MYOB Incite 2020 – not just promises
I attend the annual MYOB Incite event in Melbourne today (6 Feb 2020). This event showcases software developments and major announcements to MYOB partners bookkeepers, accountants, and certified consultants. Blake Collins, GM of Partners, proudly announced
“2020 is the year the Connected Practice comes to life”
It didn’t disappoint judging by the applause of the crowd in the live demonstration of practice software later on.
Introducing MYOB CEO – Greg Ellis
New CEO, Greg Ellis, stamped his style in his opening address, providing his vision for the future. Faster deployment & development – a 90-day product enhancement delivery cycle, and a more reliable, relevant and robust platform. He also spoke about the three levels of the MYOB ecosystem, a tight platform of products and services designed to help small businesses succeed.
- Accounting software – fully integrated
- Financial services – tightly integrated
- Business applications – 3rd party plugins (apps) – 150 new apps in the relaunched MYOB app marketplace in March 2020
Ellis also confirmed that the MYOB partner community were at the centre of the MYOB strategy, that’s great news, evidence shows that small business who work with an advisor are more likely to succeed in business and 75% of SME want deeper relationships with the advisors.
His word of the day (which I had to go investigate and think about how to spell) disintermediation – which basically means the removal of intermediaries – he was proud to say that this WILL NOT happen at MYOB. Again this is great news for both partners and small business, many software brands proudly touting the “it’s easy, do it yourself” approach to bookkeeping and compliance, this may work for some business people who perhaps have a head for numbers or a background in finance, but in my experience over 20 years of assisting hundreds of small business, it’s a headache they don’t want.
All eyes will certainly be on MYOB over this coming year to see if the promises become reality.
Emerging Technologies – Dr. Catriona Wallace
Keynote Speaker, Dr. Catriona Wallace, founder of Flamingo AI and AFR Woman of Influence, delivered her emerging trends and future technology, what is it, the impact, the challenges, the feelings. One alarming statistic – 90% of the jobs removed by emerging technologies will impact women and minorities. We must look to the reskilling of these sectors now – the time is now to become tech-savvy.
MYOB Connected Practice
The first demonstration of product session was MYOB Practice Management solution – Connected Practice (CP), led by Amy Johnson – Head of Product (Accountants) & Anthony Bailey – Connected Practice Consultant it opened with research on where practices are spending their time and how with the time savings from automating the compliance workflow with CP firms will be able to attract new clients or dive deeper with existing clients and therefore increase revenue – what any business person loves to hear. Accountants in the auditorium were impressed with what’s already available in the workspace and client portals and what’s coming – however from a bookkeeper and certified consultant point of view – we were left waiting.
Introducing New MYOB Essentials
Dale Dixon – Head of Product and Jane Betschel Head of Marketing & Direct Sales stole the show with the unveiling of the New Essentials – a reimagined product to meet the needs of existing and future customers. With a new fast, responsive interface both on desktop and mobile, all new customers to MYOB will take advantage of the new rich feature set, releasing in March and existing customers will transition over the coming months.
So what’s new?
- Payroll – on par with the features available in AccountRight Live
- All new reporting – new reports (such as general ledger summary), fully customisable, and for advisors, template packs and the ability to customise reports, save and replicate across all client files. Also for advisors consolidated reporting across entities
- Dashboard – serving up business information with a clean, user-friendly interface at the click of a button
- Capture App – receipt capture direct to intray now has Matchmaker (described as the Tinder of receipt capture) it will match receipts to data in bank feeds – just swipe to accept – turn this feature on now from the settings cog in the app
- MYOB Teams – (in beta) – timesheets, rosters, employee self serve app, or kiosk, employer portal – automation of time capture at its source – this one is a game-changer and will be a huge winner for businesses who are still manual.
- Expanded App marketplace – as mentioned earlier another 150 apps will connect to Essentials, providing for the integration of business applications.
So that’s a wrap for MYOB Incite 2020, overall an exciting time ahead with some big changes and lots more announcements coming – every 90 days in fact!
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