Latest news with #MYOB
NZ Herald
20-07-2025
- Business
- NZ Herald
AI adoption low among NZ SMEs despite positive impacts, survey reveals
MYOB chief customer officer Dean Chadwick said emerging trends in the use of AI locally focus on driving awareness and sales. 'Our insights show SMEs are primarily employing AI tools to bolster marketing efforts – helping with the copywriting of marketing materials and press releases (39%) or generating social media posts (31%),' Chadwick said. 'A consistent voice in market is key for businesses to stay top of mind for their audience, particularly in an economic environment when every dollar of revenue counts.' Chadwick explained that the use of AI aligns with the top skills SMEs identified would be the most important to their business over the next five years, namely customer service (40%) and marketing (32%). Kiwi SMEs are also proactively using AI tools for copywriting technical documents, reports and training materials (25%), customer service support including chatbots and virtual assistants (21%), and for analysing markets, trends and risks (21%). One interesting insight from the survey highlighted that younger generations of business owners are leading the way when it comes to AI adoption. Almost all of the Gen Z business operators surveyed (93%) and more than half (59%) of millennials polled had started using AI tools in their businesses. This is compared with Gen X and Baby Boomer business owners, who sit at 28% and 17% respectively. 'In taking the heavy-lifting and time investment out of some of these tasks, the efficiency gain AI provides to SMEs not only ensures business owners can focus on higher-value tasks, it also offers a reprieve on workload. 'Alongside cashflow concerns, workload is the top business-related factor that has negatively impacted the mental wellbeing of a third of local business operators in the past two years. Intelligent tools that can help ease this burden will likely improve employee engagement and well-being as a result.' As to why adoption is not as high, 39% of SMEs surveyed felt AI tools weren't needed or appropriate for their business, with 30% of this group believing they don't know enough about it. Some respondents were more specific, with 18% believing there weren't any AI tools specific to their business needs. However, almost a fifth (19%) still don't trust the new technology. 'Knowledge and confidence play a big role in the adoption of new technologies. It's understandable that a portion of SMEs are hesitant to embrace AI in their businesses.' 'However, given the integration of AI in a range of everyday systems, from autocompleting sentences in email, to reminders and forecasting in business management software, it's also possible many business owners don't realise they're already using AI.' Chadwick said SME owners who are still hesitant should discuss the topic with a business mentor or speak with other businesses to learn how they are benefiting from the technology. The MYOB Business Monitor is a national survey of more than 1000 New Zealand business owners, managers and directors, from sole traders to medium-sized companies, representing the major industry sectors. Tom Raynel is a multimedia business journalist for the Herald, covering small business, retail and tourism.
Sydney Morning Herald
29-06-2025
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
Trump tariffs ‘as big an inflation threat as COVID-19'
'Policymakers must act decisively on multiple fronts to ensure price stability and promote sustainable economic growth while preserving economic and financial stability,' he said. There are already signs overseas of the financial hit caused by Trump's tariff agenda. Canada's economy contracted in April as its close trade links to the US were disrupted while data released last week revealed American GDP fell by 0.5 per cent through the first three months of 2025. While the Australian economy grew through the March quarter, this pre-dated Trump's liberation day announcements. But there are signs a rise in American tariffs is already starting to affect local firms. A survey by MYOB to be released this week shows Trump's tariffs have been felt by 17 per cent of small and mid-sized businesses. About 41 per cent of those surveyed said they believed the tariffs would destabilise the global economy, with more than a third expecting the imposts to both lift business costs and inflation. While 45 per cent said they expected the economy to decline this year, 64 per cent said their financial position was either good or excellent. MYOB chief executive officer Paul Robson said the results highlighted the impact of events playing out on the other side of the globe. 'While global policy decisions may feel distant, Australian SMEs are alive to potential local impacts and are pivoting their way around them,' he said. 'The key consideration for impacted SMEs is the cumulative effect of both tariffs and interest rates on the cost of doing business. Supply chain disruption is another concern for this community, given the diverse industry portfolio this sector covers.' The turmoil in supply chains, driven in part by Trump's tariff agenda, has resulted in 17 per cent of surveyed businesses saying they plan to shift where they source their products or services. Just one in 10 expects an increase in customer demand. This impact is not showing up yet in the federal budget, which Treasurer Jim Chalmers forecast in March would show $940 billion in gross debt by the end of the current financial year before climbing to $1.02 billion by the end of 2025-26. Loading But total government debt will end 2024-25 at $928.6 billion due to a better budget bottom line. Chalmers had forecast a deficit $27.6 billion, but in the financial year to the end of May, the deficit was just $5.5 billion due to higher-than-expected company and personal income tax collections. On a pro rata basis, the government had expected the deficit to be at $20.2 billion by the end of May. The government believes the full-year deficit will increase to more than $10 billion as payments, held up in part by the May election, start to flow to states and taxpayers. Even at that level, Chalmers is on track to again fall short of his budget gross government debt forecast. But debt levels are ramping up much quicker among the nation's states and territories. Ratings' agency S&P Global estimates that the states and territories had gross debt of $266.3 billion in 2019 with that on track to reach $900 billion by 2029 – a 238 per cent increase. Over the same period, federal gross debt is forecast to grow by 126 per cent. Victoria is on track to have the highest debt of any state or territory at $274.1 billion, a 397 per cent increase. The largest jump in debt is expected to be endured by Tasmania, climbing by 627 per cent to $23.4 billion. NSW ($252.3 billion) and Queensland ($205.7 billion) will also have high debt levels.
The Age
29-06-2025
- Business
- The Age
Trump tariffs ‘as big an inflation threat as COVID-19'
'Policymakers must act decisively on multiple fronts to ensure price stability and promote sustainable economic growth while preserving economic and financial stability,' he said. There are already signs overseas of the financial hit caused by Trump's tariff agenda. Canada's economy contracted in April as its close trade links to the US were disrupted while data released last week revealed American GDP fell by 0.5 per cent through the first three months of 2025. While the Australian economy grew through the March quarter, this pre-dated Trump's liberation day announcements. But there are signs a rise in American tariffs is already starting to affect local firms. A survey by MYOB to be released this week shows Trump's tariffs have been felt by 17 per cent of small and mid-sized businesses. About 41 per cent of those surveyed said they believed the tariffs would destabilise the global economy, with more than a third expecting the imposts to both lift business costs and inflation. While 45 per cent said they expected the economy to decline this year, 64 per cent said their financial position was either good or excellent. MYOB chief executive officer Paul Robson said the results highlighted the impact of events playing out on the other side of the globe. 'While global policy decisions may feel distant, Australian SMEs are alive to potential local impacts and are pivoting their way around them,' he said. 'The key consideration for impacted SMEs is the cumulative effect of both tariffs and interest rates on the cost of doing business. Supply chain disruption is another concern for this community, given the diverse industry portfolio this sector covers.' The turmoil in supply chains, driven in part by Trump's tariff agenda, has resulted in 17 per cent of surveyed businesses saying they plan to shift where they source their products or services. Just one in 10 expects an increase in customer demand. This impact is not showing up yet in the federal budget, which Treasurer Jim Chalmers forecast in March would show $940 billion in gross debt by the end of the current financial year before climbing to $1.02 billion by the end of 2025-26. Loading But total government debt will end 2024-25 at $928.6 billion due to a better budget bottom line. Chalmers had forecast a deficit $27.6 billion, but in the financial year to the end of May, the deficit was just $5.5 billion due to higher-than-expected company and personal income tax collections. On a pro rata basis, the government had expected the deficit to be at $20.2 billion by the end of May. The government believes the full-year deficit will increase to more than $10 billion as payments, held up in part by the May election, start to flow to states and taxpayers. Even at that level, Chalmers is on track to again fall short of his budget gross government debt forecast. But debt levels are ramping up much quicker among the nation's states and territories. Ratings' agency S&P Global estimates that the states and territories had gross debt of $266.3 billion in 2019 with that on track to reach $900 billion by 2029 – a 238 per cent increase. Over the same period, federal gross debt is forecast to grow by 126 per cent. Victoria is on track to have the highest debt of any state or territory at $274.1 billion, a 397 per cent increase. The largest jump in debt is expected to be endured by Tasmania, climbing by 627 per cent to $23.4 billion. NSW ($252.3 billion) and Queensland ($205.7 billion) will also have high debt levels.
RNZ News
12-06-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
Many small businesses plan to buy new asset as result of Investment Boost
New Zealand banknotes, pen and calculator on background with rising trend green line Photo: 123RF Many small businesses plan to invest in new assets as a result of the government's Investment Boost programme . A MYOB survey of more than 500 small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) indicates nearly half (45 percent) plan to make an asset purchase over the next six months, while one-in-five were planning to invest in the next three months. Topping the list of new assets to purchase were passenger vehicles, including cars, vans, and utes (31 percent), followed by new office technology (28 percent), digital devices (22 percent), furniture (18 percent) and tools of their trade (15 percent). Just over one-in-10 planned to invest in smaller scale machinery or equipment. About a third (35 percent) of businesses estimated their investments would improve productivity. The survey found the other half of businesses considered changing their plans around investing in new assets because of the new policy, while about one-in-10 (12 percent) thought the Investment Boost had changed their plans considerably, though 7 percent were unsure. Just 28 percent said their spending plans had not changed, with 5 percent saying their planned spending was ineligible for the government's programme. MYOB chief customer officer Dean Chadwick said the survey findings demonstrated a strong appetite for government support, given the sluggish pace of economic recovery. "The Investment Boost delivers timely support to New Zealand's SMEs as they weigh up current economic challenges with the opportunity to invest in growing their business, and it will go some way to shoring up and accelerating their own performance," he said. "This latest survey also shows that spending by local businesses on eligible new assets will continue into 2026." The median planned asset spend of those surveyed was $37,700. One-in-10 businesses expected to spend between $80,000 to $100,000, while 12 percent expected to spend between $100,000 to $200,000. The agriculture sector has one of the highest median spends ($56,670), along with manufacturing ($53,300), behind the finance and insurance sector ($60,000 median).
Techday NZ
04-05-2025
- Business
- Techday NZ
Why multi-subsidiary management is where accounting software breaks
It's not always obvious when a business has outgrown its accounting software – until the subsidiaries start stacking up. At first, things are mostly manageable. One legal entity becomes two, maybe three. Each one gets its own chart of accounts, or often a new, separate instance of Xero or MYOB. The finance team adjusts – adding manual workarounds, stitching together reports at month-end, handling intercompany transactions in spreadsheets. That means manually tracking intercompany invoices, recharges for shared services, or journal entries for cross-entity costs – all of which must be reversed or eliminated at group level. But as the business grows, those "temporary fixes" become full-time problems. Suddenly, the system that supported your team so well is only adding confusion. Your team is constantly switching tabs, toggling currencies, reformatting data and questioning which numbers to trust. Add time zones, tax jurisdictions and internal transactions to the mix and you've got a setup that can't scale – no matter how wily your finance team is. For many businesses, multi-subsidiary management is the tipping point – it's the moment when basic accounting software quietly stops being fit for purpose. The hidden cost of disconnected entities Each entity brings its own general ledger, tax obligations, currencies and reporting requirements. Without a centralised system, finance teams are stuck reconciling intercompany transactions manually, logging into multiple platforms and juggling inconsistent processes just to get a basic group-level view. The consequences compound quickly. Month-end drags out as finance teams manually consolidate numbers across entities. Audit risk increases as entries are posted inconsistently across systems, with duplicated records and limited traceability. Without proper controls, intercompany mismatches and timing discrepancies can go unnoticed until year-end. Cash flow visibility becomes opaque, with no real-time view across the group. And strategic planning slows down entirely, as leadership struggles to access timely, accurate insights across the business. Businesses will often reach a tipping point where adding a new entity inevitably creates more noise – not more value. Why add-ons don't solve the problem When the cracks start to show, the first instinct is often to patch things up. Add-ons, consolidation tools and middleware integrations seem like a logical step – especially if they promise to sync data between systems or generate consolidated reports. But these tools often introduce just as many problems as they solve. The reality is that most small business accounting platforms were never designed to handle multi-entity complexity. Add-ons tend to work at the surface level, pulling static data from different systems after the fact – meaning finance can't drill down into real-time numbers or trace issues back to the source system. Reports are delayed or partial, intercompany eliminations still need to be handled manually and audit trails remain fragmented. Finally, because the underlying architecture is still built for single-entity management, any workaround becomes a point of fragility as the business grows. Any business that's serious about growth can't run with a set of disconnected ledgers. It needs a system designed for multi – multi-entity, multi-currency, multi-country, multi-channel. One that can at once handle the complexity and simplify it. What scalable looks like A scalable financial system like a cloud ERP is the next natural step. It delivers structure without slowing you down – bringing consistency to the chart of accounts while still allowing entity-level flexibility. In a true multi-entity cloud ERP like NetSuite, all subsidiaries can share a master chart of accounts with entity-specific customisation. This means reporting stays consistent, clean and real-time, no matter how complex the structure becomes. Adding a new subsidiary doesn't require the team to spin up another system or rework your entire chart. In NetSuite, that might mean configuring a new subsidiary record, assigning local tax codes, currency rounding rules and role-based access – while inheriting the group-wide chart of accounts and reporting structure by default. Everything lives in one environment. Intercompany transactions – like billing, eliminations and allocations – can be automated rather than manually reconciled. And when the board wants a group-level view, there's no cross-checking needed. It's already there. At the same time, the right system provides role-based access and local controls, allowing teams across different countries or business lines to operate within one unified environment. Each team works with tailored permissions – a local finance manager sees only their subsidiary's P&L, while group finance retains full access and oversight. Importantly, tax rules, currencies and compliance obligations are built into the platform. The pressure of multi-entity operations has a way of exposing the limits of legacy tools. Entities multiply. Processes diverge. Reporting gets harder to trust. The rudimentary accounting systems and spreadsheets that served you well in the early days simply can't keep pace with growing complexity. At that point, only a system built for multi-everything scale will support what comes next.
