Xero Accounting software offers inventory management features in their standard software but it has never been spectacular for companies where solid inventory management matters.
I saw that first hand when I was speaking with the owner of a Boating Sales, Repair and Retail business. That business ended up migrating AWAY from Xero and started using QuickBooks Online instead. This changes everything.
Continue reading Finally, Xero Acquires an Inventory Management Software Add-on in the US
In 2015 I wrote about Xero’s inventory management when it was released and how important it was to make it competitive with MYOB AccountRight. These days however it seems that Xero hasn’t done much more and they’re a bit behind Intuit’s QuickBooks Online which has a lot of inventory and stock management features.
I’ll explain and drill down a bit.. Continue reading Inventory and Stock is more beautiful using QuickBooks than Xero
I’ve written some blog posts about Xero & QuickBooks Projects and MYOB Jobs recently. In fact, if you visit our MYOB AccountRight and Xero Training Course pages, you’ll see there is now an extra course included in the COMPLETE course packages!
The course was built as a result of the needs of people who’ve been using our training materials to help in their own training. What’s interesting is how important your current inventory and inventory management is to managing the cashflow and profitability of a project.
IF YOU RUN A SHOP or business that holds stock, you should be in the habit of checking your inventory regularly. A lot of retail stores only check their inventory every quarter; others every year. This is usually because a stocktake is a big job.
The case for a monthly stocktakeThe inventory feature in Xero was a functionality that was missing for many years — but then Xero caught up.
Running an inventory report in Xero is pretty easy. The hard work sets in when you have to count your inventory to account for any discrepancies. There are usually always differences between what Xero says you should have in stock, and what you actually have on hand. The more frequently you run them, the fewer discrepancies you’ll find.
Like anything in the bookkeeping process, the more frequently you do something — be it reconciling your account or chasing up late payers — the easier and quicker it is. Where a quarterly or yearly stocktake could take half a day or more, a monthly one may only take you a couple of hours.
A monthly stocktake is a good way to get to know your business, and understand its certain trends and idiosyncrasies. In particular, it helps you with ordering and making related business decisions.
A shop selling food, for example, needs to be wary of ordering stock that doesn’t sell quickly and ultimately goes out of date. A monthly stocktake will help you keep track of this, and monitor which items sell quickly and which don’t. Likewise, a monthly stocktake of a furniture shop lets you determine which pieces spend long periods in storage, and manage your ordering accordingly.
Do a monthly stocktake by running your inventory reports in Xero. You’ll be able to work out whether your stock:
If you are new to bookkeeping it’s probably a good idea to learn more about some of the basic Xero reports you can produce for a business.
***If you only have a very basic knowledge of Xero, cloud accounting or bookkeeping, and you’re looking to gain a better understanding of basic bookkeeping terminology, get our free Basic Bookkeeping Guide.
You’ll learn how to run reports in Xero, in particular inventory reports, in our Xero training courses. Visit our website for more information or to enrol and see course prices.
EzyLearn Excel, MYOB and Xero online training courses count towards Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for bookkeepers and accountants. We’ve been an accredited training provider of the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers ever since the organisation started in Australia. Find out how CPD points can be of benefit to you.
The premium MYOB product with the PLUS on the end of its name has always come with Inventory and Payroll. These have been the major services that justify the premium price that users have been willing to pay. Now Xero comes with it as standard! Is it another nail in MYOB’s coffin?
We’ve added a new team member, Sue from Yarra Junction in Victoria, and she has over 20 years experience performing bookkeeping and administration work for various clients as well as running her own business. Sue is writing a training guide that demonstrates how inventory (which was just announced this year at Xero) works. We’re using the same structure and information we use in our popular MYOB training course so you can see directly how the software programs are different from each other – apart from Xero being completely in the cloud so you can access it from any device anywhere.
Sue highlights yet again one of the great features about running an online business and working remotely in the cloud. Any business can work with staff or remote contractors from anywhere (in the world!). Sue is located over one hour’s drive from Melbourne and I’m sure the commute would be hell – it would cost her time and money in transport – yet because we operate on online environment our team are all over Australia! No more travel time, no more traffic, no more sitting in a carpark on the city roads in peak hour. Just a good internet connection and some competent computer skills and we’re off.
If you’re not sure by now, you’ll be happy to know that my focus has always been to help people learn how to use software. Why? So they can get the job they’re after or start their own business. If you like, you can watch a short video (sorry for not shaving for it!) where I talk about my Work at Home Seminar (or WAHSeminar) which is a program we’re constantly working on to help people operate a business or telework from their own home.
If you haven’t already read about it, read the blog I wrote about teleworking centres that are springing up all over regional areas of Australia. Make sure you ‘like’ this blog and share it with your friends on Facebook because the more we all encourage teleworking and the use of technology the more we’ll be able to take back dozens of lost hours each week in travel time (and cost).
Like all EzyLearn courses, we offer all our training courses for one low price and include every training resource we create. This Xero training course content is the same – every student who has enrolled into the Xero course within the last 12 months will be able to access these new training resources when they’re published.
If you are a business looking to move across to Xero, feel free to write your questions or comments. If you are trying to find a way of working from home, please make contact. We’d love for you to share with us what you are going through. We can very probably help – and others can learn from it.
HubSpot is better at marketing, Square at Point of Sale, Stripe at payments and QuickFee for Buy Now Pay Later for Accountants and Lawyers – and they all integrate with Xero.
Being online these software programs integrate and share data so you can manage many different parts of your business and have live, up-to-date information and reports.
Our new Accounting Software Integrations course is now available and included with selected Xero Online Training Courses.
Continue reading Integrations turn Xero into a Powerful Business Administration System for Small Business
Did you know that Afterpay (and ZipPay) and some other Buy Now Pay Later providers decline sellers? Most Afterpay transactions are centered around the selling of physical products that change ownership from the merchant to the customer. This evidence is enough to bind customers legally, but what happens if you provide professional services like bookkeeping or accounting?
Accountants and Bookkeepers, like many other professional service providers including Lawyers and solicitors charge for their time or defined outcomes (like fixed fees for a certain number of transactions).
Will Afterpay take you on as a client? We’ve heard that many industries are rejected but there are alternatives and Xero’s App Store can help.
Continue reading Rejected by Afterpay? Xero Marketplace has an alternative
Do you know how to use Microsoft Word? Oh, yes.
Can you show me how to change the alignment of these paragraphs, put bullet points here and make the image aligned to the right side of the text? Um, I’ll give it a go.
This is a common scenario in conversations I’ve had with students looking for office admin and support jobs. Some people think that just because you can type they can use Microsoft Word but that’s not the case and when I look at the high number of office jobs that require good data entry skills it makes these skills very important! Here’s our offer for October. Continue reading Office Academy gives Microsoft skills to all staff, online, remotely – NOW $200 OFF
Let’s face it, when you can manage your finances from anywhere, using your phone to scan receipts and Xero Accounting to code them and store them in the cloud one of the hardest parts of managing a business is taken care of.
We’ve all been able to call, text and email from our mobile phones and use online marketing tools like Google Ads and Facebook for social media so when you finally get your back office tasks migrated to the cloud it’s easy right? Well, that’s what the marketing hype says anyway, but things aren’t that rosy really, are they? Continue reading Learning Xero Will Help You Run An Online Business
It was in 2018 that I last wrote about Reckon One and how some of their software was far superior to Xero according to the ACCC. With competing priorities and updating our MYOB, Xero and QuickBooks course materials being our first priority Sage One and Reckon One Daily Transactions training course for tradies is now almost complete.
Reckon works with AutoEntry for receipt capture and their accounting software is also STP Payroll compliant so it’s a perfect low-cost accounting program for micro and small businesses like tradies but they’re missing one important feature..
Continue reading ALERT: Reckon One Training Course PRE-Launch SPECIAL
Xero, QuickBooks and MYOB are updating their software with new features every month! That’s what you get with cloud-based software that is continuously updated and improved.
We’ve recently updated our Xero Accounting software courses and have just published an updated to our QuickBooks Online Daily Transactions & End of Month training Courses. Continue reading ALERT: QuickBooks Online Training Courses Updated
When bank feeds were first introduced they were lauded as a software feature that would save small businesses hundreds of hours of work per week and they have definitely saved time, despite the apparent risks that have been published about how they can compromise your internet banking security.
I’ve been working with a business which has a showroom and workshop and they take EFTPOS payments for cash sales as well as deposits for quotes using credit card payments and even though the business isn’t huge it is not as easy as clicking the MATCH button to match a bank feed record to it’s source documents. Continue reading Bank Feeds: Time Saver but NOT a Bookkeeper Replacer – FREE Training Course Material
One reason I love online training and how it offers exceptional value for students who are looking for work as well a those who are currently working is that they can ask questions and have them answered using EzyLearn ANSWERS.
We had a recent student who enrolled into our Xero Payroll Training course because she needed to get up to speed on Single Touch Payroll (STP) but she was already behind in her obligations. This is what we did for her. Continue reading Behind in your ATO Payroll requirements for STP (Single Touch Payroll)
Finally, after 23 years we’re making our training manuals available for sale! Not the ones we created 23 years ago but our latest versions of course.
Training manuals are an important learning tool for our courses because they contain the step-by-step exercises that the course is based around. Our first release of training manuals covers credit management, accounts receivable, accounts payable, data entry of quotes, invoices, purchases and payments – all the things that most businesses need.
Purchase yours now and download them instantly.
Continue reading Announcement: MYOB, Xero and QuickBooks Training Manuals now available for sale
I’m excited to be delving deeper into a micro course specifically targeting how you can manage on-the-job costs and track your project. This will be included in all of our Xero, MYOB and Quickbooks online accounting courses.
My first thought when a software company changes its navigation (in a significant way) is that there were issues with the previous version.
THIS BLOG POST comes in the wake of Xero promising to improve their navigation in October 2018. Xero has now subsequently released those changes and our online support team are receiving lots of requests for help!
First and foremost, if you’re an EzyLearn student, please note that we’ve already created an update addressing the navigational updates and this is available in all of our online Xero Training Courses.
Continue reading Are You Finding Xero’s New Navigation a Pain in the Proverbial?
Enrolled into an EzyLearn course since 2013?
Get access to new & updated course content and support by joining the EzyLearn Career Courses Program.
Use our informative and logical
to learn how to use software relating to your industry in small, well designed learning experiences and get the CPD points you need to remain professionally compliant with your industry association.
