Accounting and management software firm MYOB has hired 20 additional staff for its Christchurch office as the firm starts to provide round the clock support to its small business customers in New Zealand and Australia.

Most of the new staff are from Christchurch.

The 20 new staff, who will fill mainly technical support roles, bring MYOB Christchurch staff numbers to 125.

MYOB general manager Julian Smith said the investment in more Christchurch-based staff was to provide that 24 hour, seven days a week service its clients needed.

The firm decided after the September 4 earthquake to invest in Christchurch because historically it had been the best performing office in the MYOB network in terms of team engagement and productivity, and also the quality of talent available in Canterbury was very high.

Christchurch had also always been the firm's home base -it started its New Zealand operations in the city in 2001 - and so the decision to continue to invest here had also been "a bit of a symbolic gesture".

MYOB has about one million customers in Australasia, 180,000 of which are New Zealand based.

"New Zealand businesses - especially SMEs - have to work at all hours, and if you are doing your payroll late at night, or paying some bills on the weekend, it's great to know you can pick up the phone or send an email to get the help you need from someone local," Smith said.

MYOB provides real-time technical support via phone, email, community forum, live chat and social media.

"It's a very important step for us to provide a greater range of more accessible support to those who rely on MYOB - and while technology plays a large part of that, it's also great to be able to talk directly to a person whenever you feel you need to," Smith.

The firm has also hired another 16 staff for its Melbourne office.

- © Fairfax NZ News