After a couple of years delay, myob are nearly ready to go live with their full cloud product. MYOB have taken a different cloud strategy to it's competitors which you need to comprehend when comparing the different cloud options. Below is a summary of the price and feature differentials for the main cloud based accounting software products.
Quickbooks Hosted, Xero and Saasu are a fully cloud based product. This means that your data file is stored securely and fully encrypted on the cloud and you can only work on the file while you have the internet connected. MYOB AccountRight Live enables you to have the data file stored both online and locally at the same time. If the internet goes down or if you want to work on the file on a plane for example, you just work on the local file and the cloud version will be updated when you next go online. Here's the basic monthly fees including GST for each of the cloud based bookkeeping software :
| Bookkeeping Software | MYOB AccountRight Live | QuickBooks Hosted | XERO | SAASU |
| Simultaneous Users | 5 | 1 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Basic monthly Package (No Payroll) | $23 | $25.83 | $29 | $20 |
| Medium monthly Package | $59.50 | $36.25 | $49 | $35 |
| Advanced monthly Package | $59.50 | $36.25 | $64 | $60 |
| Feature Differentials: | ||||
| Inventory | Y | Y | N | Y |
| Purchase Orders | Y | Y | N | Y |
| Detailed job costing options | Y | Y | Y | N |
| Detailed budgeting | Y | Y | N | Y |
| Time Billing | Y | Y | N | N |
| Inventory | Y | Y | N | Y |
| Offline-Online Synchronisation | Y | N | N | N |
| Pay suppliers and payroll directly from software | Y | N | N | N |
As you can the features offered by each product vary across the range. I think Xero has the edge in terms of functionality and ease to work with- it is just not as powerful as some of the other providers. One big advantage with MYOB AccountRight Live is the ability to pay your suppliers and staff directly through the software. This is a great advantage if you choose to outsource your bookkeeping because it means your bookkeeper can set up all of your payments without having to access your online banking system. You just have to login and complete a simple one step authorisation process to approve the payments. Price is just one factor to consider when deciding which bookkeeping software to go with. Each has it's own functionality and user interface which you can sample by signing up to a free trial or just give us a call to discuss.
