MYOB vs Reckon: Which Is Best For Aussie SMBs?

Both Reckon and MYOB are longstanding Australian-based accounting software companies that launched around the same time (back in the early 1990s).

Today, Reckon’s user base is significantly smaller than MYOB’s. 

Both feature in my roundup of the best accounting software in Australia, with MYOB beating Reckon as convincingly as Sinner beat Djokovic at Wimbledon this year.

Why?

Every gory detail is in the autopsy below, dear reader. I tested the platforms personally, and have a lot to say about both.

MYOB is clearly the superior choice. But this isn’t to say it’s perfect.

I identified a few “opportunities for improvement” that I discuss below, and hope the company addresses in the near future.

By the way, I explored the following plans:

MYOB vs Reckon: At A Glance.

You can’t deny that Reckon One is a decent online accounting tool, and less expensive than MYOB.

Its lowest tier is cheaper than MYOB’s lowest SMB offering (but not cheaper than MYOB’s app for sole operators).

And if you select Reckon One’s highest plans for accounting and payroll, the most you’ll pay is $95 per month.

While at the higher end of MYOB’s plans, AccountRight Plus is significantly dearer at $150 per month.

More features doesn’t automatically equal to better. Especially if you don’t need those features.

But in a head-to-head comparison, I found Reckon One’s interfaces clunkier and my time-to-value longer.

That matters — because switching providers down the track is a pain in the rear end.

Reckon and MYOB both allow for unlimited users, unlimited invoicing, expense management, bank transaction reconciliations, and reporting for both tax and performance management purposes.

While MYOB has always developed its own solutions, Reckon initially began as a reseller of QuickBooks, before developing and launching its own Reckon One cloud-based plans in 2014.

There’s more scope to scale up your online accounting needs over the four SMB plans offered by MYOB Business.

Let’s say you expand into exporting.

You can use AccountRight Premier to access multi-currency transactions and reporting, or even add another business and manage them both from a single online account (and one subscription).

Neither of which is possible with Reckon One’s plans.

The difference in maturity also shows when you compare available integrations and partner networks:

A clear area of weakness for MYOB is its mobile app functionality.

Reckon One’s native apps are better, but there’s only an app for invoicing and payroll — not a full-fledged mobile accounting solution.

1. Ease Of Use.

Simplicity is the name of the game in MYOB Business.

It’s easy to find what you need, and I also appreciated its detailed help articles that are formatted beautifully — more legible than most help content.

Confusing fields with little to no in-app explanatory text also made Reckon more perplexing.

Here’s an example: I created a few specific income categories to add to my Chart of Accounts in both platforms, to provide more granular details for performance reporting.

You’ll have to download a dedicated desktop-based app if you opt for its AccountRight Plus or AccountRight Premier plans.

Although you’ll be able to do the vast majority of everyday accounting through any browser. 

Reckon lets you drag-and-drop the modules on your online dashboard to reorganise what you see upon signing-in, and offers quick links to common tasks like creating a new invoice or bill.

Those would both be ‘nice-to-haves’ on MYOB.

It clearly shows outstanding amounts broken up by how overdue the invoices are (e.g., 1-15 days overdue, 16-30 days overdue).

You can click from here to go straight to your list of overdue invoices so you can take action.

Reckon One’s native mobile app for invoicing on-the-go is much higher-rated by users than MYOB’s invoicing app.

And having tried them both, I can say MYOB’s app is clearly worse from a usability standpoint.

You can’t use a calendar to select the invoice due date. There was no on-screen message to say my invoice had been sent successfully.

One plus is that the MYOB Invoice app also lets you create and send quotes via your phone.

And MYOB also offers a convenient native app for snapping pics of receipts for business expenses on-the-go, which is lacking in Reckon One.

2. Invoicing And Payments.

Invoicing in MYOB fits the bill.

Reckon’s invoicing interface isn’t hard to use exactly, but it is confusing. I wasted too much time getting the hang of it.

Some things I found exceptionally annoying about invoicing in Reckon (that aren’t a problem in MYOB):

Adding ‘items’ in Reckon isn’t difficult — but sometimes I want to just dash off a quick invoice for ad hoc work charged by the hour.

The links to actually send your invoice via email, or save it as a recurring invoice, aren’t as obvious in Reckon One as they are in MYOB.

In fact, you can’t even see the option to make the invoice a recurring one in Reckon until you’ve saved it.

As well as being more flexible, MYOB also makes it easy to adjust payment options and email reminder settings while you’re creating an invoice.

Reckon does offer automated payment reminder emails that can be applied under settings.

The new layout looks better and simplifies how you customise the fields/columns included on your invoice. But the other frustrations remain.

One nifty feature: Reckon lets your create your own ‘category’ of payment terms.

But you can’t save default terms for individual customers, which is a real time-saving benefit of using MYOB.

I didn’t like that the email customers receive when you send an invoice from Reckon One is plain text. It looks a lot less professional than MYOB’s neatly formatted message.

If you’re keen to add online payments to invoices so customers can immediately settle their bill using credit/debit card, that’s possible on both platforms.

MYOB has a more extensive range of payment options, including BPAY and a QR code link that’s added to the invoice PDF.

You can also set-up online payments within your MYOB account, while Reckon One requires connecting an account from a third-party provider: either PayPal or Braintree.

3. Payroll And Inventory Management.

Of the major accounting tools I’ve used, MYOB has been the best for inventory management, with the essential functionality you need to:

With all your stock tracked and minimum stock levels defined, you can regularly run a reorder report that alerts you to what goods are getting low.

You can then select items from the report and with a click generate a purchase order with the relevant supplier to ensure you won’t run out.

I could only find a couple of third-party Reckon integrations that handle inventory — ranging in price from $300 to over $1,000 annually.

MYOB and Reckon One are more on par when it comes to payroll features, although Reckon has the edge in terms of value, because its three payroll plans are optional.

For example, you can stay on Reckon One’s lowest-tier base plan (Accounting Plus) but scale up to the highest tier payroll plan (Payroll Premium) if your team expands rapidly and you need unlimited payroll.

MYOB includes payroll in all its SMB plans, but gives you the freedom to process pay runs for people as needed at a reasonable per-head cost.

Except on the highest tier (AccountRight Plus) where you don’t pay anything extra for unlimited payroll.

Importantly, you won’t hit a ceiling on how many people you can pay on either platform (and need to switch to a third-party solution) if headcount growth underpins your success.

Employees can track when they worked, or took leave, via Timesheets within Reckon One (Plus and Premium plans only) that you can approve/deny and then use to generate pay runs.

MYOB also enables time tracking for timesheet-based pays on its Pro and AccountRight Plus plans.

A flaw with Reckon One: no mobile time tracking.

MYOB has the advantage on this point, because it does have a dedicated mobile app for employees to track time.

A nice little bonus: MYOB gives you free access to a workplace benefits app, powered by Flare HR, which entitles your team to retail discounts, cash back offers, and financial wellbeing and mental health resources.

4. Reporting & Tax Management.

There will be less woe around taxes if you choose MYOB Business over Reckon One, because MYOB generates a pre-filled business activity statement (BAS) report you can lodge with the ATO straight from your account.

Of course, you can definitely calculate the GST/PAYG your business owes using Reckon One’s reports, to help you prepare your forms.

But a more automated process is appealing.

For budgets and performance reporting, both platforms do a credible job of generating the key reports:

But adjusting the data included to build out your own custom reports that you can save isn’t possible in Reckon One.

That would frustrate me no end if I had a particular view I wanted to return to over and over again.

5. Price.

Beyond the (generous) discounts that both platforms offer for first-time users, based on regular pricing Reckon One’s two tiers (without payroll) are cheaper than MYOB’s plans.

Reckon One is good value if you only need essential bookkeeping tools — and don’t expect to scale your operations or hire people in future.

Its lowest plan is just $22 per month, which is $12 cheaper than MYOB’s comparable plan aimed at SMBs.

Even if you only need to pay up to two employees, MYOB’s Business Lite plan is still more than the cost of combining Reckon One’s lowest plan and cheapest payroll plan (which lets you pay up to four people).

You’d pay $38 per month with MYOB vs $36/m on Reckon One.

Let’s compare the plan costs for an SMB with more advanced accounting requirements and the need to pay 12 people each month. You’ll pay:

As soon as you need to pay more than 16 people, MYOB becomes the more expensive option but its higher tiers are also more feature-rich for an organisation that’s increasing in complexity, which makes it good value for what you get.

My Conclusion.

Reckon One might be smart if you’re price sensitive and you find it ticks all your boxes.

But MYOB’s user experience is more effortless and I trust the company more to continue making improvements to modernise its product.

Here’s the sticking point.

There’s a reason that MYOB is still one of the largest and best-rated tools for small businesses, while Reckon is less prominent and seems to be in decline.

It comes down to being easier to wrangle and more elegant to engage with day-to-day. And I’d pay good money for that.

Jody