General > General Technical Chat
OT: MYOB threaten to delete my records
EEVblog:
For those who don't know, MYOB is an online small business accounting system in Australia, the defacto standard here.
I just got notice that my account is shut down, presumably at my request, which of course I didn't.
I can't login to access any of my accounting/tax data except for invoices, two of which were unpaid because they failed to inform me my credit card had expired. So presumably that's the reason the account was shut down. Ok, fair enough. But I can't pay for those outstanding invoices, it doesn't let me!
And the attached email informs me that they don't hold backups of my data, and that they may take steps to "delete your file permanently from our servers after a short period. "
And of course I can't backup my data because I don't have access to it any more |O
:wtf:
How is a company like this still in business in this market?
AND they deleted my Facebook post on their page complaining about this!
asmi:
This is exactly why I use offline accounting system which is running on a laptop purchased specifically for this function and not used for anything else. And continue resisting attempts by QuickBooks to move me to online version. No way am I going to trust them (or anyone else for that matter) with safety of the data that I'm mandated by the government to preserve for 7 years and present to them on short notice if audit shows up at my door.
TerraHertz:
Sounds like the 'games as a service' scam all over again.
My ex-wife (recently deceased) was signed up with a self-managed superfund. They provided an account in which to keep the funds. She finally read the fine print and discovered a clause that the SMSF company reserved the right to simply take all the money if they felt like it. She wasn't amused, and went to a great deal of trouble to convert the whole thing to a different form, in which the funds sat in a real bank account only she could access. But with the SMSF still providing the legal and accounting support.
I didn't have the heart to tell her that banks have such 'bail in' clauses too.
Oh, and if you own any actual physical gold? The government has a law in place by which they can take that too, any time they decide they want to. Check out the Australian Banking Act, section about gold.
mag_therm:
I tried on-line accounting services , but for many years I have been using gnucash locally.
It is a bit clunky but reliable, and I only use the functions really needed.
The data from business bank accounts etc is transferred via downloaded csv etc files , so it is well isolated from them.
It make a single backup file after each use, which I transfer to backup media from time to time.
By the way, Terra's reference to "superfund" in Australia means a qualified retirement account.
In USA it refers to legislation requiring contaminated industrial sites to be cleaned up. (!!)
edy:
I second the opinion... Stick to offline open-source software multi-platform software which you have absolute control over. Personally I am using GNUCash (https://www.gnucash.org/), because it is available for Linux which is my main working environment... but it is also available for BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows. Best of all, it is completely FREE and Open Source licensed under GPL.
At first your accountant may scoff or raise an eyebrow at GNUCash as they can't believe free small-business level accounting software is any good. Your bookkeeper may also complain because they are used to using other stuff (like Quickbooks). However, once you have learned how to use it (and there are lots of free books available) it is quite powerful. I've been running 2 quite large businesses on it no problem for several years. My accountant or bookkeeper can install the Windows version if needed and I can easily send them my files that I use on Linux, and we can interchange files.
The best (but biggest) book out there is:
https://www.packtpub.com/product/gnucash-2-4-small-business-accounting-beginner-s-guide/9781849513869
If you Google "Gnucash 2.4 Small Business Accounting PDF" you will probably find some ebooks floating around to browse but please consider compensating this author for this excellent book. Note that GNUCash is up to version 4.0 now but all of the basics are still applicable and everything you learn on v2.4 will help you still on 4.0.
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