Bye bye paper!
Bookkeeping and accounting professionals have for decades worked in a manually intensive process environment, highly dependent on working under torrents of paper and being physically on-site.
It was not so long ago, within your lifetime actually, that businesses operated totally dependent on the exchange of paper documents between them and their customers, suppliers, banks, accountants and bookkeepers; not to forget hours spent on the telephone. It was also a time when cheques and cash were almost the only way to pay. Preparation of reports and/or a review of the books by the accountant, meant a trip across town to physically deliver reams of paper and to have that discussion.
In more recent times the ‘cloud’ has begun to build and now the future is so much brighter! Confused? Well the ‘cloud’ is the metaphor for the all persuasive World Wide Web, or internet, that envelops our Earth like an atmospheric communication ‘cloud’. Its arrival has brought with it new innovation and technologies that just a few years ago could only have been dreamt of.
Australia is home to some of the best dreamers (and doers) and MYOB Australia is one of them. In fact, MYOB has just been judged Australia’s Most Innovative Large Company in 2015 by Business Review Weekly (BRW).
So what was it that entitled MYOB to this recent claim to fame? Well, MYOB was born in a home garage in Blackburn, Victoria just over 20 years ago, and when asked about their purpose, they told you to Mind Your Own Business.
Over the years, MYOB has dedicated itself to making business life easier and to help business work smarter. Today, MYOB is the leading business software provider for small and medium enterprises (SME) and accounting professionals in Australia and New Zealand.
Innovations keep coming
Here are just some of the more notable smart innovations MYOB has to offer:
- MYOB AccountRight – unique hybrid business software that works online (in the cloud) or locally on your computer. The clever part is, unlike cloud only software, that even if you find yourself without an internet connection your company file can continue to be used locally and then is cleverly synchronised with your cloud file later when you next connect to the internet.
- Online company data files means instant, real time, anytime collaboration. No more trips across town to the accountant or client. Even your business’ team members can access the company file live from anywhere with an internet connection and a computer.
- Add-on solutions – like apps for your smartphone, these are apps for your MYOB software, leveraging the API. There are more than one hundred of these specialised smart tools which work with and extend the functionality and efficiency of MYOB.
- Smart reconciliations – included in MYOB business software, feeds transactions directly from your bank into your company file. This significantly reduces data entry as the software quickly learns how handle and automatically process deposits and withdrawals hitting the bank accounts. This makes long-winded manual paper based bank reconciliations a thing of the past! Yay!
- Smart bills – This is spooky, but great, to watch in action. Again, an inclusion with MYOB, Smart Bills allows electronic or paper copies of supplier bills to be stored and recorded online with your company file – goodbye to that torrent of paper! The spooky bit is that the software uses OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to actually read the bill and help fill out details before the transaction is recorded!
- On-The-Go app – this is really cool! Seamlessly interfacing with your MYOB company file, it uses an app to turn your basic smartphone into an invoicing and payment acceptance terminal and immediately updates your cloud file in real time without the need to re-enter transactions once you’re back in the office. Imagine, customer invoiced and payment received (credit card or EFTPOS) before leaving their premises! Love it and love the cashflow!
- Payroll SuperStream compliance – if you have ever had to remit superannuation contributions to numerous different employee superannuation funds you’ll know it’s a very time consuming and labour intensive task dealing with numerous fund forms and individual remittance transactions. MYOB provides an ATO SuperStream compliant solution fully integrated into the MYOB payroll module. The super contributions are calculated by the software, and by using a simple and fast authorisation process the individual amounts are remitted and reported to each employee super fund. Good bye bureaucracy and hello efficiency!
- MYOB Essentials – beautifully simple and powerful, a completely online business software solution, which like AccountRight, includes all of the above smarts (but without local files). This is the one for those SMEs who want a cloud only solution which is quick and simple to use!
Students, bookkeepers, accountants and SME business owners can be assured that MYOB is leading and innovating like no other software provider in this sector.
For all of our Monarch Institute Certificate IV Accounting and Bookkeeping students, it’s great for you to know that when you choose to learn using MYOB, you are using Australia’s most innovative and leading SME business software. For you, as potential employees or consultants, this means enjoying the most employment opportunities and that you are developing your real world career skills at the leading edge of technology.
With these skills it makes you the preferred candidate for SME business owners and employers who want accounting and bookkeeping operatives to help them analyse, identify opportunities and to drive their business further using smart systems; the days of just manually processing transactions are gone.
My final tip to you, for your brighter future, jump into the MYOB cloud and benefit from all it has to offer! 🙂
Please note: MYOB Student Edition software is provided to educational institutions for use in our courses and does not contain the online features but has all the common functionalities required for use in most businesses. This version provides the opportunity for students to learn all the fundamental local features also found in the online software versions.
By Simon Slade-Betts FCPA, Monarch Institute, Trainer & Assessor – Accounting & Bookkeeping
For more information on studying with Monarch Institute contact one of our friendly course consultants on 1300 738 555.
