Small-business accounting software company MYOB US has stayed in the ring with longtime sales leader QuickBooks ("Online and on the Money," February 20, 2001) mostly by offering additional features and an easy-to-navigate interface. Though QuickBooks has adopted a graphical interface that gets more complicated with each version, MYOB Plus Version 11's opening screen is simple by comparison. MYOB's menu screens are text-based, making them easy to navigate, whereas the latest version of QuickBooks is replete with icons, Web links, reminders, and reports.

Another feature unique to MYOB and not often found at this price point is multicurrency accounting, which lets users operate one business that spans several countries. Prior users of MYOB will find some terminology changes, such as Bank Register, which combines several of the checkbook and credit card– related functions in one spot. Version 11 also adds online banking capabilities; you can click on Get Statement after you download your banking transactions to your hard drive.

Installing and setting up a new company in MYOB involves picking a chart of accounts from a comprehensive list and telling the program what month to start with. You can choose to sort accounts by name or by number and report on all the data you've entered, using one of the 160 built-in reports.

MYOB's report customization feature is limited compared with QuickBooks', though; most reports can be customized only by choosing a date range or a different column on which to sort. The publisher has added invoice customization to this version, which is helpful for those using the Time and Material invoicing features. For more complicated reporting, MYOB has added an ODBC driver, allowing users to export live accounting data to other applications, such as Microsoft Excel or Seagate's Crystal Reports.

One small difficulty we experienced while testing MYOB is the way the menu choices bring up new windows. Clicking on a choice (such as Sales Register off the Sales Command Center) opens another screen directly over the previous menu. This means you can't have two Command Centers (such as Sales and Banking) open simultaneously.

This program has some keyboard shortcuts for the main functions, such as one for opening a particular command center, which means you don't have to use the mouse.

All in all, Version 11 is a worthy upgrade for current users. Satisfied QuickBooks users, however, should stay put.