • Job costing roundup - MYOB, Mamut, TAS, Sage, QuickBooks
  • A buyer's guide to accounting software for a start-up business (2006)
  • Review: MYOB Accounting Plus v13
  • Review: MYOB BusinessBasics (2007)
  • IT Zone's small business accounting software resources
  • Tags:

    Replies (3)

    Please login or register to join the discussion.

    Nigel Harris
    By Nigel Harris
    16th Aug 2007 16:52

    VAT control in MYOB
    Your're right of course Craig, this is how MYOB is designed to control the integrity of VAT data, and provided you follow this procedure you should be OK. The trouble is that most of my MYOB users don't do this!

    Somehow the tick boxes in Sage to reconcile VAT transactions and either include or exclude reconciled and out-of-rage items is something that even the less disciplined Sage users seem to be able to manage.

    Both MYOB and QuickBooks have effective period close down and locking routines to make sure VAT transactions can't be lost in prior periods, but my experience is that clients often ignore or bypass them. I seldom see the same problem with Sage users. This seems to be a consequence of moving from the old period-based accounting to the modern date-driven approach in these package, which may well be more user-friendly but has its own risks.

    Thanks (0)
    avatar
    By gary_taylor
    18th Sep 2007 16:27

    MYOB issues
    I have just directed a client away from MYOB because it has failed to provide some of the basic funcionality that I would have expected in current software. In particular:

    - There is no facility for BACS payments to suppliers and non expected by the support department
    - The generation of remittance advice notes is very cumbersome
    but the biggest problem is:
    - You cannot post a payment to a suppliers account before the invoice is issued and the cannot post a receipt until the sales invoice is posted. MYOB's only solution is to use a payments in advance account and hold the payment / receipt in limbo until the documentation is posted then you can release the payments in advance entry. You therefore need to keep reviewing the payments in advance account, reconcile the balance etc etc.

    There are many other weaknesses that have becpome apparant over about eight years of use. It was originally purchased as the only small business system to be half reliable in a Mac environment. We have now moved to a PC platform and the competition just highlights the failings of MYOB - sorry.
    Use TAS instead.
    Gary

    Thanks (0)
    avatar
    By simagnus
    20th Sep 2007 15:04

    MYOB can do!
    MYOB Accounting and MYOB Accounting Plus v16 has a dedicated option for
    printing and emailing remittance advices which allows you to use the
    default remittance form or a form of your own design.  From here you simply
    select the required remittance(s) and print them off.


    With regard to posting payments to suppliers before the invoice is
    received, use the Pay Suppliers window in the normal way and
    'over-allocate' the payment against a zero or previously fully paid
    invoice. This will give you a payment from the bank account (which can be
    reconciled in the normal manner) and puts a credit on the supplier which
    can be used to settle the invoice once it's been received.

    If you need more help or assistance phone Stuart Magnus or Craig Dunn on 01202-697611

    We are MYOB Consultants

    Thanks (0)