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My cloud experiences are with MYOB AccountRight Live –released November 2012 and Xero.  Bothare excellent products.

Xero is suitable forsmaller businesses – it doesn’t have the same functionality as MYOB AR Live butdoes the core financials easily and well. It has a basic payroll built withinit.  Users love the look of the product  and the ease of use. Xero does require user-training,but the company provides a number offree webinars as well as fee-based webinars. The online support is also verygood. However, for more complex businesses, Xero relies on a number of 3^rdparty products which can boost the monthly charge (eg there is no inventorytracking in Xero).

MYOB AccountRight Live looks and acts like the non-cloudproduct but also provides for live bank feeds. It has inventory, more advanced payroll and time billing, as well as thesame functionality as Xero.  One keystrength is that MYOB AR Live can be brought down onto the desktop as well asbeing hosted in the cloud. Anotherbenefit is that users do not need to retrain in order to use the product ifthey have previously used MYOB Accounting. There is 24/7 phone and onlinesupport available. MYOB AR Live is a more suitable solution for businesses withmore complex requirements.   

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Thanks Pam, for your very helpful observations. I find this a pertinent question for most businesses starting up. Let's see what other members of our community have to say too.

Commented by Phil Khor Founder and Director at SavvySME on 15/11/12

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I have a slightly different perspective on this from the previous reply. 

I agree that Xero is a core accounting solution, and that in areas such as inventory the user would normally implement an add on solution (eg Unleashed).  But the aggregate effect of this and other add on solutions makes Xero a suitable solution for most businesses (small through medium) that would also be considering MYOB.  I have a number of clients turning over more than $2M, one close to $10M, all running very happily on Xero (with various add ons as required).  Deciding which solution / combination of solutions is most appropriate for any given business though really has to be case by case.

AccountRight Live is a slightly different type of solution - part local / part cloud - software installed locally, data optionally held in the cloud.  With Xero, Saasu, etc you do not need to have any software installed locally, just a web browser and internet access.  With AR Live you to have the software installed on your local machine, which means you lose the "access anywhere" feature of cloud.  It also means the solution is not "cross platform compatible" - that is if you use a Mac & your accountant uses a PC you cannot both work on the same file.  I am not convinced that being able to work locally

I am hoping that AR Live delivers a competitive product for MYOB fans - over the past 2 years I have been installing new Xero's 10:1 over MYOB.  It would be great for all users if AR Live delivers.

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Hi, Aishah from MYOB. Excellent question here. We just launched ourAccountRight Live solution and the volume of interest has been awesome!

AR Live is a desktop+cloud solution that’s different to others outthere, and our solution was driven by research and clients’ demands. You canwork/collaborate online or offline. You simply install it on your computer asyou would any other app and you are good to go. Plus, AR Liveis a fully-featured accounting solution that doesn’trequire add-ons to do basic functions, such as payroll and inventory.

Some may argue it is not “access anywhere, anytime” because of thisinstall. But think of your daily routine. How often do you trust a computerother than your own with your business’s financial information? With laptops as cheap, as light and as powerful as they are today, themajority of people work from their own machine, even when on the road. 

Our research shows thatclients love having a local copy, and if your business does not use the cloudyet, AR Live lets you move online at your own pace. This is a big mission ofours: getting businesses to use accounting software – online or offline.

If you are anaccountant, you can now attend to an even wider range of clients through theone product, AR Live – those after an online solution and those preferring tostay on the desktop.

As for cross platformcompatibility, we are working on an elegant solution for Mac-based users toaccess AR Live, and we will definitely have more to announce in the future!

Meanwhile, our solutionLiveAccounts, which has been around for more than 2 years, is browser based andaccessible from any device that has Internet. It’s very well suited to Macusers.”