MYOB

[Xakero]

I use the UK version of MYOB Accounting Plus V10. Planning to upgrade to
version 13, I see that the upgrade would cost me GBP 179.

I find this price rather high for an upgrade and now wonder how popular this
accounting program can be at this price.

Anybody has any idea?

 

[Jonathan Bryce]

I use the UK version of MYOB Accounting Plus V10. Planning to upgrade to
version 13, I see that the upgrade would cost me GBP 179.

I find this price rather high for an upgrade and now wonder how popular
this accounting program can be at this price.

Anybody has any idea?

It is a lot cheaper than Sage, and Sage is pretty popular.

 

[Peter Saxton]

I use the UK version of MYOB Accounting Plus V10. Planning to upgrade to
version 13, I see that the upgrade would cost me GBP 179.

I find this price rather high for an upgrade and now wonder how popular this
accounting program can be at this price.

Anybody has any idea?

Accounts programs at the lower end (Sage, QuickBooks, MYOB) are good
value for money to buy if you compare trying to use a spreadsheet but
upgrades are usually not worth it. Most concentrate on making their
programs look prettier or introduce tools that can be advertised
whether they are practical or not.

 

[David]

I use the UK version of MYOB Accounting Plus V10. Planning to upgrade to
version 13, I see that the upgrade would cost me GBP 179.

I find this price rather high for an upgrade and now wonder how popular this
accounting program can be at this price.

Anybody has any idea?

Obviously value for money has to be considered.... what extras are you
getting for your upgrade? ..... will you use them ? ..... so is it worth
it?


Dave

 

[Xakero]

Obviously value for money has to be considered.... what extras are you
getting for your upgrade? ..... will you use them ? ..... so is it worth
it?

I fear that if I skip too many versions it may be difficult or impossible to
upgrade later, when the need may arise. Already with version 13 there is a
problem, according to MYOB's own information, with pending orders and
invoices of versions older than V11 (apparently, there was no version 12)

One problem is that MYOB does not publish updates to make previous versions
compatible with newer versions of Microsoft Word and Excel. Now that
Microsoft Office 2003 has been installed on my computer I can no longer
export, for example, the VAT summary to an Excel spreadsheet. It's my fault
really; I should have thought about the MYOB connection and prevented the
upgrade to Office 2003 (whose additional features I do not really need). I
eventually managed with the demo version of V13, which is usable for 30
days. The VAT report being due quarterly (in Switzerland) I guess I just
have to uninstall and reinstall this demo version every three months. Or
cave in and buy the upgrade.

 

[Peter Saxton]

I fear that if I skip too many versions it may be difficult or impossible to
upgrade later, when the need may arise. Already with version 13 there isa
problem, according to MYOB's own information, with pending orders and
invoices of versions older than V11 (apparently, there was no version 12)

I hope they didn't charge for version 12!

One problem is that MYOB does not publish updates to make previous versions
compatible with newer versions of Microsoft Word and Excel. Now that
Microsoft Office 2003 has been installed on my computer I can no longer
export, for example, the VAT summary to an Excel spreadsheet. It's my fault
really; I should have thought about the MYOB connection and prevented the
upgrade to Office 2003 (whose additional features I do not really need).I
eventually managed with the demo version of V13, which is usable for 30
days. The VAT report being due quarterly (in Switzerland) I guess I just
have to uninstall and reinstall this demo version every three months. Or
cave in and buy the upgrade.

Accounting software companies feel it is too much hassle improveming
their software significantly or to attract new customers so they are
trying to milk their current customer base by any means possible - as
you have found out!

 

[Troy Steadman]

Now that
Microsoft Office 2003 has been installed on my computer I can no longer
export, for example, the VAT summary to an Excel spreadsheet.

I find that very difficult to believe, try saving it to disk first, it
is likely to be some mapping problem rather than an incompatabilty
issue. New Excel has always been very good at importing Old Excel, as
well as Old Lotus etc.

It's my fault
really; I should have thought about the MYOB connection and prevented the
upgrade to Office 2003 (whose additional features I do not really need). I
eventually managed with the demo version of V13, which is usable for 30
days. The VAT report being due quarterly (in Switzerland) I guess I just
have to uninstall and reinstall this demo version every three months.

You have got to be kidding! If you reformat the computer or install it
to another computer, *maybe*, but you are dicing with losing or
corrupting your data.

They say you can keep some Sage demos going indefinitely by
CTRL-ALT-DELETEing out of them (they only update the 30 days when you
Exit), but it is difficult to remember to crash the computer each time
you finish )

Or cave in and buy the upgrade.

--

 

[Slartibartfast]

One problem is that MYOB does not publish updates to make previous versions
compatible with newer versions of Microsoft Word and Excel. Now that
Microsoft Office 2003 has been installed on my computer I can no longer
export, for example, the VAT summary to an Excel spreadsheet. It's my fault
really; I should have thought about the MYOB connection and prevented the
upgrade to Office 2003 (whose additional features I do not really need). I
eventually managed with the demo version of V13, which is usable for 30
days. The VAT report being due quarterly (in Switzerland) I guess I just
have to uninstall and reinstall this demo version every three months. Or
cave in and buy the upgrade.

Is it possible to run an older version of Excel on the same computer which
is running 2003?

If so, wouldn't that be a temporary solution?

 

[Jonathan Bryce]

Accounts programs at the lower end (Sage, QuickBooks, MYOB) are good
value for money to buy if you compare trying to use a spreadsheet but
upgrades are usually not worth it. Most concentrate on making their
programs look prettier or introduce tools that can be advertised
whether they are practical or not.

and changing the data format even if there isn't any new information being
stored in the file.

 

[Xakero]

Accounting software companies feel it is too much hassle improveming
their software significantly or to attract new customers so they are
trying to milk their current customer base by any means possible - as
you have found out!

Yesterday, I called MYOB UK, sales department, and tried to haggle about
the price of the upgrade -- a fruitless exercise, as had to be expected.
Nevertheless, the lady was very kind and helpful and suggested that I did
not need to upgrade if I had no use for the new features and that there is
no problem with upgrading later, after skipping many versions, as some
customers were, for example, now upgrading successfully from versions as old
as V6 to V13.

After I mentioned my problem with exporting data to the new Excel 2003 she
connected me to technical support and although I do not have a support
subscription (which would have cost another stately sum per year) that lady
checked to see if there was an update to my V10 to solve that problem;
unfortunately, the answer was negative.

 

[Xakero]

I find that very difficult to believe, try saving it to disk first, it
is likely to be some mapping problem rather than an incompatabilty
issue. New Excel has always been very good at importing Old Excel, as
well as Old Lotus etc.

Excel 2003 reads files created with older versions of Excel without problem,
including data exported by the older MYOB V10 to Excel 2000.

The installation routine of MYOB checks the presence of Word and Excel on my
PC and, finding them, gives me the option to select or deselect links
between MYOB and these Microsoft programs. Obviously, the MYOB program can
only check for versions of Excel that existed at the time that particular
version of MYOB was crated and during my installation there was Excel 2000,
the latest version at the time, on my PC. After uninstalltion and during
reinstallation, MYOB V10 did not recognise the new Excel 2003 on my PC and
therefore offered no link to it.

Before reinstalltion of MYOB V10, with the program running, when clicked on
the button to export data to Excel the program locked up.

Thinking about it now, I believe MYOB could have made it easier by offering
data export to a generic, comma-delimited data file, which could then be
opened by any past, present and future version of Excel and other
spreadsheet programs. But that would have eliminated an incentive to
upgrade.

 

[Xakero]

Is it possible to run an older version of Excel on the same computer which
is running 2003?

If so, wouldn't that be a temporary solution?

An interesting thought!

The installation of Office 2003 overwrote the pre-existing installation of
Office XP (2000). At one point during the installation, one could select
which components to install and at that point I could have chosen to
deselect Excel. The same installation program would allow me now to modify
the installation of Office 2003 and eliminate Excel, but I feel a little
uneasy about afterwards installing the older Excel 2000, which is part of
Office XP.

It would probably be safer to uninstall the whole Office 2003, install the
complete Office XP, then install Office 2003 over it, this time without
Excel.

On second -- or rather fifth -- thought I think I shall buy the MYOB upgrade
V13, after all. My current version 10 must be four or five years old and if
I average the upgrade cost of GBP 179 over that period it feels less
painful. And the new version does have one new feature that will come in
handy, and another that I should like to play around with. Charge it to
entertainment expenses

 

[Doug Ramage]

An interesting thought!

The installation of Office 2003 overwrote the pre-existing installation of
Office XP (2000). At one point during the installation, one could select
which components to install and at that point I could have chosen to
deselect Excel. The same installation program would allow me now to modify
the installation of Office 2003 and eliminate Excel, but I feel a little
uneasy about afterwards installing the older Excel 2000, which is part of
Office XP.

It would probably be safer to uninstall the whole Office 2003, install the
complete Office XP, then install Office 2003 over it, this time without
Excel.

On second -- or rather fifth -- thought I think I shall buy the MYOB upgrade
V13, after all. My current version 10 must be four or five years old and if
I average the upgrade cost of GBP 179 over that period it feels less
painful. And the new version does have one new feature that will come in
handy, and another that I should like to play around with. Charge it to
entertainment expenses

You could have a dual boot installation and run both Office 2003 and Office
XP?

 

[Troy Steadman]

Thinking about it now, I believe MYOB could have made it easier by offering
data export to a generic, comma-delimited data file, which could then be
opened by any past, present and future version of Excel and other
spreadsheet programs. But that would have eliminated an incentive to
upgrade.

That is so true it hurts! But don't forget *any* report than can be
printed to file can be parsed into Excel (Text to Column is another
phrase Excel uses for the same thing). My version of 2000 has some of
the parsing functionality *removed*:

big old widgets £10
marshmallows £20

....is clearly 2 columns, of course Excel parses it into 4 columns:

big / old / widgets / £10
marshmallows / / / £20

....in the past the unwanted columns could be clicked or dragged away,
now there seems to be no way of getting rid of them! Perhaps Martin
can throw some light on this unwanted and unexpected phenomeno-meneon.

 

[Tim]

... Excel 2000, which is part of Office XP.

Just one small point - Excel 2000 is *not* part of Office XP :-

Excel 2000 is part of Office *2000*.
Excel *2002* is part of Office XP.

 

[Xakero]

Just one small point - Excel 2000 is *not* part of Office XP :-

Excel 2000 is part of Office *2000*.
Excel *2002* is part of Office XP.

Oops! I got those numbers mixes up. I seem to hav been working with Office
XP for so long that I thought it was since the year 2000.