Payroll transactions visible to unauthorised employees in Bank Register

[Bil]

Our company has been long-time users of MYOB accounting software for 20 years. About two years ago, we upgraded from MYOB Premier 19 to AccountRight Premier cloud based.

In our old PC based Premier 19, only the Administrator and employees given the Payroll authorization could see paycheque transactions in the Bank Register. Employees without Payroll authorization that were given Bank authorization could see all deposits and cheques in the Bank Register except pay cheques. They were just invisible (although the balance shown was correct--just not the Payroll transactions). This was perfect--just the way we want it.

We upgraded to AccountRight Premier a couple of years ago and gave employees the same relevent Bank authority and kept the Payroll access to just the Administrator and Manager (same as in Premier 19). However I just discovered that employees without the Payroll user access can now see the Payroll cheque transactions in the Bank Register Window. If they try to open one, it gives and error stating: "Sorry you don't have access..." but these employees can still see the details of the Paychecque in the Bank Register window.

This is WRONG and very different to the way Premier worked?!!!!

How can I ensure that employees who do not have Payroll access cannot see these payroll cheques in the Bank Register (the way Premier 19 used to handle it).

This is URGENT!!!! Confidential information about other employee pays are able to be seen by unauthorised employees!!!!

[Steven_M]

Hi @Bil

AccountRight 2016 user access is based around if you can access the window you do have access to see all transactions and options within that window. For example if a user has access to the Bank Register Window that particular user can see all banking transactions i.e. they can see whether it was a Withdrawal or Deposit and the value of that transaction. If the user was to select and attempt to open that transaction to a window that don't have access to i.e. a Payroll transaction then that is when the user access is getting factored into and the prompt you don't have access to this window is generated as the user has been restricted to that window.

If you would like to see the user access restricted to values in windows in particular payroll transactions in AccountRight 2016 I would encourage you to show your support for User Access: Restrict access to payroll show flow through to electronic payments and bank register on the AccountRight Idea Exchange.

[Bil]

Hello Steven. Thank you for your reply. I can't tell you how disappointed I am to discover that MYOB would make such a serious and drastic change in procedure and function without at least notifying its customers. This is horrible news. When we upgraded from PC-based MYOB Premier 19 to AccountRight Premier Cloud, we were promised that the product was "virtually identical in look, feel and function with the added benefit of cloud hosting..."

Yes, I have followed your link to User Access: Restrict access to payroll show flow through to electronic payments and bank register on the AccountRight Idea Exchange. But I hope that does more than just post an opinion on an urgent topic that gets no action.

It is a serious misrepresentation for MYOB to sell AccountRight Premier Cloud version as virtually the same look, feel and function and PC-based Premier 19 and to have such a huge gaping hole with no fix or work-around. I could not be more disappointed. It places our company in a position of violating our obligation to keep personal employee data confidential, safe and secure. It puts employers in clear breach of the Privacy Act (1988 Cwlth) and Privacy Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Act (2012 QLD).

And it is a drastic difference between the old and new software and a clear case of misleading and possibly deceptive marketing. If it were possible for us to fall back, we would. But of course you don't offer that option. We don't mind putting up with the minor bugs and glitches. For the most part the software is functionally equivilent to the PC-based version that MYOB strongly encouraged me to abandon. There are even a few nifty improvements and features. But this huge difference that puts critical personal and confidential data in clear view of unauthorized users is a MAJOR ISSUE that I hope will be address as a matter of urgency.

Please as a matter of great urgency, let me know of any work-around you know of.

Thank you for taking this matter seriously.

Final favour. In my original post, I attached a screen shot of my bank register (inside a docx document). Will you please remove that from the post as it has recognizable names in it. Thank you.

[Steven_M]

Hi @Bil

Thank you for your feedback, I have shared your comments with the team. At this stage we don't have a time frame for when that particular idea will be placed into development and implemented into the program.  As to a workaround the only one I can provide is to remove access to that respective Bank register and other windows that will show that balance (i.e. Reconcile Accounts, Transaction Journal, Find Transactions..) which may be not feasible in some cases.

I have also removed your attachment on your previous post as requested.

[Bil]

Thank you Steven,

Some employees require Bank Register access but NOT Payroll access and vica versa. Nothing can change that. Your previous software which we had used for more than 12 years was fully compliant and handled this situation without difficulty.

If you don't have a viable work-around or even a time-frame to impliment one, I STRONGLY reccommend that you advise users who migrate from PC-based MYOB Premier 19 to AccountRight Premier Live that the migration will result in them potentially being in breach of Commonwealth and state Privacy and Confidentiality Legislation and particularly the Privacy Act (1988 Cwlth) and Privacy Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Act (2012 QLD).

To withhold this VITAL information from your customers before they migrate in good faith (as we did 2 1/2 years ago) would put MYOB in the position of placing employers in breach of legislation without their knowledge or intent.

Now that MYOB is vastly aware of this critical situation (and have been for at least TWO YEARS or more) it becomes an issue of misleading and deceptive conduct and ensuing liability!

Thank you for removing my attachment.

I hope MYOB will treat this issue with the seriousness it deserves.

Final question, before we migrated from PC-based Premier 19 to AccountRight Live, we were advisesd that it was impossible to go back, short of litterally re-creating every transaction in Premier 19. It has been 2 1/2 years since we migrated and thus unreasonable to be able to manually enter 30 months of transactions into our old Premier 19 data file. Does your top-level data team have the capability to export an AccountRight Live data file to be compatible with Premier 19 and preserve all transacitons (I understand that issues like forms, templates and features that are available in AccountRight and not Premier 19 would have to be handled manually). And follow-up to that final question, does MYOB still sell PC-based Premier 19 and would the latest version handle this Payroll issue the way our Premier 19.10 did (i.e.properly without violating Privacy issues)?

[Steven_M]

Hi @Bil

Once a company file has been upgraded to AccountRight 2016 the file is unable to be migrated back to the AccountRight Classic range, this does include by MYOB.

If you do wish to go back to AccountRight Classic after using AccountRight 2016 you do have three options:

• Use your previous v19 company file and manually reenter any data into that file - may not be feasible especially since you have used AccountRight 2016 for a period of time.
• Export out the data out of your AccountRight 2016 company file using the File>>Import/Export Assistant use your previous v19 company file or create a new company file and import that information into the AccountRight v19 file. Please note that this is a messy and complex way of doing it as it can take a period of time and may involve manual manipulation of the export data before importing
• Set a date for to close off your AccountRight 2016 company file i.e. a date to get your account, customer, supplier and job balances if required. Create a new company file in AccountRight 2016 then use the Easy Setup Assistant or Setup>>Balances to enter the balance information

MYOB does not sell AccountRight v19 directly any more, however as you have a perpetual licence you are entitled to use AccountRight v19. This can be download and installed if required from your my.MYOB account by selecting My Products>>Downloads (it will be listed down the page of downloads). In terms of user access this has not changed since v19 was introduced i.e. no new changes have been added to user access with the new release of AccountRight Classic.