Forum Discussion

Community Manager

9 days ago

Community Guidelines Update: Making Your Feedback Count

Hi everybody,

Over the last 4-6 months, I am hearing and seeing a lot of frustration from Community Members about changes MYOB is making. I want to acknowledge that frustration, let you know what I'm doing about it, and explain why I'm now taking a firmer stance on enforcing our community guidelines.

Guidelines Enforcement

Our Community Forum Guidelines exist to ensure this remains a helpful space for everyone. I believe customers need a space to provide feedback on our business - both positive and constructive.
However, inflammatory and repetitive posts make it harder for that feedback to reach decision-makers effectively.
Inflammatory posts can contain things like:

Excessive use of CAPS LOCK
Encouraging others to leave MYOB
Inflammatory and misleading words like 'grift, blackmail, BS'
Curse words (these are typically edited out but should not be used to begin with)
Abusing moderators or community members

Why These Guidelines Matter

I'm in this job because I think it's important to give customers space to tell us what's great, and what isn't about our business (including the changes we make).
MYOB is continuously investing in, and improving as business evolves, this leads to a lot of changes. Your feedback is crucial to getting that balance right.
But that feedback is most valuable when it's specific, constructive, and respectful.

When discussions become heated or repetitive:

Others can't find useful information
The environment becomes unwelcoming
Decision-makers are less likely to take feedback seriously
Our time goes to moderating members instead of helping resolve issues

What Will Happen Going Forward

Effective immediately:

Posts breaching guidelines will be removed with a warning
Further breaches = three-month suspension
Continued breaches after suspension = permanent block

How to Make Your Feedback Count

Let me illustrate with an example. Imagine this made-up music streaming service called "TuneTime" has just announced they're charging $14 for each international song played using their streaming service.

Here are two ways to provide feedback:

❌ Not So Helpful:

"TuneTime has LOST THEIR MINDS with this DAYLIGHT ROBBERY!!! $14 PER SONG?!?! What's next, charging us for BREATHING OXYGEN while we listen?? The CEO must be building a GOLD-PLATED YACHT with our money!!! I'm cancelling RIGHT NOW and telling EVERYONE I KNOW to do the same!!! #TuneTimeIsOverParty"

When this kind of feedback comes in, we can tell the team that you're really upset, that it's hurting your business, and that you're saying it a lot in different places. But it doesn't give me much to work with in terms of proving what's causing that impact or how widespread the problem is.

✅ Helpful:

"The new $14 fee per international song on TuneTime creates three specific challenges for my café business:

FACTS: We play background music for 8 hours daily, averaging 160 songs. About 70% (112 songs) are international, meaning our daily cost would jump from $15/day to $1,583/day.
IMPACT: This 10,453% increase would cost us $577,795 annually, exceeding our entire annual profit. We'd either need to stop playing music or raise all menu prices by approximately 15%.
RESOLUTION: Could TuneTime consider a business subscription model with unlimited plays for a reasonable monthly fee? Or perhaps a tiered pricing structure based on business size/revenue?"

Now we can still convey that it's upsetting, but I also have cold, hard facts that are very difficult to argue with. When multiple community members add their voices with additional specific examples like:

"I run a gym where we play 300 songs daily"
"I'm a wedding DJ and this would increase my client costs by $2,800 per event,"

This creates a powerful dataset that strengthens the argument significantly.

Join the Constructive Conversation

I encourage you to share your experiences with our software, and with changes that are introduced by MYOB. By using this Facts-Impact-Resolution format, your specific examples help us build a stronger case for improvement.

Thank you for being part of our community, and for your understanding as we work through these changes together

5 Replies

pippypip
Trusted Cover User
8 days ago
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I do try to be respectful but its frustrating when we continuously get generic responses or zero response. There are a number of issues / bugs raised over the last couple of years since essentials had been discontinued that still have not been attended to. I feel that MYOB are not interested in fixing some of these problems or are putting their efforts elsewhere and expect us to just work around, or just put up and shut up in the hope that we just give up. A couple issues I have raised have been acknowledged but no time line given for the fixes and still after over 12 months, nothing. As a provider of services myself, I find its important to listen to my customers. How long do I wait before I re raise an issue that has obviously not been actioned or forgotten about or maybe put in the too hard basket. Yes, I do get frustrated, but I'm paying for a service and I sometimes feel that service isn't there. Sometimes these forums (rightly or wrongly) can be a way to vent our frustration especially when trying to get help and you feel that your not been listened to.
Mike_MYOB
Community Manager
9 days ago
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Hi H-TS , thanks for the comment.

I know that the summary has been mentioned multiple times in the community, and this has definitely been presented to our product team via the ideas exchange feedback loop.
But I will connect with the product manager and try to understand if there is anything more specific I can share.

I can say that any lack of action would not because MYOB doesn't care, but I can also understand how it would feel that way.
In some cases, we don't have the capacity to make additional code changes due to other work going on, or potentially the change is intentional due to a positive impact somewhere else in the workflow.
*I don't if either of these apply in this scenario, or maybe its door number 3, but just highlighting some possible reasons why changes are not always made right away.

I will circle back on your ideas exchange post about the summary once I have an update from the Product manager
Thanks, Mike
- Jo15
  Experienced Cover User
  8 days ago
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  Mike!
  How about getting the Product Manager in the forum!
  - Mike_MYOB
    Community Manager
    8 days ago
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    Hi Jo15 , great suggestion!
    
    Bringing the Product Managers into the community forum is one of the initiatives that Amanda and I have in place for 2025.
    
    Once per month we will spotlight a different Product manager.
    February we had: Harry > Procure to Pay (sales)
    March we had: Malinda > Core accounting and Banking workflows
    
    I would LOVE to see more questions asked of the product managers when we open the Q&A boards.
    Keep an eye out for April when we will have the product manager for NZ Payroll.
    
    The product manager relevant to invoicing will feature later in the year, but that doesn't mean they aren't spending time here or getting feedback/ideas.
    
    Check out the Product Manager spotlight board here:
    Product Manager Q&A | MYOB Community
H-TS
Trusted User
9 days ago
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Hi Mike,
I appreciate the effort and this post. I try to be respectful but man it's hard when the responses we get from MYOB seem to be "we have decided to do this and don't really care if it causes problems for you". In this case, I'm not talking about the secure payments but rather the invoice summary cover emails, and the inability to opt out of the 'link to myob' feature. Both of these provide our internal accounting breakdowns to our clients, information we don't wish for them to see, and MYOB won't even acknowledge that this is a breach of our privacy. For the link to MYOB, we can't even find out which customers have linked their files to ours. :(
We're simply told that we're not using the software the way it's been designed and therefore it's not MYOB's fault or problem. This is also unfortunate, because our ability to send an invoice to a customer with a lump sum and not show our breakdown is one of the few remaining features keeping us with MYOB rather than your competitors. Every time there's an update, I dread finding out that one or more of these few features have been removed.

FACT: The invoice summary can't be changed and doesn't suit our invoice style or templates. We have no way of stopping clients from using the link to myob option, or finding out who they are.

IMPACT: When sending invoices from AccountRight we look careless and unprofessional because of the enforced formatting. Our hope is that our clients think this is a MYOB glitch and not a reflection on us.

RESOLUTION: Many issues would be avoided if there were options to "include invoice summary in cover email" and "allow customers to link to MYOB". I would turn them both off in a heartbeat and my frustration levels would drop to mildly simmering instead of ready to boil over at the next tiny annoyance.