Comments on: Why I Hate MYOB

By: Rob

Rob — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Amen. And if you've had the pleasure of Quickbooks, you'll know its just as bad.

What irritates me the most is how its completely and utterly disconnected from a task-based UI, especially as 80% (at least) of its users will only touch it at most once a month.

grrrrr (the pain is recent).

By: Malcolm

Malcolm — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I once had a friend say to me, No offense (since I was an accountant) but the problem with this accounting software is that it was *designed by an accountant*. He was talking about a particular front-office interface to the firm’s sales order entry system. I was in fact offended at the time but in the intervening 20 years I’ve found his underlying assertion to be essentially correct: Accountants are control freaks who (left to their own devices) write bloated software systems with overly cumbersome data entry controls.

It looks like http://www.objacct.com is developing nice accounting SaaS though (but, unfortunately, with seemingly more of a middle-market focus). And, unfortunately, I must also say it doesn’t look as nice as EvolutionOne did!

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Have you tried Microsoft Money2007? It seems quite alright to me.

By: Nat

Nat — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

We try to stay away from Microsoft as much as possible, due to past experiences of being ripped off for bad software ;)

This is just a trial version so I'm not sure we'll stick with it, hopefully something pops up in the next three months...

By: Alan

Alan — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

After a year struggling with QuickBooks, and then a year wrestling with MYOB, I started using a book keeper, just to firewall me from such poorly designed software.

This has its own frustrations since my business is tiny, and I could easily manage my own accounts if I had software that was easy to use and understand.

There’s no pressure on MYOB to improve its product. MYOB earns significant revenue from charging quite a bit for telephone support and training courses, so why would they want to make it easier to use?

One big problem with building a web 2.0 small business accounting platform would be that accounting practice and tax law varies so much from country to country. A product developed for one market would be unusable anywhere else. That limits the customer growth and revenue for the developer.