MYOB Guide Explained

MYOB—Mind Your Own Business—is an accounting software suite built for small and medium enterprises that want to move beyond spreadsheets without hiring a full-time accountant.

From invoicing to payroll, inventory to BAS lodgement, it bundles every core bookkeeping function into a single dashboard.

Choosing the Right MYOB Flavour

MYOB Business Lite vs Pro vs AccountRight Plus

Lite suits freelancers who need unlimited invoicing and bank feeds but not payroll.

Pro adds employee management and advanced reporting for teams up to ten.

AccountRight Plus scales to unlimited users, multi-currency, and time-billing for professional services.

One-Time vs Subscription Licences

Perpetual licences still exist for AccountRight Premier but updates stop after three years.

Subscriptions include automatic compliance patches and cloud backups.

Most accountants now insist on subscription to ensure ATO SuperStream and STP alignment.

Initial Company File Setup

Chart of Accounts Customisation

Start with the industry template, then rename revenue accounts to match your exact product lines.

A café might split beverage, food, and merchandise sales so that Pareto analysis reveals the 20 % of SKUs driving 80 % of profit.

Opening Balances Without the Headache

Use the Conversion Balances screen to enter opening bank, receivable, and payable balances as of your start date.

If historical detail matters, import last year’s transactions via a QIF file instead of lump-sum balances.

This keeps comparative reports meaningful from day one.

Bank Feeds and Reconciliation Mastery

Connecting Secure Feeds

Enable two-factor authentication on your bank portal before linking the feed inside MYOB.

Feeds arrive overnight; match rules then auto-allocate 70 % of transactions if you set supplier keywords correctly.

Rule-Based Allocation

Create a rule that any transaction containing “Stripe” and ending in “Fee” hits Merchant Fees with 10 % GST.

For Uber Eats deposits, map the net amount to “Sales – Food Delivery” and the fee portion to “Platform Commission.”

This eliminates manual coding every morning.

Invoice Customisation That Gets Paid Faster

Branded Templates

Upload a 300-dpi logo and set brand colours via the Customise tab.

Embed a “Pay Now” button for Stripe or PayPal so clients settle within two clicks.

Automated Payment Reminders

Schedule polite reminders at seven and fourteen days past due.

Clients who receive automated nudges pay 37 % faster on average.

Pair reminders with a 2 % early-payment discount for invoices over $5,000 to accelerate cash flow.

Payroll Compliance Deep Dive

STP Phase 2 Requirements

MYOB pushes STP2 updates automatically; verify employee tax scales and country codes before 1 July.

Missing data triggers ATO validation errors that block payment summaries.

Leave Accrual Formulas

Set annual leave at 1/13th of hours worked for part-timers instead of a flat 152 hours per year.

This prevents over-accrual when staff change rosters mid-year.

Run an Entitlement Balance report quarterly to spot negative balances before they become disputes.

Inventory Management Secrets

Item Auto-Build Kits

A surf shop bundles a board, leash, and wax into one SKU called “Beginner Package.”

MYOB explodes the kit at sale time, reducing individual component stock levels automatically.

Landed Cost Tracking

Allocate freight, duty, and insurance to individual items using the Landed Cost screen.

This reveals true gross margin per product instead of relying on a blanket freight percentage.

Now you can raise prices on low-margin SKUs before they silently erode profit.

Advanced Reporting Workflows

Customising the P&L by Location

Turn on Categories to tag transactions by branch or truck route.

Filter the Profit & Loss to show each food truck’s contribution to total revenue.

A mobile pizza operator discovered the CBD truck earned 42 % more per hour than the beach van and redeployed resources accordingly.

Cash Flow Forecasting

Link outstanding invoices and purchase orders to the Cash Flow Forecast report.

The graph flags a $30,000 shortfall in eight weeks, giving you time to negotiate supplier terms or line of credit.

Export the forecast to Excel to overlay seasonal adjustments like Christmas spikes.

BAS and GST Automation

Tax Code Consistency Checks

Run the GST Exception report monthly to spot transactions coded FRE instead of GST.

A plumbing firm found $8,200 of unclaimed credits by fixing mis-coded subcontractor bills.

BASlink for Paperless Lodgement

BASlink pulls figures directly from the General Ledger into the ATO portal.

Review the reconciliation worksheet to ensure PAYG instalments match the ATO pre-fill.

Submit and receive an ATO receipt within two minutes, eliminating the old “print-sign-scan” loop.

Multi-Currency Handling

Realised vs Unrealised Gains

MYOB calculates unrealised gains on open invoices at month-end using the closing exchange rate.

When a USD invoice is paid, the system posts the realised gain or loss to the currency account.

Lock periods to prevent accidental edits after the revaluation journal is posted.

Hedging Documentation

Attach forward-exchange contracts to supplier cards under the Notes tab.

This creates an audit trail proving the hedge relationship for ATO transfer-pricing reviews.

Third-Party Integrations

E-commerce Sync

Connect Shopify via the MYOB App Store to push daily sales and inventory adjustments.

Map Shopify payment gateway fees to a clearing account, then reconcile against the actual bank deposit.

CRM Link

Integrate HubSpot so that accepted quotes auto-convert into MYOB invoices.

The sales team sees real-time outstanding balances without leaving the CRM.

This reduces double data entry and prevents credit holds on overdue accounts.

Security and User Access

Role-Based Permissions

Create a “Sales Clerk” role that can raise invoices but not view payroll or bank accounts.

Enable two-factor authentication for all admin accounts, enforced via Google Authenticator.

Audit Trail Best Practice

Turn on Transaction Journals so every edit leaves a digital fingerprint with username and timestamp.

Export the audit log to CSV monthly and store offline to satisfy insurance requirements.

If a rogue employee deletes an invoice, the journal pinpoints exact timing for legal recovery.

Cloud Backups and Disaster Recovery

Automated Nightly Snapshots

MYOB AccountRight saves three rolling backups to the cloud at 2 a.m. local time.

Restore any snapshot within fifteen minutes through the File > Restore menu.

Local Parity Backup

Set a Windows Task Scheduler script to copy the .myox file to an external SSD at 5 p.m.

Store the drive off-site in a fireproof safe to protect against ransomware attacks.

Test the restore procedure quarterly to ensure the backup is not corrupt.

Year-End Close Checklist

Pre-June Housekeeping

Reconcile every bank and credit card account to the penny.

Run the Aged Receivables report and write off bad debts before 30 June to claim GST adjustments.

Payroll Reconciliation

Confirm that gross wages in the Profit & Loss equal the sum of payroll register totals.

Any variance usually points to a manual journal that bypassed the payroll module.

Lock the Period

Once the accountant signs off, lock the financial year to prevent accidental changes.

Create a new company file archive labelled “FY2024 Final” and store it on two media types.

Troubleshooting Common Errors

Error -25 and Database Corruption

This error appears when the company file index is damaged.

Run the MYOB File Check utility, then Optimise to rebuild indexes.

Always work off a local file; network dropouts during posting are the leading cause.

Payroll Overpayment Recovery

Use a negative wage category called “Pay Recovery” to claw back net overpayments in the next pay run.

p>This keeps the employee’s YTD figures accurate without editing prior periods.

Future-Proofing Your MYOB Stack

AI Receipt Scanning

Enable the MYOB Capture app so staff photograph receipts on the go.

The OCR learns your supplier names and suggests account codes after three uses.

API Expansion

MYOB’s open API now supports custom webhooks; a logistics firm feeds GPS data to automatically log fuel expenses against each truck.

Early adopters are already using this to build real-time job-cost dashboards.