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MYOB creates free Central desktop for tax and practice tools

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5th Jun 2007
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Business and accountancy software developer MYOB has shaken up its product suite by cannibalising elements of its Viztopia Practice Management (VPM) application to create MYOB Central, a "personalised desktop" that presents the user with tailored information from associated MYOB products such as VPM, Viztopia Accounts Production and PerTax. John Stokdyk reports.

The most interesting feature of the new product is that it is free to existing MYOB tax and practice software users.

"MYOB Central is a platform for integrating MYOB products, it's a dashboard, an application launcher and a central debase. And it's customisable to suit your role within a practice. And best of all, it's free," explained MYOB Central product manager Ian Wilson in a Flash-based presentation that shows prospective users around the product.

Such personalised desktops are now the standard for practice management software and MYOB Central is derived from the interface introduced last year with Version 4.1 of Viztopia Practice Management (VPM).

Much like Microsoft Outlook, the new program's default view shows a thin "task bar" on the left of the screen, with a central dashboard displaying graphics to show work in progress estimates, or the status of current jobs, such as a graph of tax returns filed. The user can add multiple tabs to the information available or, more likely, remove elements they don't need to see for their day to day work.

Client lists, progress charts and graphs displayed on the desktop include hyperlinks to the underlying applications, so on a progress chart of accounts production work, it is possible to drill down and see how work has progressed on a specific client. WIP percentages, and even analyses of clients' trial balances can be displayed as pie charts.

Tab options are also available to display a view of all documents relating to a client, or a library of presentations. To customise any view, users click a Customise button and can drag and drop display elements, or remove them from their personal pages.

MYOB Central also operates as data entry point for creating new client records, which is driven by a 12-step wizard. Mail merge tools are also available to select and filter client lists and then generate mailings directly in Microsoft Word.

A simple reporting wizard is also included which lets clients drag and drop data items from other applications to an on-screen layout view. Once the report has been run, the lists are all hyperlinked back to the underlying data records.

As far as the interface goes, MYOB Central looks very similar to VPM, but general manager Simon Crompton claimed that it represented the "holy grail" for integrating tax and practice applications. While the no-cost approach to pricing certainly sets MYOB Central apart, Crompton argued that it would not cannibalise sales of other MYOB products.

"We're using technology from VPM and Singleview, but the front-end is only reporting what's on the constituent prods," he said. "In practice management, for example, you still need to know who your worst WIP clients are, and who are your biggest debtors. Instead of having to go into VPM and running the relevant report, it's constantly feeding the MYOB Central home page. You need the underlying applications to fuel the on-screen indicators.

MYOB has also launched a big marketing effort behind the new product, with extensive advertising based on strip cartoon characters at the firm of Ferrari Roche. Less widely available is a short film depicting a day in the life of the firm, with the fictional characters played by members of the MYOB UK staff. Further information and demo material is available via the company's partner page on AccountingWEB.

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By SimonCrompton
07th Jun 2007 12:01

MYOB Central
Further to John's article, it has been really good to receive the extremely positive feedback from the market on the launch of MYOB Central...and we are glad you like the cartoon strips! We are really confident that MYOB Central's ability to draw everything you need from your constituent applications together into one place as a homepage system is going to bring massive benefits to accountancy practices. It really isn't just a central collection point for standing data but a valuable tool that integrates all your disparate applications together to remove the drudgery of flicking between lots of different systems - e.g. tax, accounts prep and, of course, practice management - it really is the ultimate in integration.

Simon Crompton
MYOB

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Dennis Howlett
By dahowlett
08th Jun 2007 11:37

ahem...
Simon's been in sales for more than 20 years so 'seasoned' is a good description. Integration - now there's a loaded word...

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By carnmores
07th Jun 2007 12:45

Simon 'the ultimate in integration' ?
well you would say that wouldnt you!

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