MYOB - starting out

[dee]

Im finally sick of quicken, especially with their subscription and software locks when reinstalling etc

Whats the best way of learning myob quickly
2 purposes
1. to track bank accounts
2. to track assets, and liabilities - mainly property

anyone have any tips?

anyone willing to share a template to start out?

thanks

 

[Patosan]

G'day Dee,

Have you already bought MYOB ?
You mentioned tracking as being your objective so are you sure you want an accounting package ?
Have you been to the MYOB site to view their tutorial or sneak preview ?

There are packages available that suit tracking property better I believe. Rent Manager is one that comes to mind, it seems to be very user friendly and probably good at tracking various aspects ... though it's not an accounting package.

Sorry to have given more questions than answers.
Good luck

 

[dee]

Patosan
I havent bought myob yet
Im using one of the test drives
Ive got no idea on accounting atm
Im obsessive, and like to know where everything is and where its going

quicken does a reasonable job
but ive heard a few people using myob for property

It would be nice just to send a file to the accountant for a tax return

 

[Corsa]

Im finally sick of quicken, especially with their subscription and software locks when reinstalling etc

Whats the best way of learning myob quickly
2 purposes
1. to track bank accounts
2. to track assets, and liabilities - mainly property

anyone have any tips?

anyone willing to share a template to start out?

thanks

Hi dee

Buy MYOB Accounting. If you buy it [highlight]today[/highlight] from Office Works for $299 then you get $100 gift voucher to use on Office works products. I will call you and make sure you get this message also.

You dont need Accounting Plus [highlight]unless[/highlight] you are planning on using the module Payroll and paying staff in the future. Dont get Business Basics, the product is not powerful enough to use for Investment and [highlight]does not[/highlight] contain sufficient Budget Analysis reports.

MYOB comes with a great set of templates including a Real Estate template, see how you go with these templates, if you are still not winning email me and I will send you mine.

MYOB is great for measuring immediate profitability of your investments (via the Job functionality) and also your Profit & Loss position and your Cash posiiton both from a Personal point of view and your Investment portfolio.

IF you are still unsure that it wont meet your needs (which I think it will knowing your situation) then download a trial version from the internet and see how you like the product.

Good luck

Cheers

Corsa

 

[Patosan]

Hi Corsa,

I have MYOB Business Basics so I'm curious about the Accounting version.
What does it do differently with respect to reporting jobs, etc ?
Why is it good for investments ?

I'm still a novice at MYOB and am keen to know more.

 

[Corsa]

Hi Patosan

Thanks for your note!

I started off with Business Basics but upgraded within 3 months to Accounting. The predominate reason for the change was Business Basics could not report on a Budget Ledger to Actuals Ledger. You can assign a budget to each account in Business Basics but not report on how you are tracking against that Budget, ie you are over Budget or Underbudget. The only way you can do it is to export your Actuals P&L and your Budget P&L out to excel and join the two reports up - to messy . In Accounting, there is a Budget Analysis Report in Accounting that easily reports this position. That was the main point really, both use the "Job" function exactly the same. Accounting also has a Statement of Cashflow report which Business Basics doesnt have. This report is great because it differentiates between your "Profit" position (which comes from the P&L report) and what your "Cash" position is (which is your Net Income plus or minus your change in Balance Sheet accounts).

Hope this helps Patosan, just let me know if you need to know anything else

Cheers

Corsa

 

[Patosan]

Ta Corsa for the timely reply,

The Cashflow feature does sound good ... I have lamented that BB doesn't have it, or even calculate Cash Profit prior to Net profit.
You mentioned that Accounting has a Real Estate template, I assume you mean set of accounts ?
Business Basics has one too but is for an REA not an investor so it needed major rework. Is the Accounting ver better ?

Without seeing it yet the cost centre feature sounds as though you could use it for seperating your IP, shares and other investments within the one set of accounts. A bit like taking the job feature a step further. Is that right ?

So you went out an bought Accounting after just 3 months with BB, that's bold.
How long have you been using Accounting ?
Is there any feature that you miss from BB ?

That's enough questions ... I'll take a break.

 

[Corsa]

You mentioned that Accounting has a Real Estate template, I assume you mean set of accounts ?
Business Basics has one too but is for an REA not an investor so it needed major rework. Is the Accounting ver better ?

No, they are the same and yes it is an REA set of accounts. I personally have just accepted that each time I set up a chart of accounts that rework is required. I am probably of the view the Accounting templates are comparable to BB.

Without seeing it yet the cost centre feature sounds as though you could use it for seperating your IP, shares and other investments within the one set of accounts. A bit like taking the job feature a step further. Is that right ?

Yep, this is the Category Feature. So you can have account and job views by Category (ie Personal or Investment or Business x). Or you can just set up a whole new chart of accounts and operate that way transferrring money between the two.

How long have you been using Accounting ?
Is there any feature that you miss from BB ?

I have only upgraded in the last 2 months but so far I have not missed anything about Business Basics and am more satisfied with the Accounting version, as said earlier mostly because of the Budget Report but a few other differences.

Best thing to do Patosan is to download a free trial version of the product and have a play around and see what you think. Business Basics does do the job thought it is just dependant on how far you want to go with your analysis.

Best of luck Patosan, any more questions just yell out

Kind regards

Corsa

 

[Sunfish]

Im finally sick of quicken, especially with their subscription and software locks when reinstalling etc

Whats the best way of learning myob quickly
2 purposes
1. to track bank accounts
2. to track assets, and liabilities - mainly property

anyone have any tips?

anyone willing to share a template to start out?

thanks

Dee I agree that Quicken is a real pain when re-installing, especially if you've had multiple upgrades but is MYOB better?

My lady tells me that you must ring up every 90 days to re-activate your program. She is unsure of the details though.

Worth checking.

Thommo

 

[pennyk]

I use MYOB in my business. I have Accounting PLus. I haven't used it in a real estate context. But my advice is if you do buy it, get it set up professionally. Cause if it's not set up well, it can be a disaster. you have to make sure all your files are linked properly.
you can get MYOB cover, which gives you one year of phone support, which I would also recommend. it means you can call and ask questions about all sorts of things.

But I do wonder whether it's overkill to have such a complex accounting program if you are just doing basic accounts? Is that what your accounting recommends. My accountant recommends a much more basic program for most people. I just can't think what it's called.

In relation to Thommo's feedback about having to register every 90 days... we have never had to do that. you only need to reregister when you install a new version of the software.

Penny

 

[Sim]

Try Quickbooks - dead easy to use.

The only reason I find that accontants recommend MYOB is that they have been using it for years and that's what they know. Quickbooks is certainly much more intuitive in my experience.

 

[Corsa]

But I do wonder whether it's overkill to have such a complex accounting program if you are just doing basic accounts? Is that what your accounting recommends. My accountant recommends a much more basic program for most people. I just can't think what it's called.

Penny

Hi Penny

Just to give you feedback about this question, my experience has been that I started off with developing my own [highlight]Access database[/highlight] to manage my accounts, then moved to using [highlight]Microsoft Money[/highlight], then moved to [highlight]Quicken[/highlight] and now in the last 6 months have moved to [highlight]MYOB[/highlight], so I have experience with using most of these packages.

My thoughts are that [highlight]MYOB[/highlight] is complicated but powerful if set up correctly. I would even go as far to say that basic knowledge of accounting is required in order to use which may be a deterrant for some people.

As Sim (who is the Somersoft [highlight]Quicken[/highlight] guru ) I would agree that it is easy to use and fairly intuitive. MYOB has a bit of an edge in terms of functionality but that is just my personal experience, and there is a trade off in less easy to use, & knowledge etc in using MYOB over Quicken.

[highlight]Money[/highlight] is pretty basic, and easy to use just without the grunt. It comes with a great cashflow analyser to predict the future balances of your accounts based on past spending behaviour.

Is the package you are thinking of [highlight]Cashbooks[/highlight] that your accountant recommends as a more basic program to use? My parents over the years have bought Quicken and MYOB to try and track there accounts, and ended up throwing them in the bin as they were to complicated for them to work out easily both from an upfront point of view and on-going. They are now happily set-up with Cashbooks and are using this relatively smoothly.

So for me, the test that I would apply is:

1. How much do you know about accounting?
2. How complex are your accountants?

If the answer to these questions is that you know a fair bit and have complex accounts, then go for [highlight]MYOB[/highlight].

If the answer to these questions is that you know very little and your accounts are simple, then go for [highlight]Cashbooks[/highlight]. [highlight]Quicken[/highlight] could probably be considered anywhere along this spectrum, it is a very good product.

All products in my experience require significant time and effort to set them up correctly, set up your chart of accounts, and reconciliation of account balances so they are all pretty much of a muchness (although MYOB is more complex to get going)

Just my thoughts though based on my experience using the products.

Good luck all

Cheers

Corsa

 

[see_change]

Dee I agree that Quicken is a real pain when re-installing, especially if you've had multiple upgrades but is MYOB better?

My lady tells me that you must ring up every 90 days to re-activate your program. She is unsure of the details though.

Worth checking.

Thommo

I've been using MYOB for several years, and the only time I've had to ring MYOB up is when I was dumb enough to install it without first recording the Key somewhere in case I needed later on in case of a reinstall.

No need to ring up every three months.

When I first set it up , for my business , I got my Accountant to send over the template of the accounts he was using already on our accounts , and just changed the template to match that .

With our Trust funds I've gradually modified the template over the last year or so . Doesn't take much time to do , and the Jobs feature is nice to track individual IP's .

See Change.

 

[Sim]

Just to clarify what Corsa said ... I would recommend people look at Quickbooks for their IP finances, not Quicken (they are two vastly different programs).

Although I do use Quicken for my personal finances and for properties held in my own name, I use Quickbooks for my trust finances and find it far superior for reporting - much more "business like" (and easier for the accountant to deal with too). I have just purchased an upgrade to Quickbooks Pro v2004 (haven't had time to install it yet though). I was quite happy with Quickbooks SBE, but I decided some of the Pro features would be useful rather than upgrading to Quickbooks Lite 2004 (the replacement for SBE).

I also own a recent copy of MYOB, but try as I might I couldn't work out how to drive it. Perhaps I should RTFM and... (Spoken with Yoda voice) "You must unlearn, what you have learned !"

Might just have to keep a more open mind about it I guess.

*sigh* if only I had another 6-12 hours in a day I might actually make some progress on my book too. Perhaps it's time to start outsourcing. Anyone want to work my job for minimum wage to free me up time to work on other stuff ? You only need to be able to spell "IBM" and run around the place yelling "Lotus Workplace rocks" and "Eat s*** Microsoft" to anyone within earshot, and you've pretty much got my job down pat (okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, we're not allowed to swear at or taunt the competition )

 

[see_change]

I also own a recent copy of MYOB, but try as I might I couldn't work out how to drive it. Perhaps I should RTFM and... (Spoken with Yoda voice) "You must unlearn, what you have learned !"

Yipee !!!!!!!

Finally something on computers that I can do and Sim can't .....,



See Change

 

[Corsa]

Just to clarify what Corsa said ... I would recommend people look at Quickbooks for their IP finances, not Quicken (they are two vastly different programs).

fair point sim, quicken is just my experience and quickbooks is another product offering.

*sigh* if only I had another 6-12 hours in a day I might actually make some progress on my book too. Perhaps it's time to start outsourcing. Anyone want to work my job for minimum wage to free me up time to work on other stuff ? You only need to be able to spell "IBM" and run around the place yelling "Lotus Workplace rocks" and "Eat s*** Microsoft" to anyone within earshot, and you've pretty much got my job down pat (okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, we're not allowed to swear at or taunt the competition )

heheh, for anyone who doesnt know, i work for IBM to, perhaps I should put my position on the market too......Accounting plus IT skills required and know how to spell IBM, thats pretty much it!! Perhaps Acey would be willing to come out of retirement so I can sub contract my job out so I can work on my own stuff to!

cheers

Corsa

 

[Imagine]

Hi All,

I am new to this site!
I have also set up my investment property on MYOB and I am happy to share my template!
At this stage I am still researching so the accounts are a draft copy. I will be looking at buying an IP in a HDT as soon as my research is complete!

Can someone comment on a senario for me? I believe that this may answer other questions that may have come up!

I have not yet setup my HDT....!
I will be using the equity in my own home to borrow money to purchase units in a HDT.
I do not have enough equity (even if I do not leave the 20% required by the banks) in my own home to use as security only. I will have to buy the units-secured by my own home, and the HDT will also have to buy the IP-using the IP as security also simultaneously!

My next point is that I would like to record these transactions once they occur in the accounts of MYOB.
I believe that the journal entries will look as follows:

To record issue of xxx,xxx.xx units at par, fully paid up to Imagine. As per trustee's minute on 4/8/04.
debit Trust Bank Account (Asset)
credit Shareholders Capital or Paid-up Capital or Unit Capital (Capital)???? (can someone advise what is the name required by the Australian Tax Office for this account?

Exchange of xxx,xxx.xx units for Land and Buildings as per trustee's minute on 4/8/04.
debit Land (Non-Current Asset)
debit Building (Non-Current Asset)
credit Trust Bank Account (Current Asset)
How would I record the Stamp duty on transfer and cost of the solicitor (including pest inspect, blding inspect) as these costs are capital costs and you can only claim them in your costbase for Capital Gains Tax on sale of property in NSW!

To record Building Cost Write-Off on 4/8/04 as per quantity surveyors report, and trustee's minutes 4/8/04.
debit Depreciation-building Cost Write-Off (Expense)
credit Building Accumulated Depreciation (Non-Current Asset)

If anyone has any comments or ideas they will be greatly appreciated!