Has it all become too complicated?

I’ve tried and tested hundreds of software programs over the last 25 years and I’ve noticed something very interesting in the last 12 months – they’ve gotten so complicated!

Email marketing is commonplace these days and you know it’s a money spinner when Intuit buy Mailchimp.

Email Marketing is complicated

The cost of email marketing software has gone up and up and up and all the software vendors are increasing their prices at the moment. I thought Xero was pushing it with their yearly price increase but Aweber is similar to Mailchimp and they recently increased one of their monthly packages from $10pm to $55pm – that’s OVER 500% increase.

Is it worth it?

That’s the big question I’ve been asking myself lately, now that all the software vendors are increasing their prices you start to question what you really need.

Now, try to remove these services from your business and websites and you start to realise how “sticky” they are.

We were using Gravity Forms in our WordPress websites because we thought they increased convenience for students but in the end it caused a headache with form spam and we already had an online form solution that did the job just fine.

In the end I’ve come to realise that most business needs are pretty simple and it’s times like these when you need to stick to your core services and focus on doing a great job.

When I look at the knowledge that most businesses need their staff to learn about bookkeeping using MYOB and Xero it comes down to perfecting the data entry and credit management.

The MYOB and Xero Data Entry Courses teach those skills and if business admin and bookkeeping staff focused on getting these tasks done perfectly most businesses would be in great financial shape.

These skills include:

• Accounts Payable
• Accounts Receivable
• Receiving payments
• Making payments

In reality small business owners need to master all aspects of their accounting to get their financials right every month, quarter and financial year. This usually means they need one or more team members who specialise in each aspect of the accounting tasks required.

Job seekers, explore the Bookkeeping Academy course combinations – they provide beginners to advanced certificate level skills (Complete) in the major accounting programs.

Microsoft Excel has always been complicated

If there is one program that hasn’t changed a lot it’s Microsoft Excel. It’s always been complicated and contains so many functions that do different things that learning these functions is what makes it so complicated.

Many of the newer accounting automations and integrations try to take Excel functions and make them more systemised. If you’re an Excel power user however there’s little reason to move away from using Excel.

The best way to learn how to use Spreadsheets like Microsoft Excel is with our learning journeys which take you step-by-step from basic to gradually more advanced skills.

The practice exercise files make it easy to replicate what you see in the instructor tutorials and in the training manuals.

See what is included in the COMPLETE Excel Course package (Beginners to Advanced).