MYOB fights to save
another client
Tax agent dumps software |
|
| The Daily Telegraph |
Thursday, August 16, 2001 |
MYOB is striving
to avoid losing another major client, Sydney's largest stand-alone
accounting practice. Fed up with awaiting help for up to five hours
on an MYOB telephone hotline, Kamper & Co partner Bill Kamper earlier
this month sent a harshly worded email to the tax software company's
chief executive, Craig Winkler.
Mr Kamper later told The Daily Telegraph he sent the message after
working, in some instances, until dawn on a growing backlog of individual
tax returns and Business Activity Statements. Problems with MYOB's
Accountants Office software were exacerbating the situation. The package
often corrupted and failed to function properly in a network environment.
Kamper & Co has licences to use Accountants Office on about 20 terminals
at any one time. The city's largest independent tax lodger files 14,000
tax returns a year.
In his email, Mr Kamper said that following a partnership meeting
Kamper & Co had decided to buy an alternative package to process returns.
Kamper & Co's new software comes from Catsoft. The practice intends
to run it while MYOB attempts to fix Accountants Office. Mr Winkler
himself had phoned twice, apologising for the problems. And on Friday,
the head of MYOB Sydney and a programmer from Melbourne visited the
Kamper & Co Rocky Point Rd practice in southern Sydney for three hours.
Continuing changes to the tax system, plus software glitches, have
meant Mr Kamper has rarely left work before 1am this past year. He
could not recall the last time he did not work on Saturday. "The profession
is getting hammered," Mr Kamper said. "There are a lot of health problems."
Last month The Telegraph reported H&R Block, which prepares 500,000
returns a year, had ditched MYOB because of ongoing data-transfer
difficulties. In a related move, the Tax Office earlier this month
said it had extended by a fortnight the deadline for tax agents to
electronically lodge June quarter business activity statements because
of problems with accounting packages, including MYOB's. |
|
