M.Y.O.B. 6

From: Data-Tech Software (02) 9955 3611
URL: http://www.datatech.com.au
List Price: $399 ($599 with payroll)
System Requirements: Windows 95 or 3.1, 386 or better, 4Mb RAM, 6 Mb free disc space, EGA or better monitor, mouse. Sound card and CD-ROM for video help.
Support: 30 days free on registration. Ongoing support and upgrade programs available.

Ratings
General Ledger:
Payroll:
Inventory:
Invoicing:
Reporting:
Overall:

Setup

M.Y.O.B's installation is faultless although, curiously, it installs from four 3.5in disks and the supplied CD contains no program files. The M.Y.O.B video which is included in the pack is excellent and helps you understand how to set up the program.

Like QuickBooks, set up is by interview and again you have no real idea how far through the setup program you are. However, as it only takes about 10 minutes, this is less a problem than in QuickBooks.

M.Y.O.B offers a whopping 100 or more template businesses to choose your sample accounts from and although its setup lacks QuickBooks' depth for an inexperienced user, there are so few choices to make that you won't be too concerned you've made mistakes.

Bouquets too to M.Y.O.B -- of all the packages reviewed this is the only one that asks for an ACN (Australian Company Number), if you have one, and automatically includes this detail on its plain paper invoices. You can create a workaround in the others programs, but given that printing ACNs on company documents is a legislative requirement, M.Y.O.B is streets ahead.

Once you've completed the company setup, you can set up your customer and supplier accounts and enter your opening balances. Although this is potentially a lengthy task, it doesn't need to be done straight away so you can complete it in your own time and as you need these accounts.

M.Y.O.B's card file is the best of any of the programs. You can keep cards for customers, vendors, employees and personal information. If you have a modem it will dial phone numbers and allow you to log call details. Enter a contact date and you'll be reminded when it's time to make contact again.

One serious concern is that M.Y.O.B doesn't save your work as you enter it -- you must save it yourself. Although you're prompted to save as you exit, at the end of the day it's all too easy to choose No or for your system to crash. Either way you'll lose everything you've entered since you last saved.

Invoicing

Like FirstAccounts, M.Y.O.B offers a choice of invoices including a service invoice that allows descriptive data entry and an item invoice which can be used for sales of items you stock as inventory.

There is the ability to mark an invoice as pending which is handy for quotes and for service providers who can use them to record items over an extended period where a bill won't be sent for some time. M.Y.O.B's pending invoices are easier to use than QuickBooks, and if you attempt to create a new invoice for a customer with a pending invoice, you'll be given the opportunity to use the pending invoice instead. In comparison, QuickBooks pending invoices are more difficult to locate.

You can add new customer and item information from any of the invoice screens but, disturbingly, M.Y.O.B allowed us to record an income item to an expense account without warning of this. Because M.Y.O.B, unlike QuickBooks, doesn't use items in service and professional invoices, you can create these one-off posting errors way too easily. It's not that you can't make similar mistakes in QuickBooks, but if you do you'll do it consistently so it's more likely to be obvious and quick to locate and fix.

M.Y.O.B's invoices and statements are quick and easily customisable from within M.Y.O.B and you get good control over what prints and where.

You can print reminder statements for all or a single customer and these can be a summarised statement of all open invoices and balances or a balance forward statement showing all transactions for the selected period.

M.Y.O.B's to-do list allows you to view at a glance details of your pending invoices and current accounts receivable and payable.

Inventory

Unlike FirstAccounts, inventory is given its own special treatment in M.Y.O.B and it's the best structured of the packages reviewed. M.Y.O.B allows you to distinguish between stock which is bought, sold and inventoried and treats each appropriately.

Creating stock items is straightforward and, like QuickBooks and SOHO, you can set reorder levels, preferred suppliers and even specify items which are brought together to make another item.

Invoicing inventory is easy and, if you are using item invoices, stock levels are decremented as invoices are prepared. Inventory reporting in M.Y.O.B is good and gives you good stock information, although the report generator interface is not the most user-friendly.

Reporting

Where QuickBooks wins with flexibility and active design, M.Y.O.B reports win by sheer weight of numbers and organisation. Its report index offers hundreds of different reports, logically grouped, which are clear and easy to use. You can filter reports for various time periods, people, accounts and so on, as you need.

Although the filter is a little cumbersome, the reports are basically quick and easy to prepare. In addition, there are special sales reports accessible via the M.Y.O.B analyst which summarises sales in a number of ways. These include charts and text reports and are indicative of what is possible in data analysis. Hopefully M.Y.O.B will extend these reports to its other functional areas in the future.

Payroll

M.Y.O.B's payroll is the only truly integrated payroll package of those reviewed, so when you process a pay the payment and associated entries are posted direct to the general ledger. The other packages merely offer general ledger integration via data transfer. However, there will be circumstances where such integration may not be advantageous, for example, where payroll is administered separately from the business's other accounting functions.

To prepare a pay you'll use the Card file and a sophisticated cheque writing window. All pay lines are displayed here and you simply enter the employee and any unusual items for the pay period and the rest is done. The software calculates tax on gross wages (including allowances for dependant rebates), employer superannuation, and accrues leave entitlements for you.

Unfortunately, the payslips are little more than cheques with additional details as to how the amount is calculated and, like Pastel, when you are processing a pay it is difficult to figure out exactly where you are.

The integration of M.Y.O.B payroll means that the general ledger accounts for group tax, superannuation payable etc, are updated with each pay. When it comes time to pay these expenses, you simply look up the balance of these accounts payable and prepare a cheque.

M.Y.O.B doesn't handle a terminating employee particularly well. You enter a termination date, and this clears the employee's entitlement balances but you'll have to pay any outstanding balances manually and the tax calculated on a cheque which includes termination pay, may need adjusting. The payroll help information is less detailed than other aspects of M.Y.O.B's help and much of the information required only appears in the manual.

The payroll backup is incorporated with M.Y.O.B's total backup which is a little worrying if, for some reason, you only want to restore your payroll data. And you have to remember to save regularly, too.

The payroll reports are a fairly standard group of pay summary and detail reports although there are some notable omissions like a superannuation report and a payroll tax report which should be there.

In summary, M.Y.O.B does a standard job of payroll and its integration is a bonus. However, it needs a bit of work to make it feel as comprehensive as Pastel and Quick Payroll are.

By Helen Bradley and Kurt Best

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