Author: Steve Slisar

Steve Slisar has been training people how to use computers since 1994, opened a training centre in 1999 in Dee Why and by 2005 had 3 training centres and created over 35 individual courses that include Screen videos with audio commentary, training workbooks for those who prefer to read to learn, and exercise files that are used with the tasks in the workbooks so you get practical experience in the software you are trying to learn. Now the creator of 5 of the most popular online MYOB training courses in Australia.

Posted on November 26, 2022August 23, 2023 by Steve Slisar

You Don’t Need a Cert IV in Bookkeeping & Accounting to be a Contract Bookkeeper

Christina from Glenmore in Sydney graduated from the Xero Complete Training Course & Certificate and runs several businesses

Starting a bookkeeping business has been a go to option for many mums returning to the workforce, particularly if they did accounting and office administration work before having children.

I’ve been writing about starting a bookkeeping business at this website since we started our bookkeeping blog and as you can see it doesn’t have to cost a lot of money.

Since the GST, however and the creation of the Registered BAS Agent some things have changed.

Posted on November 20, 2022November 26, 2022 by Steve Slisar

Does it feel like you’re knocking your head against a brick wall and not getting job interviews?

ATS match rates for Job Applications for Accounts job requiring MYOB and Xero skills - the Career Academy for Bookkeeping Certificate graduates from Ezylearn

I was speaking with a job seeker recently and she was telling me that she had applied for hundreds of jobs and tried dozens of employment sites but got NO job interviews. I mentioned to her that the employment rate is very low at the moment and that there is a lot of demand so she might do all right if she keeps trying.

What I copped next was flurry of expletives about how the Government is making up lies and that there are no jobs available. This lady continued to bend my ear until I had to excuse myself politely.

The problem that most people have with the Job Application Process is that they’re not practiced at it. There is a method and process to follow when applying for jobs and if you approach it with desperation or you get frustrated you lose sight of how you come across to the employer.

The employer is simply following a process to find the best potential job applicant and they want to make sure they get it right. Need help in the job search and application process? That’s where the Career Academy from EzyLearn come in.

Posted on November 14, 2022November 14, 2022 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

Learn Xero AND the Integrations that make it a platform for work.

Xero Subscriber Growth - Learn Xero in our online training course and get an Internationally recogised Bookkeeping Certificate - EzyLearn

Xero have just announced their financial and performance results and the headline figures show strong subscriber growth all over the world, including UK and US where they are trying very hard to get market share like they have in Australia.

It’s now more evident than ever that if you get certified in Xero that you could work for a business in most modern countries around the world. Is that what they called Internationally Accredited?

Posted on November 7, 2022November 7, 2022 by Steve Slisar

6 Months Access to MYOB Business (Essentials) for Training Course Students

MYOB Training Course & Certificate - Accounting & Payroll Advanced Certificate Course - EzyLearn with MYOB Education Partner

One of the most common questions we get asked by students when they enrol into an online course relates to access to the software.

Years ago you could buy the MYOB AccountRight software from Officeworks for $10 and use it forever but online software like Xero, QuickBooks Online and MYOB Business Essentials are all subscription based and offer a 30 day free trial.

Although 30 days doesn’t seem like a long time if you are enrolled into a MYOB or Xero course that provides 12 months course access, there are ways you can still make VERY good use of these trial periods.

Posted on October 31, 2022November 26, 2022 by Steve Slisar

R U Spending Too Much Time Alone?

Do you spend more time alone or with your partner, co-workers or your children - Study Xero & MYOB Online Courses and spend time with your family - EzyLearn

Many new students learnt how to use online accounting software like Xero and MYOB Business Essentials during the Covid Period because they were working remotely from home. Most of those students thought we had just started working from home ourselves but we told them we’ve been online for over a decade.

The conversation topics that came up a lot was how can you work from home, do you get lonely, do you get distracted etc?

The reality is that our entire team work from home and once you are used to the discipline of working from home you can take lots of breaks when you need them and can focus better on customer service. I found some research that showed just how much time people are now spending alone.

Posted on October 27, 2022October 27, 2022 by Steve Slisar

Xero Boast Top Innovator in “AFR BOSS Most Innovative list”, Just Behind Telstra!

Xero wrote about their AI achievements using machine learning to predict the name and account code for your transactions when performing a bank reconciliation. Bank feeds have been a constant and regular theme in Xero’s marketing and this reinforces how they are using technology to reduce the time it takes to reconcile.

It makes sense that a bank like NAB or CBA buys MYOB because if you could automatically make sure that your finances in your MYOB or Xero software reflected exactly what your bank statements say you’d eliminate half the work that junior bookkeepers do.

Posted on October 18, 2022October 18, 2022 by Steve Slisar

Bills to Pay, Past or Future, Xero or CBA

I was reading about some of the accounting features that Xero are building on in their software while also testing out Commonwealth Banks “Upcoming bills and payments”. What really struck me is how quickly the major banks are updating their software and systems to help small business owners manage their cashflow better.

When you use the Commbank App to access your account you can quickly setup the Upcoming bills and payments because the banks software sees that you have recurring payments that seem to happen every month, quarter, year etc. The great thing about this is that it helps you understand your liabilities in the short term and you don’t need to pay anything extra to have it or use it.

Xero on the other hand are constantly finding ways to increase their revenue and new features is naturally one BIG way they can do that. But it’s not all bad, of course.

Posted on October 5, 2022October 5, 2022 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

Achieve Your Financial Goals: Microsoft Excel Graphs & Charts Course Show Costs of Food and Petrol – Your Personal Budget

mybudget excel training course files to achieve your financial goals - online Excel Training Courses

If you are feeling the pinch financially right now it would be good to find out why. It’s easy to make a statement like “petrol and food prices are through the roof” but the truth might be a bit different when you get all your expenses into a spreadsheet.

Interest rates have gone up a LOT in the last few months so your mortgage payments might be chewing up most of your disposable income. If you have a car loan, personal loan or other debts where the interest rates are much higher you might find that you need to “consolidate” your debts to make ends meet.

A household budget exercise file is included in the Excel Intermediate Training Course 306 and a similar exercise file is available in the Excel Intermediate Training Course 305. The goal is to help you visualise the changes in your costs and expenses.

Posted on October 1, 2022October 1, 2022 by Steve Slisar

Xero Bookkeeping using Value-Based Pricing – Learn from your kid & their chores

Weekly and Daily Chores for Kids using Value-based rewards - Online Microsoft Excel Training Courses

I participated in an interesting project this week that clearly defined Performance Based Pricing. It came about because paying a flat wage just didn’t produce the desired outcome. Let’s just say that the kids didn’t complete all their chores and their mum got tired of paying pocket money while having to chase them up every day – sound familiar?

Xero have always promoted Performance Based Pricing (also known as Value-based pricing) as the best way to run a bookkeeping business but have the flexibility to operate your own hours. It’s based on paying for outcomes rather than time. It encourages workers to use technology to be more productive.

Posted on September 28, 2022September 28, 2022 by Steve Slisar — 2 Comments

Household Budget using Microsoft Excel Course: Track Interest Rates, Expenses & Income

Learn how to use Microsoft Excel in our Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced Excel Training Courses

A household budget can keep you sane in times when major expenses are fluctuating. It is a requirement if you are applying for a housing loan and if you want to borrow to invest in an online business but it can also show you very clearly if you need to find new sources of income or get rid of some expenses.

If you have found yourself subscribed to too many online streaming services or software programs that you just don’t need or use your budget can help you identify those expenses.

Same goes with debt repayments for phones, household items or motor vehicles.

There are two budget templates in the Microsoft Excel Intermediate Training Course – one for your personal income and expenses and one for starting a small business.

Posted on September 26, 2022September 26, 2022 by Steve Slisar

Microsoft Excel Intermediate Training Course Case Study: Working out Commission Payable to Sales Reps

Learn how to use Intermediate Microsoft Excel Skills to produce reports with complex formulas. Online Training Courses

Sales is an interesting career path which includes everything from real estate agents, account managers to direct sales people who walk from door-to-door or make calls on the phone.

Being a Sales Representative is something that every bookkeeper does if they have their own bookkeeping business. You speak with prospects, find out what they want, see if you can do the work for them and then sign them up and start working. You’re helping to match a business with a customer.

I’m often fascinated at how many Bookkeepers HATE hearing the word “sales” associated with any part of their work and as a result they act like a ROBOT when they speak to potential clients, but I’m digressing and that’s a topic for another blog post!

The benefit of being in sales is that you can earn a commission which is often much larger than your base salary – but keeping track of commissions payable each month can be complicated and we teach you how to use Excel to make it EZY.

Posted on September 21, 2022September 21, 2022 by Steve Slisar

Microsoft Excel & Xero Bookkeeping COMPLETE Training Course Package is Now Here

Training Course ad in Manly Daily for Microsoft Excel, Website Design, MYOB - Ezylearn

You may be asking WHY it has taken us so long to create this training course COMBINATION package considering that Xero and Excel go hand in hand for all things financial and accounting?!

Xero is fantastic for keeping track of all of your financial transactions for a business and Microsoft Excel is still the preferred choice by most bookkeepers and accountants for producing reports and working with the data that comes out of Xero.

The versatility of Excel as a spreadsheet means that you can do so much more with it than just make sense of the financial information from your Accounting software. One case study in our Microsoft Excel Courses comes from our own experience about scheduling courses, trainers and training rooms for enrolments when we had a training centre in Dee Why NSW.

Posted on September 14, 2022September 14, 2022 by Steve Slisar

What % of expenses can you claim to reduce your taxable income?

Working from home and claiming expenses using Xero & MYOB software training courses

We’ve received lots of training course inquiries from new business in this last couple of months and a question that came up recently was “do you have a course that explains how much I can claim”. The person was asking about how much of the cost of their car can they claim as an expense because they use it for their business.

The answer to this question reminded me of how “flexible” the taxation laws are in Australia. You can “claim” any amount that you want and unless you are audited by the ATO you could possibly get away with it!!

The correct way is to determine how much of your costs are actually associated with your business and use that percentage. The ATO goes on to explain how to do this in detail.

Posted on September 4, 2022June 5, 2023 by Steve Slisar

Payroll Training Course: Employee changes are being tracked

1-Learn-Beginner-Level-Payroll-skills-with-Trim-and-Styles-Hairdressing-salon-Payroll-training-course-and-Certificate-using-QuickBooks-Xero-and-MYOB-1024x684

Xero led the way in online cloud accounting software that enables anyone to access their accounting software from anywhere. This means that small business owners, staff and their bookkeeping advisors can all access different parts of the software at anytime to perform their work. A far cry from the clunky way that MYOB AccountRight managed multiple users in an office environment a decade ago.

This amazing flexibility enables contract bookkeepers to perform credit control and end of month bank reconciliation tasks working from home, will office support staff are working on quotes, invoices and payments to suppliers. All of these transactions can add up very quickly and soon you can have hundreds of transactions. What if you had to find something, fix something that was entered incorrectly? That’s when you need an audit trail.

Xero just announced Payroll History and it’s designed to keep track of what happens with your payroll records.

Posted on August 22, 2022August 22, 2022 by Steve Slisar

Pick and Choose from Ideal Bookkeeping & Office Admin Jobs Everyday via Email

early-bird-bookkeeping-job-hunt-job-site-alerts-Indeed-Seek-Office-Admin-Bookkeeping-Accounts-Jobs-Online Training Courses in Xero, MYOB & Microsoft Excel

There are dozens of new office admin & bookkeeping job ads EVERY day, even for remote workers! Find out how to get them via email

When you’re serious about finding a good office administration or bookkeeping job it pays to have alerts set up on the most popular job search sites. Job alerts save you a lot of time by not having to manually search the same criteria each day, and ensure that you automatically receive email notifications as soon as new jobs become available.

Job alerts also allow you to find out what employers are looking for right now and which tasks they need their job seekers to perform.

With this information you can refine your searches even further to find the jobs most suited to your skills and experience, and then use the criteria to match skills in your resumé and job applications.

Posted on August 11, 2022August 11, 2022 by Steve Slisar

Microsoft Outlook Training Course is a FREE Student Inclusion!

Microsoft Outlook Training Course for meetings, scheduling, and working as part of a team

Online courses—Who’s got time for that? If you’re saying that right now but you need to up-skill then you can probably use some help from the Calendar in Microsoft Outlook.

Enrolling in an online Xero and MYOB Training Course to further your career prospects is exciting but it’s not uncommon to feel overwhelmed by the demands of work, study and family obligations in an already hectic lifestyle.

Learn how to use Microsoft Outlook to manage your time, meet your obligations and achieve your goals AND significantly reduce your stress. These valuable skills will help prepare you for life in the workforce or for running your own business, where good time management skills are CRITICAL!