Choosing The Right MYOB Accounting Software For Your Business

MYOB Accounting Software

MYOB offers a range of packages which cater to the varying needs of different businesses. Some are designed specifically for small businesses, whilst others are designed to meet the more demanding requirements of larger organisations.

Most small to medium sized businesses will find a package from either the MYOB Essentials or AccountRight families more than meets their needs.

What's the difference between MYOB Essentials and MYOB AccountRight?

The main difference between these two families of software is that MYOB Essentials is accessed using a web browser (like Xero). MYOB AccountRight on the other hand, requires a program to be installed on your PC or on your network. However with AccountRight your company file can live on your PC, in the Cloud (or both). This means you can work offline. In addition, AccountRight is feature rich compared to Essentials. It comes with 130+ reports compared to around 30 in Essentials.

Below we give a brief overview of different MYOB packages so you can identify which is most appropriate for your needs. And if you're still not sure which is right for you, click here for help.

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MYOB Essentials Connected Ledger

MYOB Essentials Accounting

MYOB AccountRight Basic

MYOB AccountRight Standard

MYOB AccountRight Plus

MYOB AccountRight Premier

MYOB EXO and MYOB Advanced

MYOB Essentials Connected Ledger

This is the baby MYOB's family of Essentials software and offers great value at $18+GST per month. It includes a general ledger, budgeting, cashbook, GST reporting & bank feeds. What it doesn’t include is a debtor’s or creditors ledger.

Pros

Browser based, so access it from your Mac, PC or tablet.
No software needs to be installed & updates are automatic – easy!
Quick to setup & minimal training required
Bank feeds enables fast, accurate coding & easy bank reconciliation
Budgeting option reports on actual versus your budget
Receipts & bills can be scanned in against expenses – good as an audit feature
Can upgrade to full Essentials Accounting with a payroll, debtors & creditors

Cons

Customer invoices need to be prepared in another program or manually
Supplier bills need to be tracked manually

Conclusion:

MYOB Essentials Connected Ledger is perfect for a ‘cash’ based organisation - a trust, non for profit or a sole trader who can prepare their invoices from an invoice book or on MS Word. It's the best value for money and great for organisations who work closely with their accountant or bookkeeper.

MYOB Essentials Accounting

Essentials Accounting is a step-up from Essentials Connected Ledger. It includes a general ledger, budgeting, cashbook, GST reporting (invoice & cash basis) & bank feeds. It also includes accounts receivable (debtors) & accounts payable (creditors) so does full accrual accounting.

Pros

Browser based, so access it from your Mac, PC or tablet.
No software needs to be installed & updates are automatic
Bank feeds enables fast, accurate coding & easy bank reconciliation
Budgeting option allows actual versus your budget
Receipts & bills can be scanned into creditors
Enter quotes, invoices & generate customer statements
Can track items you buy or sell (but no inventory control)
Connects to the IRD for GST reporting
Can upgrade to allow for a full integrated payroll for unlimited employees

Cons

Setup & training required for new users
No stock control or job costing (see AccountRight for these features)
Importing data from Excel is limited
Limited integration to add-on packages
Only 30 standard reports available

Conclusion:

Essentials Accounting is great for a small organisation such as a trading trust, not for profit organisation, sole trader, partnership or company. It allows for full accrual accounting.

MYOB AccountRight Basic

AccountRight Basic is the baby member of the AccountRight family. It does cash accounting but includes an accounts receivable (debtors) module.

Pros

Dashboard pinpoints key financials in the business
Bank feeds enables fast, accurate coding & allows for easy bank reconciliation
Budgeting option allows actual versus your budget
Receipts & bills can be scanned in to sit against your cash book entries
Enter customer quotes, orders, & invoices. Generate customer statements
Can track items you buy or sell (but no inventory control)
Allows for job costing
Connects to the IRD for GST reporting
Company file auditor provides users with a health check
Connects to ACE, MYOB & IMS payroll
80+ reports available
Can easily upgrade to AccountRight Standard, Plus or Premier so can grow with the business

Cons

Setup & training required for new users
Software needs to be installed as do program updates
No stock control (upgrade to AccountRight Standard, Plus or Premier for these features)
No category (branch) reporting
Requires good PC’s and reasonable internet speed
Must run on Windows

Conclusion:

AccountRight Basic is best suited for a small organisation such as a trading trust, not for profit organisation, sole trader, partnership or company. It suits a business which is likely to grow or needs to connect to an add-on package.

MYOB AccountRight Standard

AccountRight Standard is the most popular member of the AccountRight family. It allows for cash & accrual accounting.

Pros

Dashboard pinpoints key financials in the business
Bank feeds enables fast, accurate coding & allows for easy bank reconciliation
Budgeting option allows actual versus your budget
Receipts can be scanned in to sit against your cash book entries
Bills can be scanned then coded into accounts payable to provide an audit trail
Enter customer quotes, orders, & invoices. Generate customer statements
Can track items you buy or sell and inventory
Full stock control
Job costing
Category (branch) reporting
Company file auditor provides users with a health check
Connects to the IRD for GST reporting
Connects to add-on packages
Connects to ACE, MYOB & IMS payroll
130+ reports available
Can easily upgrade to AccountRight Plus or Premier so can grow with the business

Cons

Setup & training required for new users
Software needs to be installed as do program updates
Requires good PC’s and reasonable internet speed
Must run on Windows

Conclusion:

AccountRight Standard is best suited to an organisation such as a trading trust, not for profit organisation, sole trader, partnership or company. It suits a business which may not need a payroll just now but is likely to grow.

MYOB AccountRight Plus

AccountRight Plus has everything Standard has with a payroll bundled in (either MYOB Payroll or Essentials Payroll). It also includes a time billing module which allows a business to track & charge time by either employees or sub-contractors.

Pros

Dashboard pinpoints key financials in the business
Bank feeds enables fast, accurate coding & allows for easy bank reconciliation
Budgeting option allows actual versus your budget
Receipts can be scanned in to sit against your cash book entries
Bills can be scanned then coded into accounts payable to provide an audit trail
Enter customer quotes, orders, & invoices. Generate customer statements
Can track items you buy or sell and inventory
Full stock control
Job costing
Category (branch) reporting
Company file auditor provides users with a health check
Connects to the IRD for GST reporting
Connects to add-on packages
Connects to ACE, MYOB & IMS payroll
130+ reports available
Can easily upgrade to AccountRight Premier so can grow with the business

Cons

Setup & training required for new users
Software needs to be installed as do program updates
Requires good PC’s and reasonable internet speed
Must run on Windows

Conclusion:

AccountRight Plus is best suited for an organisation that needs full accrual accounting and needs to time bill. It’s also good value if they want to bundle in payroll. It suits a business which is likely to grow or needs to connect to an add-on package.

MYOB AccountRight Premier

AccountRight Premier has everything Plus has above with a payroll bundled in (either MYOB Payroll or Essentials Payroll). It includes multi-currency and multi-stock location suiting businesses who import and export and have multiple warehouses.

Pros

Dashboard pinpoints key financials in the business
Bank feeds enables fast, accurate coding & allows for easy bank reconciliation
Budgeting option allows actual versus your budget
Receipts can be scanned in to sit against your cash book entries
Bills can be scanned then coded into accounts payable to provide an audit trail
Enter customer quotes, orders, & invoices. Generate customer statements
Can track items you buy or sell and inventory
Full stock control
Job costing
Category (branch) reporting
Company file auditor provides users with a health check
Connects to the IRD for GST reporting
Connects to add-on packages
Connects to ACE, MYOB & IMS payroll
130+ reports available
Full multi-currency for buying and selling overseas
Multiple stock locations

Cons

Setup & training required for new users
Software needs to be installed as do program updates
Requires good PC’s and reasonable internet speed
Must run on Windows

Conclusion:

AccountRight Premier is best suited for an organisation that needs to track buy/sell in multiple currencies. It’s also good value if they want to bundle in a payroll. It suits a business which is likely to expand overseas or one which needs to connect to an add-on package.

MYOB EXO and MYOB Advanced

Once an organisation using AccountRight has a multitude of additional spreadsheets or add-ons supplementing the business, or the transaction volume means their physical file is huge, it's time to consider an ERP solution. We recommend EXO (network based) or Advanced (cloud based)

Pros

More customisable
Far more features than the packages above
More scale and capacity in terms of transaction volume

Cons

ERP solutions generally require a 6 months lead time from scoping to implementation
More in-depth scoping required prior to installation, setup and training
More costly

Conclusion:

MYOB EXO or Advanced are designed for medium sized to large businesses OR smaller businesses with complex needs. We recommend you call us for a referral to an EXO/Advanced business partner for an initial meeting.

Need Help Choosing?

Still not sure which of the above accounting software packages is best for you? Contact us and we'll make choosing the right software easy. We have over 20 years hands-on experience with accounting software and our consultants are experts with all the MYOB packages.

Amazing!

Lynley, you are amazing!!

Thanks again – I really appreciate your help.

Nicky McRae Office Manager The Pallet Company

Customers are happy

Lynley has been referring our Sidekick Reporting software to her customers as the preferred add-on reporting package to AccountRight Live. Since 2011, more of her customers have bought a Sidekick licence than from any other partner. It has kept us busy writing new reports and features to the ever growing list. Her customers are happy as they can now extract and analyse the information they need for decision making.

Peter Oliver Computing Solutions Ltd

Much quicker processing with greater accuracy

The Auckland Diocese manage 65 parishes from Thames to Katia. We are NZ’s largest Diocese.

In 2016, after extensive research, we selected MYOB AccountRight with Lynley Averis as our MYOB business partner. As at June 2019, 30 parishes use MYOB AccountRight to handle their accounting. The objective is to have all parishes using AccountRight and a computerised payroll.

The new system is much quicker processing things with greater accuracy. Lynley has been at the forefront to achieve these efficiencies.

Dinesh Perera Senior Group Accountant Catholic Diocese of Auckland

Very helpful

I just wanted to pass on my thanks for the recent course on Retail Manager in Auckland. Lynley was great and the course was very helpful.

Mark Forster Operations Manager

Highly recommend.

Murray gave a fantastic training on Accountants Office. He's very knowledgeable about the system but also very patient and friendly. Learn so much. Thanks a lot.

Also, thank you so much for arranging this for me in that short notice, Lynley. It helps a lot.

Lily Chartered Accountant

A godsend

Thanks so much – you were a godsend. I would like to do some training with you – do you hold classes?

Helen Flinkenberg Financial Administrator

Our 'go to'

AccountAgility is our ‘go to’ when we have clients getting messed up with their MYOB files. Lynley will go in, health check the file, correct the errors and train the bookkeeper to follow best practice.

We look after the client’s tax requirements, but she will dig deep into the software to ensure the reports are reliable.

Margot Leigh Chartered Accountant Margot Leigh & Associates

Easy when you get the right training

We currently use AccountRight Live with bank feeds. It's easy when you get the right training.

Lynley Averis has worked with us for the past 5 years. She is always available to help with both MYOB Accounting and MYOB Payroll. Lynley knows MYOB AccountRight Live inside out. She's highly experienced and was able to fix problems and help me with payroll & accounting issues.

Sara Becker Administration Manager, Affordable Scaffolding 2010 Ltd

Really appreciated the support

We choose Lynley because she has many years experience on payroll setup & training. Over the years Lynley has always been available to assist online with questions on both the payroll software and on payroll legislation. We really have appreciated the support.

Sharleen Murray Office Manager – Stauff Corporation

Awesome when it comes to MYOB

Lynley Averis has been working with The Look group of companies since 2011.

She has supported us with RetailManager, AccountRight and Payroll to drive efficiencies across the business. I highly recommend Lynley who is awesome when it comes to MYOB.

Thank you Lynley for your professionalism and fantastic 'can do' attitude.

Martin Caughey The Look

Streamlined our systems

Gow Langford Gallery is NZ’s largest privately owned art gallery. The Gallery represents over thirty established New Zealand and international artists. The accounting systems need to be able to accommodate complex transactions.

AccountAgility have worked closely with us, supporting both AccountRight and Payroll since 2012. We have streamlined our systems to eliminate additional spreadsheets and paper documents and now make maximum use of AccountRight.

Shona Irwin Chief Financial Officer Gow Langsford Gallery

I see them as part of our team

NZX Listed Arvida Group are the largest single user of AccountRight software in NZ.

We selected AccountRight as our software of choice back in December 2014. Our accounting system allowed us to grow with new entities easily added to our centralised accounting hubs. Arivda is now moving all 2,500 employees to IMS payroll (from ACE, Zambion, Datacom, EXO and MYOB Payrolls). This will standardise payroll across the business and into one specialist team.

Lynley Averis from AccountAgility has been our MYOB business Partner since December 2014. She and her team have an in-depth knowledge of our accounting and payroll systems. I see them as part of our team. They assist with projects whenever we need help and are friendly and well connected with the MYOB community.

Mark Wells General Manager Finance | Arvida Group