Exporting accounts lists from MYOB products

Manually creating an import file

If you're not using any of the above software, but still want to import an accounts list, you can manually create a Text (.TXT or .CSV) file containing your account information and import it into MYOB Essentials.

It's highly recommended that you work with a sample file, as it provides a complete list of import-ready accounts from which you can customise for your business.

Right-click the applicable sample file: ChartOFAccounts-AU.csv | ChartOFAccounts-NZ.csv and save it on your computer. Open the file in Excel, fill in your own account details and save it (as a .TXT or .CSV file) before importing it into MYOB Essentials.

If you decide to create your own import file, the imported list must be a .TXT or .CSV file, in comma- or tab-separated format. The first row must contain the headings "Account Number", "Account Name", "Account Type", "Tax Code" (for Australia) or "GST Code" (for New Zealand), and "Inactive Account" (or variations of these headings, such as "Account #" or "AC Type"), and each row must contain these details for a single account.

See the bottom of this page for a list of accepted account types and tax/GST codes.

The Do's and Don'ts of importing accounts

When importing your accounts, you'll see a breakdown of accounts that will be imported with changes, accounts with unsupported account types, and accounts that can't be imported because they're header or system accounts.

Accounts imported with changes

Your list of accounts imported with changes may look like this example:

The reason for an account's change is found in the Issue column. The most common issues that occur when importing are:

• Invalid tax code that's not recognised by Essentials. Code NTR will be used in its place. See below for a full list of AU and NZ tax codes.
• Opening balance not in 0.00 format. The opening balance will be imported as blank.

Accounts with unsupported account type

Your list of accounts with unsupported account types might look like this:

If an account type is not recognised by Essentials, your Account type will be set to uncategorised.

By clicking Show accounts for this category, you can change the Account type to one supported in Essentials by clicking the dropdown arrow.

If you don't change an account from uncategorised and proceed with the import, the account will be imported with the uncategorised type.

Accounts that can't be imported

There are a few types of accounts that can't be imported, including:

• Accounts that have a balance in MYOB Essentials
• Accounts that have been used in transactions
• MYOB Essentials system accounts (those marked with a padlock). If you're importing from AccountRight, see the table below for details of which MYOB Essentials system accounts will be used in place of your AccountRight system accounts.
• Accounts with names containing any of the following special characters: < > ( ) # % ; + ' \"
• AccountRight header accounts, as these don't exist in MYOB Essentials.

Account types

When creating an import file, use the following Account Types for your accounts. Any other account type will cause the import to fail.

Also make sure you don't use the same account number more than once.

System accounts

System accounts are automatically created and are used for specific functions in your MYOB Essentials. For example the wages system account will be the account used when processing payroll. The system accounts will display with a lock icon in your MYOB Essentials accounts list .

Although you can't delete system accounts you can edit the Account number and Account name, the following system accounts are created in MYOB Essentials.

Tax codes

Tax codes are used to track tax paid to and by your business. Each code represents a particular type of tax.

If an account uses a tax code that doesn't exist in MYOB Essentials, it will be assigned the NTR tax code. Note that consolidated tax codes aren't supported in MYOB Essentials.

Australia

New Zealand