Manita's avatar
Manita
Member
1 month ago
Status:
New

Request to Reinstate Offline Backup Functionality in MYOB AccountRight

Dear MYOB Product Team,

I am writing on behalf of our accounting practice regarding the recent removal of the offline backup function in MYOB AccountRight 2026.5.

We are extremely concerned that the ability to create and retain our own offline backups has been removed. As a professional accounting practice, we have always maintained independent backups of our clients' MYOB company files as part of our disaster recovery procedures, business continuity planning, and professional risk management obligations.

While we appreciate the convenience of cloud backups, they should complement—not replace—the ability for users to maintain their own offline backups. Relying solely on cloud-stored backups does not meet the needs of many accounting firms, particularly where we have established backup policies, regulatory obligations, cyber security requirements, and the need to retain historical versions for extended periods.

Removing the offline backup option has created a number of concerns, including:

  • Loss of an independently controlled backup that can be stored within our own backup systems.
  • Increased reliance on MYOB's cloud services for disaster recovery.
  • Difficulty maintaining long-term archival copies in accordance with our firm's policies.
  • Additional business continuity risks should internet access or cloud services become unavailable.
  • Reduced confidence in our ability to recover client data quickly and independently.

We respectfully request that MYOB reinstate the option to create offline backups to a user-selected location, such as a local drive, network drive, or external backup device. This functionality has been relied upon by accounting firms for many years and remains an essential feature for professional practices.

If there are technical or strategic reasons for the recent change, we would appreciate a detailed explanation and any alternative solution that provides the same level of control and independence over our backups.

We value MYOB and have supported the platform for many years. However, we believe this change represents a significant reduction in functionality for professional users and hope that MYOB will reconsider its decision.

Thank you for taking the time to consider our feedback. We look forward to your response.

Kind regards

Manita

13 Comments

  • Mike_MYOB's avatar
    Mike_MYOB
    Community Manager
    27 days ago

    Hi PF_1​ , this isn't something available via a link, you will need to connect with our support team to request it.
    This isn't/wasn't a service used very often before now, so it is definitely something I will hope that we can improve as a service if it will be used more often.

    I think that if you are wanting to take the offline backup now/today, you can still do this by installing the MSI version of 2026.5 from our downloads page  *this wont be possible after 2026.5 though I believe

  • PF_1's avatar
    PF_1
    Experienced Cover User
    27 days ago

    Hi Mike

    I can't find a way to request a cloud back up file.  How long does it take?  Can I please have a link.

  • Mike_MYOB's avatar
    Mike_MYOB
    Community Manager
    1 month ago

    Hi Manita​ , thanks for the post, there has been a lot of discussion about offline backups on the forum. 

    The reason for the change was a technical one, the underlying technology that the offline capability ran from was unsupported and it was important that we moved off this.

    We ran a trial of the automatic online backups earlier in the year with a very successful adoption rate, but there was even at that time some negative discourse around this change.
    At the time, the option to change settings to take a manual offline backup still existed and a small number opted to do this.

    Then the change to removing offline capability occurred in June, and with it the ability to take an offline backup. I do think that the majority of customers have a concern with the loss of offline backups, more than they do with the offline capability (especially when there are still options to do this like using Server Edition)

    What I can say, is that I/we hear you. I am working very closely with the product manager of AccountRight around the feedback for offline backups. I have also been able to connect him with a community member for an interview about their feedback.

    The ability to take (and subsequently view) an offline backup is important to customers and I can say that we are looking into possible solutions for this. I cant promise any change at this stage, but we are listening and will be investigating solutions. 

    Please note the solutions may not mean that the ability to take and view an offline backup will exist, but a solution, if found, would solve the problem customers have around ownership of their data and the ability to view it for audits and record keeping.