The issue is they use MYOB and as much as I have extolled the benefits and virtues of Xero it is not the right time for them to convert and so MYOB it is for now. I have been a Xero convert for 3 years. The reason being is that it is a great system. It is logical,well designed, well supported and constantly evolving for the better – better in ways we didn’t even realise we needed things to be better. So for me going back to using MYOB – a system I took an instant disliking to the first time I had to use it about 6 years ago – is awful.

MYOB is hard to use. You can only do one thing at once. I expect to be able to run a report, review it, investigate it all at once. In Xero you can. If you need to keep your Payables window open and run a Profit and Loss report you can. In MYOB reports take a long time to run and then just as long again to export to excel or print. This time uses up precious client resources for no real benefit. Reports should be instantaneous and easily able to be exported or printed should the need arise. In Xero they are.

In MYOB there is no such thing as Profit Centres or Cost Centres – meaning that if you want to split out your income and expenses into reportable and analysable Profit or Cost Centres, you have to set up duplicate/triplicate accounts in the Chart of Accounts and then build complex excel reports to see the desired Profit or Cost Centres, profitability. Or worse do manual calculations.

For example you have:

•  Online Sales division 
• Bricks & Mortar Sales division 
• Wholesaling Division 

In MYOB you need to have a Sales account for each of the above divisions and the associated Cost of Sales accounts for each of the above divisions. This bulks up your Chart of Accounts and makes effective reporting difficult to achieve.

However, Xero has tracking categories – which takes care of your Profit or Cost Centre requirements. The above example would see a Tracking Category in Xero called Division with each of the divisions you have as an option to select. This would mean you only need one Sales and Cost of Sales account and when booking this income and expense in Xero you categorise it using your tracking categories. This then facilitates by Division profit and loss reporting directly out of Xero. It is literally as easy as clicking a button.

Clicking a button people!! Not waiting for a report to run, waiting to export it, rechecking formula’s and manipulating data. You can run this report everyday if you like. As opposed to traditionally once a month, 2 weeks in arrears, which is usually the time you present reports using MYOB.

Xero also has the obvious benefit of being accessible to anyone, anywhere, as long as they have an internet connection. Sure with MYOB, I could take the file away with me. But then the bookkeeping couldn’t be done in the interim in my absence. To overcome this of course I can Remote Desktop in – which is also great but this creates many issues too. The most obvious of these is again efficiency of use of MYOB over Remote Desktop – things are definitely slower and take longer to run. The less obvious of this is security. As I am Remote Desktopping in, the work I do occurs on the desktop in real time and real pictures as if I was there doing it. How do I know, who is standing in front of that screen watching me run reports containing sensitive information that maybe this person otherwise wouldn’t be exposed to?

Xero is simply superior. Superior in each of the ways I have listed above and many more. The key with Xero is to get the most out of it you can. In order to do so you should take the time to sit down and think about what you want out of it and how you want it to benefit your business before you jump in. Of course it doesn’t need to be this way, but it will ensure you reap the benefits that Xero offers. Whilst I continue to grapple with the inefficiencies of MYOB and sing the praises of Xero to this client, if you have been wondering about what a well structured Xero can do for your business, contact us!

So why Astute Mode…. well because I wanted people to feel that when they engaged with our services they switched their business into Astute Mode.

So without an obvious connotation to what we actually do I thought it might be best to list in detail the services offered here at Astute Mode.

Here are some specifics about what we do here at Astute Mode:

• Small Business bookkeeping services
• Medium Business bookkeeping services
• Franchise – both Franchisor and Franchee bookkeeping services
• Xero Conversions and Xero Setups for all size businesses, focusing on optimising your business information for optimal decision making capabilities
• Management reporting for our clients businesses
• Financial reporting for our clients businesses
• Building budgets for businesses
• Payroll setup on iPayroll
• Payroll bureau for clients via iPayroll
• Workflow Max conversions and setup
• Unleashed Software (stock management) conversions and setup.

Of course there is more, but I will save that for another blog post.

Don’t forget to contact us, if you need help with any of the issues above.

My many years of broad experience in corporate finance departments fueled the need to work in a challenging and accommodating work environment. The realisation that there must be others out there trying to achieve something similar led to my light bulb moment and the seeds of Astute Mode were sown.

As the home page for AstuteMode.com states, Astute Mode is an outsourced finance department offering services ranging from bookkeeping to management accounting, specialising in setup and operating cloud based services. Together with focusing on outstanding levels of client service, Astute Mode is also focused on providing challenging and accommodating work opportunities for those that might otherwise not have found one.

So this first post is a little introduction and welcome to Astute Mode’s blog. Have a look around our website and check back in here from time to time.