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 May 29, 2012September 11, 2013 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

Get MYOB Test Drives (inc. AccountEdge for Mac) for free?

We recently had an inquiry from one of our MYOB Training students about accessing the free MYOB test drive software. We mention to students that we provide a link to the software in our course, but we happily also hand the link out to anyone who wants to get to know about the software.

Although EzyLearn is an MYOB reseller and we have sold MYOB software in the past, we know that there are much better online retailers who focus on selling MYOB software online. There are comparison sites that even allow you to compare the cost of MYOB software from different retailers of the software you are looking for.

We also assume that you can install software on your computer or have a friend or colleague or IT consultant that can help you install software.

The MYOB Test Drive can be purchased for a low amount (with cashback) from retailers like Officeworks or downloaded directly from the MYOB website for free.

Posted on May 29, 2012 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

Online is the way to go according to Woolworths

I was having a chat with a rehab consultant the other day and we discussed the benefits of online services like our online MYOB Training Courses and he reminded me about online shopping and having your weekly groceries delivered to your home.

We dug a little deeper and discovered that Woolworths announced a 118% increase in online sales for the December 2011 half year (July to June). When we went to the Woolworths Online Shopping site we saw all their branding for their Click and Collect service, but entered our postcode in the top right hand corner to discover that they would deliver to your door for $11 or less if you spent more than $100 with them. Do you think that is high?

I remember speaking to an Amway seller back around 1999 when the first online shopping “craze” began as part of the dotcom revolution where he mentioned that they sell all the products that are traditionally in the centre of the shop, the products that aren’t fresh and have long expiry dates. He pointed out that most people buy the same products every time they shop, that if you wrote up a list of things you need you could simply tick boxes and re-order all those products very quickly. Compare that to taking a trip to the supermarket!

A trip to the supermarket could involve the following steps and cost a lot more than $11 delivery:

Bringing children with you
Driving to the supermarket and looking for a parking space
Walking around the supermarket to get all the products you need
Waiting in a queue to pay and have your products bagged
Taking the shopping bags to your car to load up
Unloading the shopping from your car at home

It was at this stage that we realised also, why online computer training courses offer so many benefits over traditional courses held in training centres in Sydney or Melbourne. We recall that we needed to pay rent, wages, advertising and find good quality trainers. We had to schedule the courses 3-6 months in advance and try to guess the best date, day and time for students and THEN if we didn’t have at least 4 students attend a course we had to cancel it because it we wouldn’t cover our costs!

We realised we could give students more training (our current 5 MYOB training courses for example would take the equivalent of 4 full days of face to face training) if we delivered it online, and like a new student said to us just this week, the training is delivered consistently to every student. Every student learns exactly the same information the same way every time so it is great for franchise operators.

The best part is that we divert all our earnings into generating new and updated training content, and ensuring that our online training servers are operational and secure 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This means we can also focus on our LIFETIME student access offer and ensure that students can get on with the bookkeeping and administration tasks they need to do rather than having to do MYOB courses again and again to get the parts they missed.

We believe 100% in online services and look forward to helping your learn MYOB and other programs like Microsoft Excel and WordPress (website builder and blogging platform) online.

Posted on May 26, 2012May 24, 2012 by Steve Slisar

Want to create your own email newsletter for free?

All the tools you need to create a newsletter that is emailed to subscribers is available to you for free, you just have to know how to use them. Section 5 of our online WordPress training course gives you the skills you need to get it started.

This website is built on the WordPress Content Management System using a professionally designed WordPress theme. We can change the look and feel of the website in a very short time by simply uploading and activating a different theme and (unless we made some complicated changes to the coding) we wouldn’t lose any of our pages or blog articles.

The best thing about the Tools we use for our EzyLearn Online Training blog newsletter is that we simply use WordPress to write and manage the blog posts and Google Feedburner to provide automated delivery to any subscribers. The best part is that it’s fully anti-SPAM compliant. Here’s an extract from our online WordPress training course.

Section 5: Blogs, Posts and RSS Feeds

Syndication gives you the power to be many places at once. When you write a blog that article can be made to appear in your readers inbox, on other websites and of course at your blog. Articles from our blog also appear at Twitter and our Facebook Page.

Google have a range of tools to help you gain exposure on the world wide web and one of these tools is called Feedburner. This tool will enable you to have your own email list subscribers attached to your blog.

Nareev Bhatt was one of Australia’s top bloggers back in 2009 and he and other top bloggers like Karen Cheng use a simple website with Google Feedburner to deliver their news to anyone who wants to read it. This course will show you how to have your own newsletter using your WordPress Blog and FeedBurner.

If you want to see what’s included in our online WordPress Training Course (with LIFETIME student access) visit the WordPress Course section of our website. Remember you can enrol today and start by 5pm tomorrow.

Posted on May 25, 2012March 20, 2023 by Steve Slisar — 3 Comments

Want to use Dropbox to replace your USB thumb drive?

I wrote earlier in the week about Google Drive and asked the question about how it compares with Dropbox to store and share files in the cloud. Today we provide you with a free training tutorial video to show you exactly how Dropbox works. It’s simple.

Many people talk about dropbox as a means for storing files and sharing them with other people but it’s also important to realise that you can use dropbox as a backup solution to store important files like your MYOB datafile. It can also be a place where you store common documents that a group of people are working on.

Remember that when you backup to a place like Dropbox you are effectively keeping a copy of your file “off site”. If your building goes up in flames or your computers are stolen you still have access to those files!

A great feature about Dropbox is that many people can share a folder and as soon as a file is uploaded into a shared folder, or as soon as a shared file is modified you receive an instant notification in your system tray area (at the bottom right, near the time, of your Windows desktop).

FREE Outlook Course with MYOB & Xero Courses

The Dropbox Training Course is included as a FREE Student Inclusion when you enrol into selected Office Admin and Bookkeeping Courses.

Watch the video below and start enjoying the benefits of cloud based computer storage. Remember to click on the heading of this blog to see the video at our blog site and subscribe if you want to receive these free tips automatically in your email.

Posted on May 24, 2012 by Steve Slisar

Want to see what MYOB looks like when it’s hosted in the cloud?

As part of our Continuing Professional Development (CPD) program for our Bookkeeping Academy we write and inform about products and services that will help bookkeepers build their business and job seekers learn new skills to become more employable.

We recently wrote about companies that offer MYOB hosting. This enables companies to access their MYOB datafile from no matter where they are and it also enables remote contractors to manage a companies bookkeeping from their own homes. In this blog post we include a video demonstration about how easy it is to use MYOB in the cloud.

We spoke to John from Bluewave who use to promote his MYOB hosting services under the domain MYOBinthecloud.com (we think it’s a great name because it describes the service that he offered very accurately) and he was kind enough to give us a demonstration account so that we could give a hosted version of MYOB a spin. He said that they provide hosted solutions for more than just MYOB and we were able to create an invoice and email it using Microsoft Outlook.

The MYOB version we used in this demonstration is the stable version 19 (as opposed to MYOB AccountRight version 2011 that had a lot of bad publicity). The great news about MYOB is that it’s navigation hasn’t changed significantly for at least 10 years from our experience.

If you area reading this blog post via email, click on the heading to be able to see the video). If you want to ensure that you get each update as it is published via your email feel free to subscribe. If you want to create your own blog using WordPress and Google Feedburner learn how to create it in our WordPress course.

Posted on May 23, 2012May 18, 2012 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

Google Apps is now Google Drive. Is it better than dropbox?

As users of Google Apps, the EzyLearn Team are always interested in learning about new technology and how it can be used to increase productivity, reduce cost and allow us to do great new things.

We recently received a message that Google Docs is now Google Drive. They’re tying it all into Cloud based storage and services and it looks like a great move, but will we use it instead of Dropbox?

We recently wrote about MYOB in the Clouds, we use a small business telephone service that is in the cloud, our training courses are in the cloud and our website are built using a cloud-based website builder (WordPress) so it’s natural that we try to keep abreast of what the big technology players like Google are up to.

Below is a simple video (if you are reading this blog post via email, click on the heading to see the video at our blog site) that shows what you can do with Google Drive and all your devices including smartphones that are connected to the Internet. How does it compare to Dropbox? I agree with Ed Bott from the prolific technology writers at ZDNet.

Feel free to share your experiences on our Facebook Page

Posted on May 22, 2012May 18, 2012 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

Hundreds of businesses already use MYOB hosted in the cloud!

ozBeanz MYOB Approved Hosting Provider for MYOB in the cloud — Screen Shot from ozBeanz website

In our research about cloud based accounting software we discovered that MYOB have an approved hosting reseller program. This is a program where MYOB partners with companies who specialise in providing hosting services so that MYOB users can access their data file from anywhere.

We recently spoke to one of those hosting businesses and took their service for a test drive and it was amazingly quick and did everything we needed it to do. We were able to login, access the MYOB data file, create an invoice and email it via the cloud based hosting account!

[quote]This is a definite boon for Remote Contractors who provide bookkeeping services from their own home, like working mums.[/quote]

The term cloud means different things to different people and Heather Cox from asponline wrote an excellent article about hosted MYOB services. We spoke to the people at ozBeanz as well and they have been MYOB Approved Hosting Providers for many, many years.

Do you have any experience using MYOB in the cloud? If you do, we’d like to hear from you at our Facebook page.

Our MYOB training course is also in the cloud so you can complete all 5 MYOB courses no matter where you are.

Posted on May 21, 2012August 5, 2012 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

What is a PAYG tax table and how does it work?

We recently announced our updated MYOB Payroll Course videos and training workbook and were asked to explain PAYG tax tables in a bit more detail. We’ll explain tax tables using the data from the ATO website relating to tax tables for the 2013 financial year.

We recently witness a federal budget and there are usually some changes in each budget that relate to tax tables or tax thresholds. These tax tables simply define how much tax you pay for each threshold and the simplest way to describe it is to define the first category. This category is called the tax-free threshold and it is the level at which you don’t pay any tax. The annual pay for this level will be $18,200 from 1st July 2012 (the beginning of the next financial year). Any money you earn up to this level you don’t pay any income tax on.

Any money you earn over this tax-free threshold amount but less than $37,000 will be taxed at 19c per dollar.

The most important thing to note is that just because you earn $50,000 doesn’t mean you will be taxed at 32.5c in every dollar you earn. You’ll be charged

zero for the first $18,200,
19% from $18,200 to $37,000 and then
32.50% for each dollar over $37,000.

Stay tuned for more bite size chunks of knowledge in the coming weeks as we evolve our MYOB Payroll training course. Make sure you subscribe to receive these posts via email.

Posted on May 19, 2012May 17, 2012 by Steve Slisar

We help you in the “Do More Make Less” Australia

We were spilling through the recent federal budget information (as you would) and found some interesting facts that we wanted to share. We were actually looking for the new tax tables to explain more about how they work for our recently updated MYOB Payroll Course, but thought the information was enlightening. It’s also another reason to learn how to use MYOB so you can perform bookkeeping tasks!

We found it relevant because our online MYOB and Excel training courses provide education and new skills for individuals to participate in the provision of services in Australia’s knowledge based economy. Is all that jargon too much? It just means that more and more workers are being paid for using their brains and skills to perform tasks (like bookkeeping) and less on making or growing stuff.

You might also be reassured by our relatively low and constant unemployment rate.

And, just in case you weren’t aware, our online MYOB training courses include

Training Videos
Training workbooks with exercises and
Knowledge review to test your skills

PLUS they come with LIFETIME student access so you can have access to new content as it is created for no extra cost.

Posted on May 17, 2012 by Steve Slisar

Get a WordPress mobile site because Google says 75% need it

We recently wrote about WordPress plugins that are available for websites built using the WordPress CMS (Content Management System) that enables the website to be viewed better on a mobile phone and statistics provided by Google (which you can check out and dive into yourself) show that we are one of the world leaders in mobile phone adoption.

Interestingly just under 25% of Australian smartphone owners used the website browsing capabilities of their phone to perform job searches!

We made the decision to use WordPress for our website several years ago (and build a WordPress Training Course) because it is:

An open source solution
Used by millions of website owners around the world
Supported by plugin and themes developers

With the importance of Google searches to bring inquiries to your business and the adoption of Smartphones every business needs to have a website that:

Looks Professional (using inexpensive WordPress themes)
Can be viewed easily on a smartphone
You can update yourself!

Check out the Google OurMobilePlanet website and get all sorts of interesting stats for yourself.

Posted on May 16, 2012 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

MYOB Payroll (Processing Pays) Workbook now available

Payroll is one of the most significant costs involved in operating a business and also represents the main form of income for Australian workers. Our MYOB course development for the coming months is focused on increasing the depth of skills taught about how to handle Payroll using MYOB accounting software.

The beta version of our latest training guide for Payroll is now available as part of the 17 new MYOB training tutorial videos we have produced for the MYOB Payroll course. The videos provide the visual demonstrations for the tasks that are covered in the workbook and the workbooks provides you with step by step instructions about how to load tax tables, create employees, process pays and perform reconciliation and end of year tasks regarding payroll.

Our MYOB Payroll case study for the course involves a hair styling salon that employs staff to operate their salon. Follow their journey as new employees come on board.

There will be more to come so make sure you subscribe so you can receive these blog posts via your email. We’ll also be producing some Excel spreadsheet files for students to use regarding payroll and we’ll have some free demonstration videos as well.

Posted on May 11, 2012May 10, 2012 by Steve Slisar

Most budding bookkeepers want to start learning MYOB at 12.30pm!

How do we know that most students want to start their MYOB training course at 12.30pm? We put all our course enrolment information into an Excel spreadsheet, inserted a pivot table and then filtered the data. Does that sound simple? Well it will be if you enrol into our online Microsoft Excel course.

The good news is that the video tutorial below will show you exactly what we did. If you are reading this blog as an email subscriber click on the heading to get to our blog site to watch the training video tutorial. If you want to receive these blogs posts via email, make sure you subscribe to our Employment and Productivity Training Blog.

The other good news is that when you enrol into our online Microsoft Excel Training Course you actually receive the data file that we used in this exercise so you can replicate it yourself! These figures are for enrolments into our MYOB course, Beginners, and Microsoft Office courses at our Dee Why training centre when we operated class-based training centres in Sydney.

Like all our online training courses, the Microsoft Excel training courses come with LIFETIME student access. The current course not only includes training videos, but nine training workbooks and over 40 exercise files that you can use to practice your Excel spreadsheeting skills.

Posted on May 10, 2012May 17, 2012 by Steve Slisar

Pay today, slip tomorrow

MYOB online training courses and support - Weekly Pay Slip screen shot — MYOB Payroll screen from MYOB website

Did you know that you are required by law to provide a payslip to your employees no later than the day after payday?

We recently completed our new and revised MYOB Payroll online training course as part of our full suite of five online MYOB Training Courses (all available for one price and LIFETIME course access!) and one of the topics we cover is emailing Pay Slips (or payment advices) to employees. As part of the course we reference the FairWork Australia website which clearly states that every employer must ensure that an employee receives their pay slip no later than 1 day after being paid.

The site also goes on to explain more information about what should appear on a payment advice and they even provide some very detailed Microsoft Word templates for Pay Slips, Weekly time and wages records, employment details and leave records (very handy), roster template and time sheet. They are provide in a Microsoft Word format so you can customise them for your own business!

Need to learn Microsoft Word to modify documents? See our online Microsoft Word course outline.

If you are an existing EzyLearn online student you can see our 17 new training videos in the MYOB Payroll Training Course.

Posted on May 9, 2012May 17, 2012 by Steve Slisar — 4 Comments

New employees, TFN declarations and ATO requirements

It is now READY! The 17 new training video tutorials for our MYOB Payroll Online Training Course are now ready and on the learning site. If you are an existing EzyLearn online MYOB training student you will be happy to hear that all this new content is available to you (if you are a LIFETIME student) right now and at no extra cost.

The new videos cover these topics:

505201 – Create a brand new company file using the MYOB trial version software
505202 – Easy Setup Assistant for MYOB Payroll and Tax tables
505203 – Creating new employee cards and setting up categories
505204 – Extra Payroll settings for employee cards
505205 – Superannuation information for employees
505206 – Processing Payroll – Performing a pay run
505207 – Processing Payroll – Editing and Deleting incorrect pay slips
505208 – Processing Payroll – Editing and Deleting incorrect pays using transaction journal
505209 – Processing Payroll – Understanding Payroll and the Account List
505210 – Processing Payroll – Processing Payment of Payroll Liabilities
505211 – Processing Payroll – Processing Payment of Salary Sacrifice
505212 – Processing Payroll – Setting up a deduction for employees social club
505213 – Processing Payroll – Including deductions for employees social club
505214 – Payroll Reporting – Payroll Summary and Employee Register
505215 – Payroll Reporting – Reconciling your Super, Wages and PAYG Taxes
505216 – Payroll Reporting – Printing of EOY Payment Summaries
505217 – Backing up your MYOB Data file before Closing off the Payroll year

For more information about our online MYOB training courses and student support services feel free to visit our information page. You can also enrol online for the current price and receive lifetime student membership to new training material as it is updated! Enrol today and start by 5pm tomorrow afternoon.

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Steve Slisar

Certificates are coming shortly

Congratulate all the students who successfully completed their MYOB Bookkeeping courses this quarter, your certificates are now been issued via our support site.

If you are contemplating our online MYOB training course you’ll be very happy to know that the EzyLearn MYOB Course certificate includes the logo for the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers (ICB). We are proud to be an Accredited Training Provider of the ICB and also of their their continuing professional development (CPD) program for bookkeepers. You may also recall that you can join the ICB as an EzyLearn student for free.

Make sure you subscribe to this blog for the pending announcement of our CPD training program for bookkeepers.

In the mean time you might also want to stay tuned for the pending release of our upgraded MYOB Payroll course, Advanced Microsoft Excel courses and updates to our Microsoft Word online training course. We’ll be releasing some free training videos shortly to show you what we’ve done.

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Steve Slisar

Need help with Payroll and MYOB?

We use the EzyLearn blog to inform new and existing students about new course content, tips and tricks and free training that we make available from time to time. Today we are announcing the completion of the workbook and training videos for our online MYOB training courses.

Our MYOB Payroll course has been created and you’ll soon be able to learn how to create employee cards, setup the payroll tax tables, choose wage categories, pay benefits, superannuation information, perform a payroll run, send pay slips, generate payroll advice reports, pay your SG liabilities, reconcile your super and wages payments and print out payment summaries.

Although the course has been created we are finalising the knowledge review questions that are used as part of our assessments for students who want a certificate after they complete their MYOB training course.

Did you know that our LIFETIME student membership entitles you to review the training material (including videos and workbooks) for the rest of your working life? This includes new content, so enrol now at today’s prices and have access to MYOB training course content for life!

Stay tuned for more updates in the coming week! IF you are not a subscriber, subscribe here.