Following up on other concerned users;
What concerns me isn’t whether MYOB’s cloud is secure. I’m sure they invest heavily in protecting customer data.
My concern is business continuity and data ownership.
For decades we’ve all been taught to follow sound backup practices: maintain multiple copies of critical data and avoid relying on a single source. The Australian Cyber Security Centre also advocates maintaining resilient backup strategies as part of good cyber security practice.
That’s why services such as Dropbox, SharePoint and OneDrive all continue to provide offline synchronisation. They don’t assume their cloud should be your only copy.
At present I’m using AccountRight Server Edition because it still allows me to maintain local MYOX backups. If that capability disappears, then MYOB effectively becomes the sole custodian of my accounting data.
Imagine a major outage, an account access issue, or even a significant cyber incident affecting the platform. With a current local backup and a compatible version of AccountRight, I could continue operating while the issue was resolved. Without that option, my business continuity is entirely dependent on MYOB.
This isn’t about distrusting MYOB. It’s about following a backup strategy that has served businesses well for decades: don’t rely on a single source of truth for mission-critical data.
One thing I do wonder is where this ultimately leads.
First, offline company files disappear. Now the traditional backup workflow is becoming increasingly restricted. (Not to mention the wonderful SSO feature 😄)
I sincerely hope the ability to maintain an independent backup doesn’t eventually become a premium feature or disappear altogether. At the moment that’s only a concern, not a prediction, but recent changes make me wonder what the long-term strategy is.
For many of us, customer-controlled backups aren’t a convenience, they’re a fundamental part of business continuity and disaster recovery. If not also a regulatory requirement.
And....., I still can't email customer payment receipts!
