MYOB BusinessBasics

There's an email facility for sending invoices, quotes and any other reports you fancy in PDF format - you can also save printouts as HTML. Add to this an integrated contact-management option with cards for suppliers, employees and personal contacts and you have far more than you might have thought when first approaching the software.

What you don't get is a purchase ledger with the ability to track supplier accounts; being aimed at small businesses, perhaps MYOB presumes that your purchases will be mostly down the local cash and carry. You can invoice items from a product file, but there's no stock control of quantities in and out as such - although you do get a neat history of sales with number sold and total value each month.

If you do need to upgrade, MYOB Accounting can add supplier tracking, payroll and full stock control without the need to re-enter your BusinessBasics data. Plus, if you fancy multi-currency, multi-user capability, time billing and quantity break discounting then Accounting Plus should also be on your upgrade list.

BusinessBasics is a new direction for MYOB, and with the existing software upgrade path already in place it's hard to see any risk involved in giving it a try. There's more on the menu than appears immediately obvious, but you only need to implement the bits you find useful and the software is so forgiving there's no need to be nervous about making mistakes - an ideal first-time bookkeeping package.

Author: Tim Woodward