MYOB vs. Xero

MYOB is suitable for any business. I have two different businesses and both use MYOB effectively. I use MYOB to pay wages every fortnight for both businesses. This enables me to track exactly what is happening with everyone's different sick leave and holiday entitlements easily. I'm also able to keep track of expenditure and balance and reconcile the accounts against bank statements.

Incentivized

If they are using foreign exchange I always use Xero. If I need reporting to be customized we always use Xero. If the client is already working in a software and it is working for them we will leave them in the software they are in.

• MYOB is very easy to navigate and find the correct information.
• The Help section was very straight forward and very easy to learn.
• MYOB was a great accounting tool for our business as it provided the accountant, sales, etc all of the information they need all in one place.

Incentivized

• Their method of moving between screens was very logical and intuitive which is not a "given" attribute among software packages.
• Finding transactions was relatively easy with just common sense.
• The use of this software was generally well received in that the accountants did not discredit the software as cheap, poorly organized, or timely to learn. No one at Corporate had a vendetta against using Xero.
• It does a good job of allowing the users to drill down to the final detail of an account balance - which is fundamental to the accounting department's needs.

Incentivized

• [In my opinion,] horrible interface to import data
• [In my opinion,] user interface stuck in 1995
• Needs improvement to usability
• Contestant price increases
• [In my opinion,] new in-app advertising is annoying
• Countless different windows to do simple tasks like onboard an employee
• [In my experience,] too slow

Incentivized

• Occasionally, the price increases and I feel that prices should be fixed for long-term users as there are very few changes in the software from when I started using it 6 years ago.
• It would be useful to have the emails sent with invoices saved.
• Visual dashboards are limited.

Incentivized

Our clients seems hesitant to change softwares so I don't see why we wouldn't be renewing with MYOB

Incentivized

In addition to the matters covered in this review, my reason for renewing this product is that Xero's functionality and the constant updates that the company provides, makes the software even more business friendly. The software therefore builds a brand loyalty among customers.

All of the MYOB products are easy to use. Most of our clients use MYOB ACE payroll and Essentials but some of the customers who are proper accounts use a range of products like Account Right MYOB AE/AO, Practice manager, TAX manager, etc. I have never heard of any complaints and the support contacts are always approachable.

Incentivized

Xero has all the features that you need, basically. From chart of accounts, reconciling books, to making annual financial reports. What I'm currently looking for Xero right now is to provide more broader integration with the other apps so we can use it for customer-facing experience also. All in all, everything works well!

Incentivized

We have been actively using and 100% Xero based for our ecommerce accounting practice for over 4 years. There has on been one real outage for more than 5 minutes. Xero was open and transparent about the outage, what they were doing to resolve the issue, and provided 15 minute updates. Showing how they care about their customers and partners. Plus, showing that their customers care too, were understanding, and went surfing or in our case took a nap. Couldn't run our business without Xero as a partner.

Pages generally load quickly, but it's a fairly common occurrence to have pages taking a bit longer than I'd like to load (as in, 4+ seconds). Occasionally I have to refresh a page to get it to work. Bank feed and integrations tend to be slow in general, but that could easily be due to API latency on the side of the other parties. Most of the time, though, the bank feeds refresh before I login so it's not a huge problem. Not necessarily good performance compared to a local app like QuickBooks desktop, but definitely good performance for a cloud application. Room for growth? yes.

Incentivized

MYOB accounting software basically works but looks and functions like 1998. Unfortunately their Antipiracy licensing system is absolutely TERRIBLE and verging on nearly criminal, scam! You must CONFIRM each and every data file and when it doesnt work you have to PAY THEM to fix their own file protection issues. If you dont pay them, they hold your data hostage as your company accounting information file becomes READ ONLY. Permantly, unless you pay them. This is a total extortion SCAM. I cannot believe a company can operate this way. With a lot of better product available... i dont imagine MYOB is going to survive much longer.

Always respond and keep issues open until you are satisfied with the result. Generally good responses, in the past, I had some support responses that were really basic and really annoying. They type where "have your tried restarting your computer" style of answers. Well, of course, I went through all the basics before contacting them. Duh, but I suppose not everyone does. Otherwise, it would be a 10. The last year has shown a marked improvement in the support responses however.

The format was great; someone was there to ask questions or help if you were stuck.

Incentivized

All of Xero's training is online and available for anyone (business owner or accountants) to learn and become experts in their system. There is a range of content from product training to real world webinars from their partners. Xero is beautiful accounting software and their training is the same.

If it can be done, time the implementation near a new fiscal year so you can start clean. Otherwise, you have to go back and do historical data from the beginning of the fiscal year, which can be brain draining.

Incentivized

Not even close. Though I will say MYOB had a budget module where Zoho Books doesn't which is one thing severely lacking in Zoho Books. On the other hand, Zoho Books allows for payment processing integration without trying to get a cut from the process whereas MYOB allowed for payment processing but you had to go through their service only and it wasn't cheap.

Incentivized

I've used a lot of different accounting systems. Many of them so big and powerful, but a hassle to get set up. Xero is light, inexpensive, and easy to use. When I originally selected them they seemed like they were developing new features at a quick rate as well. I was invited to be part of focus sessions to make the product better. That part has slowed down significantly though.

I have yet to fully stress test the product given the size of the company where I am using it. I am sure as we scale to more customers, more vendors and more reporting requirements, I will have a better understanding of what it is capable of in terms of bandwidth and processing

Incentivized

• It was great when we first started using it but there was a time when MYOB stopped supporting payroll tax tables for Apple computers and so we made the switch.
• While we were using it staying on top of all of the pesky accounting details was a breeze.
• We were very detail oriented to begin with and had a thorough understanding of basic accounting principles but anyone without even basic knowledge can quickly set up MYOB and get running fairly quickly and provide detailed reports to their CPA or CFO consultant for a deeper analysis of their business.

Incentivized

• Saved many hours through automatic invoices and followups
• Saved many hours by allowing transactions to start via bank feeds (ie I don't have to input a transaction and mark it against what is in the bank/cc account; rather, the transaction in the account is where you input the transaction into the books.
• Has the scalability my business requires, and not much more.

Incentivized