There must be something enormously reassuring about launching your software with the suffix 'version 14' on the end. Either you've been pulling the wool over a lot of eyes for a lot of years or you've got your product right.

MYOB has been well-respected accounting software for a long while now. A more serious contender than the higher-end versions of Microsoft Money, and a cheaper prospect historically than the Sage packages, it has competed right there in the middle with Intuit's Quickbooks.

A word of caution is required. This is not personal finance software, but if you're running a small or medium-sized business, you want to keep financial control, run your payroll and you don't want to employ a full-time bookkeeper, then you're in luck.

There are three price points for MYOB. Businessbasics retails at £79 and will do your basic bookkeeping. Accounting comes in around £235 and adds stock control and job management to the basic financial tools. Accounting Plus ambitiously takes on the whole job.

Accounts, banking, sales ledger, customer management, purchase ledger and payroll are in place. Job management and costing are in place, with a 'time billing' feature (because you need to know the cost and therefore the bottom line on every job you do).

There is also an accounting 'to do' list and you can run graphs and reports, feeding financial information back into the business. Nobody wants the accountants to run the firm (unless it's a firm of accountants) but the philosophy is to take a continuous pulse of how the business is doing.

The business world is full of companies which thought they were doing fine but went bust, not because they ignored the bottom line but because they didn't know how to find it.

We're delighted to see that MYOB hasn't played around with the look and feel. All versions of the package are not only quick and easy to install, but bring you straight into the almost comically simple interface.

The software has eight areas: accounts, banking, sales, time billing, purchases, payroll, stock control and the card file. Click on one and an idiot-proof flow chart shows you the process. So, time billing is a simple matter of Enter Activity Slip > Prepare Time Billing Invoice > (log it in the) Transaction Journal and so on.

We think MYOB has hit the button here. Accounting is basically a collection of transactions, each a very simple series of flow processes, with double entry ensuring it adds up and is seen to add up. Where the confusion comes is that there may be thousands of these transactions, the visible evidence being the pile of paper on your desk.

So the package keeps things simple. The lower half of the interface is dedicated to finding stuff, and working with the figures already in the system. So we have the to do list, find transaction, reports, analysis and that's it. The figures go in at the top of the page; they come out at the bottom. Drill within of course and things get a lot more sophisticated.

We're also very impressed by the way MYOB has beefed up the reports. Information is everything and you now have access to it all, including future dated transactions, recurring transactions lists and recurring pay information.

We won't list them all, but the point is that MYOB is now allowing you to sort the information you're acquiring in detail, as your firm amasses more business transactions.

A simple interface conceals powerful and useful database muscle. This means that, as well as performing day-to-day money management, MYOB Accounting Plus 14 will let your company see where it's going, avoiding the rocks on the way.

Contact:
Myob 0845 130 3975
www.myob.com

System Requirements:

• Pentium 200MHz PC or compatible
• Minimum 32MB of Ram
• Windows 98 or later
• 50MB of hard disk space for installation, plus 35MB per company file
• 16bit colour monitor
• Internet access
• Internet Explorer 5 or later