What I learnt at MYOB PartnerConnect and Xerocon
It’s been a whirlwind couple of weeks attending two of Australia’s national conferences MYOB PartnerConnect and Xerocon.
At MYOB PartnerConnect our business 2 Peas Pty Ltd was once again awarded the Victorian Top Sales Partner and National Top Sales Partner for 2014. This is now 6 consecutive years in a row. Woo Hoo!!
Both events were presented to bookkeepers, accountants and certified consultants Australia wide.
The event hosted an array of trade stands with the latest up and coming add-on solutions that extend the functionality of Australia’s major accounting software programs.
Our business has been reviewing and using a few of the add-on solutions as have our clients. Check out a list of Our Preferred Add-Ons.
It was amazing to see the speed of adoption to cloud technology by accountant, bookkeepers, certified consultants and customers alike.
It seems those who have not yet adopted cloud technology run the risk of now well and truly being left behind. It’s exciting times watching how quickly the industry is evolving with the introduction of add-on solutions.
Innovative product lines with extended functionality that makes your accounting software almost perform miracles!
Conferences have a way of making you feel inspired. You always leave energised to continue on with your journey of being expert in products which have added functionality and automation that make business life easier and easier all the time.
It is exciting to be able to continually offer customers new and innovative ideas which help them with their business growth.
So for those that didn’t have the opportunity to attend either MYOB Partner Connect or Xerocon, here’s some updates that we learnt and you can expect to see rolled out in the near future:
MYOB AccountRight updates released or coming soon:
- ABN Validation – If the ABN entered is correct it comes up with a smaller green banner ABN. If invalid the banner is orange. Direct Link to ABN Lookup
- Bank Rules Improvements – automatic matching with supplier bills.
- Improvements in USER ID Actions – better allocation of access and restriction of staff from more areas of the program.
- Bank Feeds Improved – Faster Easier Bank Feeds
- Banner of Actual Bank Balance – will appear at the top of the Bank Feeds Page where available and will change as matching occurs on the screen.
- Reconcile Button -at the bottom of Bank Feeds Page to assist in quicker reconciliation, with auto-population of closing balance and statement date.
- Approve Ability Improved – ability to select all “Approve” items and Approve in one go
- Improvements to Managing Partnership and Trust Accounts – automatic integration
Coming in Version 2014.4
- Ability to configure another Email Server to link into MYOB – eg GMAIL
- Linking of Source Documents – as Attachments to Transactions or Documents which are fed into A/R and linked to Invoices and Bills and populate the information directly – for e.g. purchase orders, quotes and sales orders.
MYOB Essentials Accounting updates released or coming soon are:
- Faster Easier Bank Feeds
- Improved Emailing – benefits like emailing multiple invoices to a Customer
- Enhanced Customisation of Invoice options – Service and Item can be combined
- Positioning of Logo will be improved
- Social Media will be incorporated in the Customisation Process
- Ability to customise the email message and then reset to the Default Message
Xero updates released or about to be released are:
- Internet Browser – As of the 1st September, Xero will no longer be supported by Internet Explorer 8. You will be required to upgrade or use other available browsers like Google Chrome which can be downloaded here.
- Remittance advice standard branding themes – ability to edit standard layout with the use of a branding theme with the inclusion of logo, alternative address and more.
- Banking reconciliation auto-suggest can now be turned on or off – Xero now has the ability to turn off automatic coding so you no longer have prediction coding of past transaction allocation which caused confusion. You simply untick the section: ‘Suggest previous entries’ from the reconciliation screen.
- Easy online sales invoice link – send a real-time online sales invoice to your customer. They’ll receive an email with a link to view this in their web browser and you can even include files that support the online invoice.
- Automatic numbering sequence improved – if an invoice number has already been used in Xero, it will automatically suggest the next available number.
- Bank reconciliation incorrect matches handled better – When reconciling your bank account, if there is more than one possible match and the one suggested by Xero is not correct, it will not be automatically selected when you look at all possible matches.
- Improved Account Transaction report – You are now able to select all or some of your GL accounts for a chosen period. This is just one of the improved reporting functions that Xero are rolling out of the coming months.
- Depreciation Report changes – the ability to now see capital gains and depreciation recovered.
- Improved search function – you will now be able to search for invoices, bills and credit notes based on transaction amount.
- Bank feed upgrade – Xero bank accounts that need to be refreshed for the feed to push through to Xero, this will no longer be limited to the user that set up the bank feed. You will now have the option to let others refresh feeds, ensuring bank transaction data can flow regardless of which user is logged in.