[moneydance] MYOB

[John W. Foster]

On Thursday 15 February 2007 21:36, Keith Bates wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Feb 2007 21:33:39 -0500
>
> John Muccigrosso <internetj at muccigrosso.org> wrote:
> > OK, so I bought MYOB about 9 months ago to use with my wife's new
> > business venture. It's a small eatery, now with about 7 PT employees
> > and total revenue of, say, $200k a year. I did this partly based on
> > comments I read on this list about how MD wasn't ideally suited for
> > even small businesses and MYOB vel sim. would be better.
> >
> > Unfortunately, I'm not happy with that decision. No blame. I made
> > the decision...but am I missing something? MYOB seems to be a dog.
> > Poor interface design, non-standard key combos, unhelpful help,
> > unobvious features. I could go on.
> >
> > So, why shouldn't I just go back to using MD for this (as well as my
> > home finances that I have kept in MD)?
> >
> > (My follow-up may be about how best to move my accounts back.)
> >
> > John
>
> John
>
> MD will do a great job of tracking your business' finances but it
> won't do the following:
>
> 1. Payroll and tax issues- although you can set it up to do salaries
> and tax installments. More detailed stuff such as leave entitlements
> are beyond what MD does.
>
> 2. It won't do the business of keeping track of large numbers of
> accounts- although for your type of business this probably isn't an
> issue. I use MD for a church plus christian bookshop and have about a
> dozen "Accounts Payable " accounts for our various suppliers. It works
> fine for that scale of business.
>
> 3. Providing files for auditors, accountants or tax inspectors may be
> an issue you need to investigate.
>
> 4. MD does do a good job of dealing with VAT/GST... obviously it
> doesn't produce the reports in the exact format that the tax office
> needs but it will produce the numbers you need fairly easily... well at
> least for Australian GST reports it works.
>
> Hope that helps you work out whether MD is for you.
---------------------------------------------
I seldom get into these type of issues but the question about using MD as a 
tool in running a business seems to keep croping up. I have used MD for 
several years now after watching it develop for several years before 
switching to it. It is what it is, a great tool for managing money in an 
active fashion. It also has many useful tools, within it,  that provide a 
great deal in information about that moneys use and whereabouts. However, it 
is not an accounting/bookeeping system. If used in conjunction with a good 
accounting system it is VERY useful. I have done that for 3 years now, in a 
very successful fashion. I use MD along with SQL-Ledger: the two compliment 
each other well and the export feature of MD is great for transferring info 
into the SQL-Ledger accounting system. Before that I used MS Money and DAC 
Easy Accounting. All are good but I prefer the customisation capabilities of 
the setup I now have.
Hope this helps.

-- 
John W. Foster