Published on the 21/03/2018 | Written by Jonathan Cotton
As accountants and bookkeepers wade deeper into advisor territory, MYOB looks to advise the advisors with free data crunching tool…
MYOB has launched MYOB Advisor, an AI-enabled tool designed to provide client BI data in an easy-to-use, consumable format to help accountants and bookkeepers provide better advisory services to their clients.
Xero and Intuit both have tools in this space, but MYOB says that this tool “goes beyond visual dashboards, charts and tables” using both AI and natural language generation to create descriptions of a business’ financial position which can then be customised by accountants and bookkeepers at will.
“MYOB Advisor allows accountants and bookkeepers to scale up their advisory services quickly and easily,” says the accompanying release.
“MYOB Advisor is integrated into the platform that partners currently use and turns data into written sentences to simply explain business performance.”
The product provides information on a client’s sales, cash flow, business expenses and debtor management, and offers bookkeepers the ability to create a ‘snapshot’ of a clients’ financial position, as well as boasting “deep integration” between the product and the MYOB platform in general. MYOB currently has over 40,000 accountants, bookkeepers and other consultants on the books.
The tool – which is free – is set for general release mid-2018, and will “revolutionise the way accountants and bookkeepers advise their clients” says the company, with CEO Tim Reed saying MYOB Advisor will help accountants meet the lucrative advisory market.
“We know that accountants and bookkeepers want to grow their advisory services, and MYOB Advisor is one way they can offer greater value to their clients…MYOB Advisor frees accountants and bookkeepers’ time while also assisting with actionable business outcomes.”
“We see the coming years as an exciting time for accountants, bookkeepers and small business,” says Reed. “The industry is transforming rapidly, bringing new ways for our partners and their clients to evolve with it and raising the bar for their own business success.”
The launch comes off the back of MYOB’s acquisition of Reckon’s Accountants Practice Management Division – including all clients, IP, systems and employees associated with Reckon’s accountant group – for AU$108 million last year.
At the time, Reed said the purchase was part of MYOB’s ‘Connected Practice’ concept – the company’s ‘vision’ whereby accountants “transcend their tax and compliance focus and become trusted business advisors”. Reckon’s accounting group products were across 3,000 Australiasian accounting practices at the time of the deal.
“This acquisition brings us closer to the delivery of our Connected Practice vision, which will see advisers and SMEs working seamlessly through a single platform enabling real-time collaboration and improved outcomes, including cost and time efficiencies,” said Reed at the time.
The announcement comes just weeks after Xero former head Rod Drury announced he was standing down from the CEO position, Australian IBM, Apple and Microsoft veteran, Steve Vamos. Drury will remain non-executive director of Xero.
