BusinessBasics

Getting Started Tutorial

 2

Welcome
Welcome! This tutorial will give you a quick introduction to
MYOB BusinessBasics, and help you understand a few
accounting concepts along the way.
Working through this tutorial We encourage you to set aside
some time to complete this tutorial. You don’t need to complete
all the exercises in one go. However, keep in mind that most
exercises in this tutorial build on the ones before them, and
therefore must be completed sequentially. For example, you
need to complete Exercise 1 (Receive Money) before completing
Exercise 3 (Reconcile your bank account). You can stop the
tutorial at any time and return to it later. The changes you make
to the company file will be saved automatically.
page and the Home button to go to the beginning of the
tutorial. You can also go directly to an exercise or topic by using
the contents panel in Acrobat Reader.
If the screenshots are not clear, try selecting 200% as the zoom in
the toolbar.
Your monitor’s screen resolution and colour settings determine
how the screenshots will appear.
Printing this tutorial While this tutorial has been designed to
be viewed on screen, you can also print it. You should be able to
fit two tutorial pages on an A4 page (portrait orientation) if your
printer has this feature.

Viewing this tutorial This tutorial is designed to be viewed

using Adobe Acrobat Reader. When using Acrobat Reader, you
can click the navigation buttons at the bottom of every page to
move through the tutorial. Use the Forward button to move
to the next page, the Back button to move to the previous

The Company File
The first step to using MYOB BusinessBasics is to create a
company file, give it a name and save it on your computer.
Your company file contains all the information that you enter in
MYOB BusinessBasics. While some information is stored in other
folders on your hard drive (for example, customised reports are
saved in the Custom sub-folder on your hard drive), the actual
records and transactions are stored in your company file.
The tutorial company file
For the purpose of this tutorial, we have already created a
company file. This file is called tutorial.dat.
Open the tutorial file To open the tutorial company file, start
MYOB BusinessBasics and click Open in the Welcome window.
Open the folder that contains the tutorial company file and
double-click the file. A data verification message appears. Click
Yes to check the file for errors, and then click OK. When the
verification procedure is complete, click OK.
3
Protecting your company file
As your company file contains your important accounting
information, it is vital that you protect it accordingly. Use the
tools in MYOB BusinessBasics to ensure your company file is
protected and that it is running at peak performance.
Back up your company file Use the Backup command to
regularly make copies of your company file to a CD, zip disk or
floppy disks. If your company file gets corrupted or is stolen, you
will then have a recent copy of your file to continue from.
Check your company file for errors You should routinely
check your company file for data corruption. Depending on your
preference setting, you will be prompted to run the Verify
Company File command each time you open your company file
and also before backing up data.
Optimise your company file Use the Optimisation Assistant
to keep your company file running at peak performance.
 Navigating your MYOB software — 4

Navigating your MYOB software

Using MYOB BusinessBasics is easy, but you should be familiar
with the icons and keyboard commands used in MYOB
BusinessBasics that can help you complete tasks quickly.

The command centre The command centre is the central

location for MYOB functions, such as sales, banking and
accounts.
The icons at the top of the window represent the various
command centres in MYOB BusinessBasics. You can move from
one command centre to another by clicking these icons. The
Sales command centre is shown here.
Notice when you click an icon, the functions of that particular
command centre appear in the flowchart below the icons.
From the command centre you can quickly access the reports
and transactions you require.

The Lists menu As you set up MYOB BusinessBasics, you will
be entering details in many lists, for example, the Cards List, the
Accounts List and the Jobs List.
These lists are all located in the Lists menu, accessible from the
main menu bar at the top of the MYOB BusinessBasics window.
Zoom arrows These are displayed next to various fields
throughout your MYOB software, and allow you to see more
detail about a transaction or record.
5
A white zoom arrow indicates that you can make changes to the
detail of the transaction or record.
A grey zoom arrow indicates that either it is not possible to edit
the details, or you do not allow editing of transactions once
recorded. (You can change this preference in the Security view of
the Preferences window.)
Search icons These allow you to open a search list window
that contains records you’ve previously entered in MYOB
BusinessBasics, such as customers or shipping methods. You can
then select a record from the search list.
zoom arrow
search icon

Calendar Selecting the dates to enter in the Date fields is easy
with the MYOB BusinessBasics calendar. Press SPACE, + or - in any
Date field and a calendar will appear from which you can select
the date to use. You can use the + and - keys on your keyboard’s
number pad to scroll through the days and then press ENTER to
select the date.
Tab keys Pressing the TAB key will move you from one field to
the next in a window. Pressing SHIFT+TAB will move you back a
field.
Navigating your MYOB software — 6
Shortcut keys There are shortcut keys for most windows in
MYOB BusinessBasics. For example, to access the Cards List,
press CTRL+F on your keyboard. To view the available shortcut
keys, have a look through the menus in the main menu bar and
each window or function that has a shortcut key will display the
keys to press.
Enter key You can customise the way you use the ENTER key in
MYOB BusinessBasics in the Preferences window (go to the
Setup menu, choose Preferences and then click the Windows
tab).
 Setting up Accounts — 7

Setting up Accounts
The Accounts List Your company file contains the Accounts To access the Accounts List of your tutorial company file,
List, which is a group of categories used for organising the 1 Go to the Accounts command centre.
accounting entries of your business.
2 Click Accounts List. The Accounts List window appears.
When you create the company file, you have the option of
importing an accounts list from your accountant, building one
from scratch or starting off with one of the many preset accounts
lists provided. You can then customise it to suit your business,
adding the accounts you need and deleting the ones you are not
likely to use.
 8

Account types Your Accounts List contains six types of Click the zoom arrow next to the Cheque Account. A window
accounts: similar to the one shown below appears.
• Assets (1-)
• Liabilities (2-)
• Equity (3-)
• Income (4-)
• Cost of Sales (5-)
• Expenses (6-)
The Cheque Account is an example of an asset account. The
Cheque Account is where your business keeps its operating
money. This money is owned by the business and, in accounting
terms, this type of account is classified as an asset.
While you can choose to search for and select accounts based on
their account name, when setting up accounts, you also need to
provide an account number. In the tutorial company file, the
Cheque Account has an account number of 1-1110. The prefix 1-
indicates it is an asset, and 1110 determines the position of this
account in your Accounts List.
 Setting up Accounts — 9

Linked accounts When viewing the Accounts List, you may

have noticed that some accounts have an asterisk in the Linked
column. This indicates that the account is used by MYOB
BusinessBasics as a default account for a particular function.
For example, notice that the Cheque Account is the linked
account for customer receipts. This means that when entering
customer payments, the Cheque Account will be the default
account used for receiving the payments. You can change this by
clicking the zoom arrow next to the linked account description.
You can also view and edit the linked accounts by going to the
Setup menu, choosing Linked Accounts and choosing either
Accounts & Banking Accounts or Sales Accounts.
Note that changing linked accounts will not affect any
transactions that have already been recorded - the change will
apply to any new transactions that you enter.
 Spending and Receiving Money — 10

Spending and Receiving Money

It’s simple to track the money you spend and receive in MYOB
BusinessBasics. The Spend Money and Receive Money
functions can be found in the Bank Register, which can be
accessed from the Banking command centre:
• You can use the Spend Money function to record
payments for purchases and expenses.
• You can use the Receive Money function to transfer
money between your bank accounts, record interest or
record the miscellaneous cash receipts you receive.
To ensure you have accurately entered your transactions, you
can reconcile MYOB BusinessBasics’ accounts with your bank
statement using the Reconcile Accounts function, which is also
found in the Banking command centre.
 11

The Bank Register The Bank Register is a central location

from which you can spend or receive money, add cash sales and
1
enter payments for invoices made using the Sales feature.
There are three main sections in the Bank Register window:
1 Account Selection: Use the top part of the Bank Register to 2
select the account to make the payment from or to, to select
the date range to use when displaying transactions in the
middle section of the window, and to import an electronic 3
bank statement.
2 Account Details: The middle section of the Bank Register
displays all the transactions made in the selected account for
the selected period. Each transaction has a zoom arrow that
you can click to see the original transaction window.
3 Transaction Details: Create a new transaction by selecting
the appropriate transaction type and then entering the
details of the transaction. To enter a complex or detailed
transaction, click Split.

Exercise 1— Receive money
Let’s assume you need to deposit $30,000 cash in the business
cheque account to fund the initial activities of the business.
1 Go to the Banking command centre and click Bank
Register. The Bank Register window appears.
2 Select the account you want to deposit the money into, by
typing Cheque Account in the Account field at the top of
the window. After entering the first few letters, the account
name should appear in full. Press TAB to accept the account.
3 Select Receive Money from the Type drop-down list.
4 Enter 7/12/02 in the Date field and press TAB. You could also
use the calendar to select this date by pressing the SPACE bar
on your keyboard when the mouse cursor is in the Date field.
Spending and Receiving Money — 12
Note: If you are completing this tutorial before 7/12/2002
and receive a date warning, click OK to ignore the message.
The Card field is where you can record the writer of the
cheque. We will leave it blank in our example, so press TAB.
5 Enter 30,000 in the Amount field (simply enter 30000 and
the amount will be formatted correctly).
6 Tab to the Account field. Here you specify an account to
reflect the increase in the cheque account selected at the top
of the window.
In accounting terms, you are increasing the equity or your
share of the business; therefore, an appropriate account to
use would be the Partner A Capital account (an equity
account).
 Spending and Receiving Money — 13

If you can’t recall the account name you need to enter in the When using BASlink, accessible from the Accounts command
Account field, press TAB to display the Select from List centre, link the tax codes to the appropriate fields on the activity
window. Double-click the equity account named Partner A statements. BASlink will then complete the fields by processing
Capital (note that the list is sorted by account type, and then the transactions that have been allocated to the tax codes.
by account name). The Bank Register window is updated.
7 Tab to the Memo field and type Initial funding of the
business.

The N-T (Not Reportable) tax code is automatically selected.

This is the correct tax code to use as capital contributions are
8 Click Record. The entry is saved and the window cleared.
not normally reported on the activity statements.
Congratulations on completing the first entry in this Tutorial!
About Tax Codes Each transaction you enter in MYOB
BusinessBasics requires a tax code. If a transaction does not affect Review Let’s see how this transaction affects your accounts:
the BAS or IAS, choose N-T (Not Reportable).
• The balance of Cheque Account (asset) is now $30,000.
If a transaction needs to be reflected on your activity statement,
choose the appropriate tax code, for example, GST (Goods &
• The balance of Partner A Capital (equity) is now $30,000.
Services Tax), FRE (GST-free), CAP (Capital Acquisitions), or INP Your business now has $30,000 worth of assets, and your share of
(Input Tax). the business (equity) has increased by $30,000. Notice that there
You can review the tax codes set up in your company file by
are two entries for this transaction. Accountants call this
going to the Lists menu and choosing Tax Codes. double-entry accounting.
 Spending and Receiving Money — 14

Exercise 2—Spend money

You now have money to buy furniture and equipment. You buy
a desk, a chair and a photocopier for $5,500 from Acme Business
Supplies.
To record the purchase:
1 Select Spend Money from the Type drop-down list in the
Bank Register.

(If you closed the Bank Register in the previous exercise, go

to the Banking command centre, click Bank Register, and
make sure that the Cheque Account is selected in the
Account field at the top of the window).
4 Click New. The Card Information window appears.
2 Enter 9/12/02 in the Date field and press TAB. 5 Complete the Profile view of the Card Information window
3 Type Acme Business Supplies in the Card field and press as shown below. Make sure the card type is set to Supplier.
TAB. Since you don’t have a record for Acme Business
Supplies, the Select from List window appears.

By creating a card for Acme Business Supplies, you can track
payments made to this supplier, and easily enter other
payments for the supplier in the future.
6 Click OK to close this window and TAB to the Amount field
in the Bank Register.
7 Enter 5500 and press TAB twice.
9 Since an account is required in the Account field, the Select
from List window appears. Locate and double-click the
Spending and Receiving Money — 15
Office Equipment at Cost account (an asset account). You
will return to the Bank Register window.
Tip If there are multiple payments that you want to include on
a Spend Money transaction, click Split. The Spend Money
window will appear into which you can ‘split’ the total amount
into its relevant accounts.
10 Tab to the Tax field. As the payment is for the purchase of
capital equipment, and the $5,500 includes GST, replace the
default N-T tax code with CAP (Capital Acquisitions). Type
CAP in the Tax field and press TAB.
11 Tab to the Memo field and enter a description of the
transaction, for example, Purchased a desk, chair and
photocopier.
12 Click Record. The cheque is saved in your company file.
13 Click Close to return to the Banking command centre.
 Spending and Receiving Money — 16

Exercise 3—Reconcile your bank account

Note In this tutorial, assume that the opening balance of the
It is good business practice to reconcile your bank statement bank account is zero, and that there are no unpresented cheques
with your accounts in MYOB BusinessBasics at least monthly. or deposits that haven’t been credited. If this were not the case,
The frequency with which you need to do this depends on the you would have to set up the bank account before completing
volume of transactions that go through the accounts. the first month’s reconciliation. See your User Guide’s Setting Up
chapter for more information.
Reconciling simply means ensuring that the transactions
entered in MYOB BusinessBasics match the bank statement;
Let’s reconcile the cheque account used so far in this tutorial.
reconciling can help you pick up any errors made either by the
Although you have entered only two transactions, this will serve
bank or by the person entering the data in MYOB BusinessBasics.
as an example of how spending and receiving cash relate to
You can reconcile bank accounts in MYOB BusinessBasics by account reconciliation.
either importing a bank statement into your company file using
In this example, assume that you are registered with your bank’s
the Get Statement feature, or by manually reconciling each
online banking service and you are able to download electronic
recorded transaction with those on a paper statement.
bank statements from the website.
The Get Statement feature (which enables the importing and
An electronic bank statement is provided with this tutorial — the
automatic matching of transactions) is especially useful when
file name is anz.qif — and you will use this file in this exercise.
you have a long list of transactions in your statement that need
to be matched with your company file records.
 Spending and Receiving Money — 17

The statement covers the period from 1/12/2002 to 31/12/2002,
the closing balance is $24,495, and the statement includes the
following three transactions:
• A deposit of $30,000
• A cheque for $5,500
• A bank charge of $5
To reconcile your cheque account:
1 Display the Reconcile Accounts window. To do this, go to
the Banking command centre and click Reconcile
Accounts.
2 Type Cheque Account in the Account field.
4 Tab to the Bank Statement Date field and enter 31/12/02.
Press TAB.
Notice that the out of balance amount is –$24,495, and that
the two transactions you have entered appear in the scrolling
list. (Only transactions dated on or before the Bank
Statement Date will appear.)
5 Click Get Statement. The Open window appears.
Locate and open the anz.qif file that was provided with
this tutorial. The Unmatched Statement Transactions
window appears.

3 Tab to the New Statement Balance field and enter $24,495.

You need to know this closing balance in order to reconcile
the account, and you can determine this from your online
banking website or the paper copy of the statement.

This window shows that the statement has three
transactions, two of which were automatically matched with
the transactions recorded in your company file (the $30,000
deposit and the cheque for $5,500).
The window also shows that one transaction in the
statement could not be matched — a bank charge of $5.00.
This indicates that the bank’s records differ from yours by
Spending and Receiving Money — 18
$5.00. To correct this, you need to add the bank charge to
your records.
6 With the Bank Charge line highlighted, click Add
Transaction. The Spend Money window appears.
Notice that most of the details — the date, amount and
memo have been filled in automatically. You only need to
provide the account details that explain the transaction.
7 Click in the first row of the Account Name column and click
the search icon. The Select from List window appears.
Highlight the Bank Charges expense account and click Use
Account. The Spend Money window reappears.
 Spending and Receiving Money — 19

8 Tab to the Amount column, and $5.00 appears 11 Click Reconcile to complete the reconciliation process for
automatically. this account. A dialog appears. You can print the
Reconciliation report for your records or just click Reconcile
9 Tab to the Tax column and replace N-T with FRE (GST-free).
again to finish.
Bank Charges Note that bank charges that are charged by
the bank, such as account keeping fees are GST-free (use the FRE
code), while government charges, such as BAD, are not
reportable on the activity statements (use the N-T code).

10 Click Record. The Unmatched Statement Transactions

window appears and it now reads, “All of your transactions
match!”. Click Done.
Notice that three transactions now appear in the Reconcile
Accounts window and that they have been marked as
Cleared (a cross appears for each transaction).

12 Click Cancel to return to the Banking command centre.

Notice also that the out of balance amount is $0.00. This

means that your account now reconciles with the bank’s
records— Congratulations!

Entering Sales and Payments
The Sales command centre has very flexible invoicing and
payment options available for your business needs.
Entering Sales and Payments — 20
You can enter quotes and invoices in the Service, Item,
Professional and Miscellaneous layout windows.
Customer payments for invoices need to be entered using the
Receive Payment function located in the Sales Register and in
the Bank Register, (don’t use the Receive Money function).
The Sales Register gives you quick access to all your sales,
including closed sales and outstanding credits.
 21

Exercise 4—Making a sale

1 Go to the Sales command centre and click Sales Register.
The All Sales view of the Sales Register appears.
2 Click New Sale. The Sales window appears.
3 Type Widget Eaters Limited in the Customer field and
press TAB. The Select from List window appears. A record for
this customer does not exist so we need to create one.
4 Click New. The Card Information window appears. Press
TAB and complete the fields in the Profile view as shown.

You will now make a sale to Widget Eaters Limited for some
advertising work that has been completed this week. You will
also receive the payment for the sale, and handle an
overpayment.
 Entering Sales and Payments — 22

5 Click OK to return to the Sales window. Press TAB to fill in the

customer’s details automatically. Default Tax Codes Notice that the GST code is automatically
selected. GST is the default tax code for this account. You can set
6 Mark the Tax Inclusive checkbox if it’s not already marked. a default tax code for each account in your Accounts List. Simply
go to the Accounts List, click the zoom arrow of an account for
which you want to specify a default tax code and select the tax
code to use.
7 Enter 9/12/02 in the Date field.

8 Tab to the Description column. You will add a header called

Graphic Design. To do this, go to the Edit menu and choose
Insert Header.
9 Type Graphic Design and press TAB to go to the next line.
10 Type 4 page product brochure and press TAB. 13 As you have entered all the information you need on the
invoice, click Record.
11 Type Creative Income in the Account field and press TAB
In this example, the optional fields below the body of the
twice.
invoice have not been completed, but these can be useful if
12 Type 300 in the Amount field and press TAB until you get to you need to show this information on the printed invoice.
the next row of the invoice. As the Tax Inclusive checkbox is
marked, and the tax code used for the account is set to GST,
it is assumed that the $300 includes 10% GST ($27.27).
 Entering Sales and Payments — 23

Review Let’s have a quick look at the accounting entries that

Tips To make a quote, go to the top left drop-down menu of have been made for this sale.
the Sales window and select Quote instead of Invoice.
1 Go to the Sales command centre and click Transaction
Quotes can be converted to invoices by viewing the Quotes view
Journal.
of the Sales Register and clicking Change to Invoice.
2 Enter 9/12/02 in both date fields and press TAB. The ‘debits’
You can add or delete lines and add subtotals to a sale by
and ‘credits’ of the sale you just entered will appear:
choosing the appropriate option in the Edit menu.
You can also display the Sales window by pressing CTRL+J in the
command centre.
E-mail your invoices by clicking Send To and selecting E-mail
from the list that appears.
Enter cash sales using the Bank Register, but note that the
• The first two lines reflect the amounts receivable from
invoice cannot be printed. Simply select Enter Sales from the
Widget Eaters Limited as a result of the sale— the tax
Type drop-down list and enter the details. exclusive sale amount and the GST. In this company file,
Enter the default sales settings for your customers (for example,
the Trade Debtors account has been set up as the linked
the sale layout and the income account to use) in the Selling account for tracking receivables, and it keeps track of the
Details view of each customer card. money owed to you by all your customers.
• The third entry reflects the GST exclusive sale amount.
• The fourth entry reflects the GST that is payable to the
Australian Taxation Office and it is allocated to the
linked account for tracking GST collected on sales.
 Entering Sales and Payments — 24

Exercise 5—Receiving Payments

You receive a cheque for $330 from Widget Eaters Limited as
payment for the graphic design work. You notice that the
customer has overpaid you by $30.
5 Enter 20/12/02 in the Date field.
At this point, you could either create a credit note that will be
applied against future invoices or refund the amount.
You decide to refund the $30. This exercise looks at entering the 6 Enter the amount of $330 in the Amount Received field.
payment and also creating a credit note for the refund amount.
1 Go to Sales Register in the Sales command centre and click
the Open Invoices tab.
7 Enter Cheque in the Payment Method field and click
2 Enter 1/12/2002 and 31/12/2002 in the date fields and press Details. Enter 12345 as the cheque number and click OK.
TAB. The invoice you created in the previous exercise is listed.

3 Highlight the invoice and click Receive Payment. The

Receive Payments window appears.
4 Make sure the Deposit to Account radio button is selected
and that Cheque Account appears in the adjacent field. We
want to deposit the payment to our cheque account.
8 Tab to the Amount Applied column. The amount $300.00
appears against the invoice. To handle the overpayment,
simply delete the $300 appearing in the Amount Applied
field, enter the full amount received ($330) and press TAB.

(The Out of Balance field should now display $0.)
9 Click Record. MYOB BusinessBasics recognises that there has
been an overpayment for this invoice (the amount applied to
the invoice is greater than the amount outstanding). A credit
note will be created for the customer.
10 Click OK to close the message. A credit note of $30 is created.
In the next exercise you will refund the amount.
Entering Sales and Payments — 25
Tips Payments can also be entered in the Bank Register. Select
Receive Payment from the Type drop-down list and enter the
details.
Credit notes may be required even when the customer has not
overpaid you - for example, they may require a refund when they
have been overcharged. In these situations, you can create a
credit note for the customer that can either by applied to an
existing invoice or refunded to the customer. To do this, simply
create a new sale for the customer and enter the refund amount
in the Amount column as a negative value (for example,
-50.00). When you record the sale, it appears in the Returns &
Credits view of the Sales Register.
 Entering Sales and Payments — 26

Exercise 6—Paying a refund

You now want to refund the customer for the $30 overpayment.
You created a credit note in the previous exercise, and you can
now settle that credit note.
1 Go to the Sales Register and click the Returns & Credits tab.
The credit note of $30 appears in the scrolling list.
2 Highlight the credit note and click Pay Refund. The Settle
Returns & Credits window appears.
3 Change the date of the cheque to 20/12/02.

4 Click Record. The refunded amount has now been reflected

in your MYOB BusinessBasics records.
 27

Customising and Printing Forms

Forms are the invoices, cheques and statements that you print
using MYOB BusinessBasics. You can customise the way your
forms look, for example, by adding a logo or adding and
removing text.
If you have used simple drawing programs, you should be
comfortable using the Customise Forms window.
This section gives a brief introduction to how forms can be
customised and printed. For complete information on
customising forms, we recommend that you refer to your MYOB
BusinessBasics User Guide or MYOB Help.
 Customising and Printing Forms — 28

Form ‘templates’ are saved on your hard drive in a folder called Exercise 7—Customise a form
Forms. This folder must always be located within the folder in
1 Click Print Invoices in the Sales command centre. Make the
which MYOB BusinessBasics has been installed. selections shown below in the Forms Selection window.
You can have a number of templates for each form type—for
example, you could have one invoice form template for quotes
and another for standard invoices.
You can access the templates from the Print functions in the
command centres. For example, to access your Invoice form
2 Click the Selected Form for Sale search icon. Select the Plain
templates, click Print Invoices in the Sales command centre and
Paper Invoice and click Use Form. This template has been
the Forms Selection window appears.
pre-customised to fit on plain A4 paper.
Let’s assume customer Widget Eaters Limited has requested an
invoice for their records showing that their previous sale has
been paid in full.
In the following exercises, you will be customising the invoice 3 Click Customise. The Customise Service Sales window
form and then printing a ‘closed’ invoice for Widget Eaters. appears.
 Customising and Printing Forms — 29

field name. You can change the font, size and position of the
fields by double-clicking them.
Active and inactive fields—Active fields are printed on the
form; inactive fields are not printed and appear in dim text
in the Customise window. Data fields can be made active or
inactive. Text fields cannot be made inactive—they can only
be deleted.
Form size—You can change how many forms you want
printed per page and set the page size using the Forms Info
option in the Form menu that appears in the menu bar
during customisation.
You will customise the form by doing the following:

This window contains a number of field types that you need • Resize, move and format the Company Address field.
to be aware of before you begin customising the form: • Inactivate the Company Name field that currently
Text fields—These are fields that you can ‘create’ using the appears on the invoice.
Text tool in the Tool palette. To edit existing text fields, • Add the Aardvark logo.
double-click them.
Data fields—These are preset fields on the invoice that are
automatically filled when the invoice is printed. At the
customising stage, data fields appear with brackets and the
 Customising and Printing Forms — 30

Exercise 7.1—Resize and move the Company Address

field
1 Click the [Company Address] data field once, and it is
outlined with a black rectangle. A handle (a small black box)
appears in the lower right-hand corner of the rectangle.
Using the mouse, drag the handle up to reduce the height of
the field by approximately half its original size.
2 Now click the [Company Address] data field and hold the
mouse button down. The pointer changes to a hand. Drag
the mouse down and release the mouse button when the
field is just above the ABN field.
The Customise window should now look like the second
screenshot shown here.

Tip Another, more precise way to change the size and location
of the field is to double-click it and change the coordinates in the
Field Information window.
 Customising and Printing Forms — 31

Exercise 7.2—Change the Font of the Company

Address field

1 Double-click the [Company Address] data field. The Field

Information window appears.
2 Change the font size and styles to those shown in this
screenshot and then click OK.

Change the font and paragraph properties of the Company Address field and make the
Company Name field inactive.

Exercise 7.4—Add the business logo

You will now place the business logo in the space above the
Company Address field.
Exercise 7.3—Make the Company Name field inactive
1 Click the Picture tool in the Tool palette once.
1 Double-click the [Company Name] data field to display the
Field Information window. 2 Click once anywhere on the form. A new field is created with
a picture frame as the default graphic. Double-click the
2 Click the Field is Active checkbox so that the tick is cleared.
graphic.
Click OK. The form should now look like the following
screenshot.
 Customising and Printing Forms — 32

You will be importing a graphic into the form. (An alternative 5 Click OK. The form should now appear as shown.
would be to copy the logo to the clipboard using a graphics
program and then paste it in your form by clicking Paste
Picture.)
3 Click Load Picture. Locate and select the aardvark.bmp file
that was provided with this tutorial and click Open.
When you return to the Field Information window, you will
see a preview of the image you are importing.
4 Change the Field Location to 0.45 cm from the top and 1.50
cm from the left (or 0.18 and 0.6 inches) and set the Field
Size (the graphic’s size) to approximately 2.15 cm high by
5.73 cm wide (or 0.86 and 2.29 inches).
 Customising and Printing Forms — 33

Exercise 7.5—Save and print the form

You can now save this form to our Forms folder on the hard
drive (located within the program folder, eg c:\MYOB\Forms).
Click Save Form As in the Customise window.
You will be prompted to give the form template a name and
description. Choose names that make sense to you. We have
used ‘Test’ as the name and ‘Tutorial Exercise’ as the description.
The name will appear in the Selected Form for Sale field in the
Forms Selection window and will become the default form for
printing service invoices (unless you have specified the form to
use for each customer in the Selling Details view of their card
file).
Click OK, and then click Cancel to close the Customise window Save the form on your hard drive. It will appear in the Selected Form for Sale list in the
and to return to the Forms Selection window. Forms Selection window.

Note When you make a change to a form template, you

should back up or make a copy of the template file (stored in the
Forms folder) to avoid accidentally replacing it or losing it.
 Customising and Printing Forms — 34

Let’s print the service invoice you created earlier in the tutorial
using the form template you customised.
1 In the Forms Selection window, select Service from the
Form Layout drop-down list and select Closed from the Sale
Status drop-down list.
2 Make sure the Selected Form for Sale field shows the
template name you customised, which in your case is “Test”.
3 Click OK. The Review Sales Before Printing window
appears, with the Widget Eaters’ invoice listed. Notice that
you can select how many copies of the invoice you want to
print from this window.

4 Click Print to choose your printer options and print the

invoice using the customised form.
You’ll notice that the form you customised is still very plain
looking, so experiment with the other customisation tools
available in the Customise Sales window to get the look you
want.
 35

Viewing, Printing and Sending Reports

Reports in MYOB BusinessBasics are easy to read and easy to Exercise 8—Preparing and sending a report
customise. From the simple Bank Register report to the more
1 Go to the Reports menu and choose Index to Reports. The
advanced GST reports, MYOB BusinessBasics reports are able to Index to Reports window appears.
provide you with the information you need in the format you
2 Click the Banking tab to view a list of the bank-related
need it.
reports.
Now that you’ve entered a few transactions into the Tutorial file,
generate a report showing details of these transactions.
Assume that your accountant wants a report from you that
shows your cheque account transactions for the month of
December 2002.
 Viewing, Printing and Sending Reports — 36

3 Highlight the Bank Register report and click Customise. The

Report Customisation window appears.
4 Enter Cheque Account in the Selected field.

5 Enter 1/12/02 and 31/12/02 in the Date fields.

7 Click Design. The Report Design window appears. This
window allows you to add or remove columns from the
report and to also change the position of the columns.
8 Click in the Display column next to the Src row to deselect
6 Click Format. The Report Format window appears. This this row.
window allows you to change the look of the report. Set the
report name’s font style to italic. Make sure Report is selected
in the Report Line drop-down list and then set the style to
Italic. Click OK.

9 Click and drag the Payee row up in the list to position it after
the ID# row.
 Viewing, Printing and Sending Reports — 37

Click OK.
10 Click Display and the report will appear on screen. The
report should display all transactions that affected the
cheque account for the month of December. Notice that the
report name has the italic style, and the Payee column
appears after the ID column.

Tip You can view the original transactions behind the report
lines, by clicking on a transaction row. The original window for
the transaction appears.
 Viewing, Printing and Sending Reports — 38

11 The accountant wants you to send the report via e-mail.

Click Send To in the Screen Report window and choose
E-mail from the list that appears.

12 The E-mail window appears, into which you can enter your
accountant’s e-mail address, the subject and message.
When you click Send, the report will be saved as a PDF file
(viewable using Adobe Acrobat Reader), and is automatically
attached to an e-mail message. This message will appear in
the ‘Outbox’ folder of your e-mail software, ready to be sent
the next time you’re online.
For the purposes of this tutorial, press Cancel instead of
Send.
13 Click Close to return to the Index to Reports window, and
click Close again to return to the command centre.
Tip To save any report customisation that you do, click Save As
in the Screen Report window. Give the customised report a new
name and description. To re-use the customised report, access it
from the Custom view of the Index to Reports window.
 39

Congratulations!
You have now completed this tutorial. By now you should be If you need further assistance, call MYOB’s expert Technical
able to find your way around the command centres and know Support team. See your Getting Started guide for more
where to enter your daily transactions. information on getting technical support.
Sometimes you may need assistance that cannot be reasonably
Where do you go from here? Well, start by having a look at
completed on the phone with a support representative.
your MYOB BusinessBasicsUser Guide, which contains the basic
Remember that you can contact an MYOB Certified Consultant
information you need to set up and run MYOB BusinessBasics on
to help you onsite. We have included a Certified Consultants
a day to day basis.
directory with your software—contact them and find out more
For detailed information about every task you can perform using about how they can help you Mind Your Own Business!
MYOB BusinessBasics, use MYOB Help, the comprehensive
online help system. You can access MYOB Help from the Help
menu.