MACWORLD Expo - QuickBooks Users Rejoice! MYOB to answer Prayers!

by , 10:15 AM EDT, July 20th, 2000

Finally, what appears to be the answer to every abandoned QuickBooks user's prayers! MYOB held a press conference at MACWORLD Expo today to show off their new product, Account Edge. With this product, MYOB is now catering to the small business crowd using a "non-accountants" approach and streamlined interface. Perhaps accounting will once again be fun on the Mac. Supporting business sizes from a sole proprietorship to one with 20 employees, AccountEdge has all the functionality of everything fun from MYOB's current products rebuilt from the ground up with a new user interface that's "OS X-Ready".

This product, a follow-up to MYOB Accounting Plus v9 which was released in 1999, will be a complete business management solution for users of Mac OS 8.6 and greater, including the upcoming Mac OS X. This is especially good news for the Macintosh market, which Intuit abandoned with the last release of QuickBooks back in 1997. The package will includes such features as Sales, Purchasing, Inventory, Time Billing, Payroll, Checking, a Card File and General Ledger. One feature of note (and note this carefully): it will offer seamless upgrades for existing QuickBooks for Mac datafiles!

One of the more notable features is the Card File, which contains all the information you'd ever want keep track of for customers, vendors, employees and personal contacts. The Card File will let you call a particular contact at any one of three phone numbers. The Card file contains a Contact Log, so you can keep track of conversations and commitments with another individual or company. You can send an e-mail to a contact, and refer to it at a later date if desired. Essentially, this product will offer complete contact management, tickler files, and accounting, all wrapped together.

The Invoice and Checkbook Registers are features making their first appearance in AccountEdge. The Invoice Register will keep track of the exact status of a customer's account, where you can see open invoices, orders, quotes, credits and recurring charges. Likewise, the Checkbook Register will let you keep track of all your checking information in one place. Customers' individual settings are retained, and the software will remember whether a customer prefers fax, mail, e-mail or even PDF invoices and reports. Once selected, it will then generate those reports in the proper format and send them out for you.

Apple is behind MYOB 100% on this, as was evidenced by the appearance of Clent Richardson, Apple's VP of WorldWide Developer Relations. According to Clent, Apple is partnering with MYOB to ensure that their customers have a future with accounting management that will extend to Mac OS X and beyond. Tom Nash, MYOB's Director of Product Management said, "Apple's support in this has been fantastic."

AccountEdge is in testing stages now, and will be released fall of 2000. The current price point is set at US$249.00, and upgrades for current MYOB customers will be set at an as-of-yet undetermined price.

The Mac Observer Spin:

It is just fantastic to see more support for small business on the Mac, both from 3rd party vendors and from Apple themselves. This kind of commitment and product shows that the Mac's future is a strong one.

MYOB