The current workflow in MYOB Portal is based on publishing documents from your desktop version of MYOB AE or MYOB AO to your portal with the view of either:

• Sending documents to your client for them to view or file
• Sending documents to your client with notification so that they're aware that they've documents to view or file
• Getting your clients' digital approval on documents.

You're also able to:

• Check the signature on a document
• Leave extra comments for your client
• Receive an email from your client.

To start, select documents to send to your portal. 

What can I publish?

You're able to publish documents from your desktop to your portal. These documents can be:

• part of Document Manager with a status of completed or approved

• attached to your client and part of their Client > Documents tab

  For MYOB AE clients - you can only publish documents from your  Client > Documents tab if you have the Windows Explorer view option.
• a report or form within Corporate Compliance for Australian clients
• a statutory report
• an Australian client's tax documents
• any document sitting on your desktop.

If you select to publish a document that isn't in PDF format, then the file will be converted to PDF before it is copied to the portal. This is so that potentially any documents you publish can be digitally signed.

Supported file formats

The following file formats are currently supported:

• Microsoft Office - doc, docx, ppt, pptx, rtf, xls, xlsx
• Graphic - bmp, gif, jpg, jpeg, png
• Others - htm, html, msg, tif, txt, xml.

Some restrictions

At this stage, documents that are published to the portal are not version controlled. You're able to publish the same file from the desktop to the portal many times and a separate copy is produced each time.

Whatever task associations or changes are made to the document in the portal, they're not relayed back to your desktop. However, Document Manager files that have been published to your portal and digitally signed by your client(s) are synchronised back into Document Manager as another version of the original document. See What happens to my documents? for more info.

About digital signatures

A digital (or electronic) signature is an alternative way to formally and legally sign a document.

The Australian Electronic Transaction Act of 1999 and New Zealand Electronic Transaction Act of 2002 covers the acceptance of digital signatures by legal systems.

In addition, MYOB has explicitly sought approval from each major industry body our clients deal with to ensure that we don't have any issues with the acceptance of our digital signatures by these industry bodies.

For Australian clients, see the ATO's stance on digital signatures. Approval from ASIC is still in progress.