Proof: Builder makes very small profit despite charging $6,000 to erect a $600 garden shed!
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.
MYOB Payroll Administration Essentials Training Courses
One thing is essential when you operate a small business with staff — that is your payroll obligations. I wrote about a hairdressing salon owner a few months ago who told me how easy payroll was to manage using a printed timesheet book. However, most tech-savvy people prefer to use software.
MYOB Essentials is targeting payroll management. They provide a cheap and easy online software package that is preferable for most people to using a manual book or spreadsheet. However, MYOB Essentials is different to MYOB AccountRight. Continue reading MYOB Payroll Administration Essentials Training Courses
Is Business Quiet? Need More Money/Sales? Use a Database!
When I started my first business in Sydney’s Dee Why in the early 1990’s, I was amazed that most restaurants and cafes, as well as other retail shops like dress shops, didn’t even know who their customers were!
Many business owners knew their customers by face, but they missed out on lots of opportunities to market and make contact with these customers when business was slow or they were overstocked. Are you working your database?
Continue reading Is Business Quiet? Need More Money/Sales? Use a Database!Clear Out Albert, Cherie’s Getting Square! (PayPal Alternative)
There are so many wonderful ways business owners are using technology every day for their digital marketing, as well as point-of-sale (POS) and bookkeeping.
Last week I met Cherie. Cherie owns a relaxed cafe in the holiday haven of Forrester’s Beach, NSW, and she let me record a short video of a customer paying for their meal using Square.
Continue reading Clear Out Albert, Cherie’s Getting Square! (PayPal Alternative)Is now a good time to invest into a new property – in Newcastle?
I completed a Cert IV in Property Services a couple years ago and have a strong interest in real estate as an asset for investment.
There is a lot of talk currently about negative gearing and whatever happens, we will all be affected. It’s the “wind that blows” according to Jim Rohn, a great inspirational speaker.
One of the topics which comes up about negative gearing is whether it should be available for existing dwellings or only new house and land packages.
As a result, EzyLearn is creating a real-life case study covering the investment and tax benefits of investing in a new house and land package. There are certainly plenty of them going up in the Central Coast to Newcastle and Maitland area!
Real Estate as an Investment
I believe real estate is a terrific investment provided you don’t stretch yourself financially. It does fluctuate in the short term, but you have to think long term.
Certainly, the recent changes in the real estate market, with Sydney property prices dropping over 15 per cent, means that if you bought in the last 2 years your property is worth less than what you paid for it.
Less Equity, Same Debt
The problem with house prices going down is that this affects your equity. Equity is how much of the property YOU own. The banks DEBT stays the same and only reduces as you pay down your loan.
The problem with your equity decreasing won’t matter in the long term because house prices generally continue to increase, but it will be a problem if you need to refinance or can’t afford the repayments and need to sell.
Mortgage Insurance
It’s these situations that make lenders charge mortgage insurance. If you borrow more than 80% of the value of the property, you’re up for mortgage insurance.
The ability to borrow so much of a properties value is GREAT when property prices increase, because you only actually have a small amount of equity (which increases) but when prices go down it can be very stressful.
Depreciation and Negative Gearing
This is a hotly discussed topic right now but it mainly affects whether property investors should be able to claim negative gearing if they buy an existing dwelling.
This is not so much of an issue for new dwellings because governments generally want to encourage builders and developers to erect new homes to house the population.
Property Investment Course
EzyLearn is adding a new training course manual & workbook to our property investment course that is totally focused on the tax benefits of investing in a new property.
The great news for Sydney and Melbourne investors is that you can invest $450,000 to $600,000 and buy a completely new house and land package in the Central Coast to Newcastle area of NSW. This makes it much more affordable than the capital cities.
Read more about our property investment course
Featured image: Allam Builders and Developers’ new house in Forresters Beach Estate, Central Coast of New South Wales
How We Create a Xero Training Course
MYOB AccountRight, QuickBooks Online and Xero come with job costing and job tracking functions allowing users to develop more accurate budgets and avoid cost blow outs.
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.
Why is job tracking and project costing so hard using MYOB & Xero?
In many industries, no two jobs are the same, making estimating job costs and resources tough. Job tracking is one of the best ways to develop an accurate budget and avoid blow outs.
But this can be hard work. Are the latest job costing and tracking functions in MYOB AccountRight, QuickBooks Online and Xero making life easier?
Continue reading Why is job tracking and project costing so hard using MYOB & Xero?
Should You Send Reports to Late-Paying Clients?
Want to learn how you can really manage late payers? Simply by reconciling more regularly, you can use a “real time” snapshot of your cash flow in your accounting software, rather than relying on your bank balance.
Continue reading Should You Send Reports to Late-Paying Clients?Are EzyLearn students just like YOU?
‘Social proof’ is testimonials, reviews and feedback of others, that vouches for the product or service we’re thinking of buying. Social proof backs up the fact that what we’re considering buying is what it says it is.
Come see some social proof about EzyLearn by meeting some students from the past few weeks
— you just might have a lot in common with them.
Continue reading Are EzyLearn students just like YOU? The smart cover letter to get your next accounting job
So you’ve switched on the job alerts with SEEK and accounting jobs, part-time or contract accounting jobs are coming into your Inbox! Jobs galore! Everyone needs accounts people, right?
IF YOU’RE RECEIVING the job alerts everyday — indeed, you may even have applied for some jobs already — but you’re still not getting called up for interview, then the following questions of doubt may be brewing:
- Why haven’t they picked me?
- Have I been filtered out for some reason?
- Was my cover letter not good enough?
Why such cheap online Xero & MYOB courses?
Good quality can be cheap and poor quality may be the most expensive
OFTEN IN LIFE we’re told that if something seems too good to be true then it probably is. Along the same lines as this is the expression that you get what you pay for. Indeed, I’ve commonly used the phrase: “Pay peanuts and you’ll get monkeys” but naturally, there are exceptions to this and plenty of cases where low cost can simply mean low cost – without meaning that quality or value has been compromised.
Continue reading Why such cheap online Xero & MYOB courses?Does Your Family Support Your Study?
Online MYOB Courses are flexible but…
ONLINE TRAINING IS one of the most convenient ways for busy people to study. While some people take to it naturally, for others the flexibility and freedom it affords itself is a learning curve.
The key to successful online training, however, is family support and we’ve noticed that many students for our Xero & MYOB Courses are parents who are stretched for time.
Continue reading Does Your Family Support Your Study?How to nail the job search process using SEEK’s advanced job search features
I was speaking with someone who just landed a part-time job, in-fact a contract position, even though the job was advertised as a full-time job.
The job seeker was telling me about the advanced new features of Australia’s leading job board, including:
- New Profiles (just like your LinkedIn Profile)
- Resume Scanning
- Job Recommendations
- “You may be a strong candidate”
- “Your application is unlikely to proceed further”
Don’t use the FREE MYOB Training Student Edition
MYOB has recently changed their website and in particular their pages for the free trial software.
We’ve updated the FREE MYOB Trial (within our MYOB courses) so look for the link when you access your MYOB courses and use the free trial software to practice what you learn in the video tutorials and training workbooks.
While we’re on the topic of free MYOB software, did you know that we provide free training course samples for most of our online courses?
Continue reading Don’t use the FREE MYOB Training Student EditionIntroduction to Bookkeeping Basics: What’s a Journal Entry?
In our educational guide, Bookkeeping Beginner Basics, which you can download from the EzyLearn website for free, you’ll learn how to record journal entries in your accounting software, whether you’re using MYOB, Xero or QuickBooks. Most bookkeeping newbies don’t know what a journal entry is, though, which is what this blog post – the latest in our Bookkeeping Beginner Basics guide companion series – is going to help you to understand.
The journal vs. the general ledger
An accounting journal is the record that keeps accounting transactions in chronological order (i.e., as they occur), while the general ledger is a record that keeps accounting transactions by the account – see our previous post on the chart of accounts [Bookkeeping Beginner Basics: The Chart of Accounts] if you need help understanding what the term ‘account’ means in this context. Before computers, bookkeepers used to log all the financial transactions of a business in paper journals, and then at the end of the month transfer these journal entries into the general ledger, which was divided into various accounts that is now called the chart of accounts, and all the transactions were posted to these accounts using a method called double-entry bookkeeping.
Journal entries using accounting software
Today, however, accounting systems, such as MYOB, Xero, QuickBooks and the like, will automatically record most business transactions into the ledger immediately after the software prepares sales invoices, issues cheques to creditors, or processes receipts from customers, and as such you don’t have to create journal entries for most of your business’s transactions.
That being said, some journal entries still need to be processed, in order to record transfers between bank accounts and to record adjusting entries. You would need to make a journal entry, for example, at the end of each month to record depreciation or to record interest accrued on a bank loan.
Double-entry bookkeeping
If journal entries and general ledgers and the double entry bookkeeping method sound a bit too much, and you think you’d rather stick to the cash-based accounting method instead, prepare yourself for bad news: all businesses, whether they use the cash-based accounting method or the accrual accounting method, use double-entry bookkeeping to keep their books, and all accounting software applications, by default, are set up to adhere to the double-entry method, too. The double-entry bookkeeping method reduces errors and also ensures that your books balance, so as complicated as it may seem, it’s much easier in the long run.
If you still feel a little out of your depth, however, you can hire a reliable bookkeeper to manage your bookkeeping system and deal with all the journal entries and double-entry business for you, instead. Visit the National Bookkeeping website for to find a highly qualified bookkeeper whose experience and skills suit your business needs.
This blog post is part of our Bookkeeping Basics series, which are being published to complement our new educational guide, also titled Bookkeeping Beginner Basics, which you can download for free from the EzyLearn website.
We’re using your resume bio to sell you as an accounting tutor
I’ve written recently about our Accounting Tutor initiative and the response has been fantastic. EzyLearn Accounting Course students are AMAZING!
Our team has gone through dozens of resumes and been very impressed at the knowledge and experience of most of the applicants, but you’ll need to decide which one you like best.
Continue reading We’re using your resume bio to sell you as an accounting tutor
