Acclipse ruffles feathers with new software

Thursday, 11 March 2010 1 Comment

Accounting software provider Acclipse is openly taking on one of the big players in this space, MYOB, and ruffled a few feathers in the process.

Acclipse has been touring the country promoting its new online tax solution aiming at MYOB's customers.

The promotion of Acclipse Tax makes many comparisons to MYOB Tax which MYOB chief executive Julian Smith says are completely untrue.

One is around the development of software and another concerns getting access to IRD files and statements.

Acclipse chief executive Mike Chisholm says all current tax software was designed and developed more than 20 years ago with MYOB Accountants Office Tax being first launched in 1989 from CA-Systems.

"The main specification for tax management back then was based on Inland Revenue's paper system where tax statements were delivered six to eight weeks after transactions."

Acclipse says this is a complete reversal from how tax works today, so it decided to write completely new tax software.

However Smith says this is an incorrect statement from Acclipse as MYOB invests more than $30 million each year into research and development for its accounting solutions in Australia and New Zealand.

He says MYOB expects to release a new accountant office tax solution in the first quarter of next year.

He says MYOB's tax system is not based on Inland Revenue's paper system as every year MYOB is working with 2,200 accounting practices and it electronically files more than 1.4 million tax returns directly into Inland Revenue's systems.

"MYOB pioneered the development of the e-file system with Inland Revenue to significantly reduce the paperwork burden that accountants experience."

Smith also questions Acclipse's ability to automatically import statement transactions from Inland Revenue as MYOB was told it could not do so because it would take down Inland Revenues infrastructure with so many clients.

However, IRD told NetProphet.co.nz that it is allowed statement downloads under certain circumstances.

"We're not saying no, but we want to be able to control access to ensure our system is solid," an IRD spokesman says.

Inland Revenue says it is working on developing its website to be able to handle importing of statement transactions in the long run, but in the meantime it needs to be controlled.

It says any companies wishing to use automatic tools on the Inland Revenue website should talk to them first.

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