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MYOB Accounting – Fighting to Stay In Control?

Is MYOB Just Another Program In Your Control Panel?

MYOB Accounting software online training coursesI was cleaning up my computer this morning and went to my Microsoft Windows Control Panel to discover MYOB Accounting Software sitting in the program list. I was removing any programs that I may have installed to test or get to know with a goal of REMOVING all that I didn’t need, when I saw MYOB software in the list.

I didn’t see WordPress and I didn’t see Commonwealth Bank Internet Banking in the list and at that moment I felt a little sad, realising that if I changed computers that I would need to go through the program installation process with my accounting software AND that EVERY person who needed to access our bookkeeping software would have to go through the same process.

Cloud Software Doesn’t Need to be Installed On Your Computer

I’m used to going to websites, logging in to do my work and then logging out at the end. Yes, with some I have to change the password regularly and others there is 2 level authentication using a mobile phone number as well, but the great thing about these “cloud-based” services is that I don’t even need my own computer! I can log in using an iPad, laptop or even my smart phone.

Cloud accounting should be like Xero and Quickbooks onlineWith services like Google Apps, we can run our entire company “server” in the cloud and have experts make sure it is up and running all the time for the cost of less than $100 per month, compared to several thousand dollars to buy the hardware (and have the floor space, data, power and air conditioning) , thousands of dollars in software licences and then having to hire an expert IT service person to manage it all for thousands of dollars per year – particularly if something goes wrong.

I’ve always wondered why MYOB didn’t focus all of their efforts on building a fully featured accounting program for the cloud only and wrote about how it seems like MYOB is computer based accounting program with the functionality of Dropbox. Some people think it’s more secure or safe to keep your accounting information local, but I’m not convinced.

How does MYOB compare to Xero and Quickbooks Online

I recently wrote about Ken from Love My Home Theatre and why he loves Xero Accounting Software (not Zero) and also about how the new market for cloud accounting software is not only introducing new competitors like Xero, but also enabling MASSIVE competitors like QUICKBOOKS back into the Australian market for accounting software once again.

If you are a regular reader you’d also know that we’ve had Xero Training Courses for quite a while now and that our focus is to help people looking for bookkeeping work AND small business owners learn bookkeeping software to help them run their business more efficiently and be compliant with the ATO.

The most impressive features of Xero Accounting Software are:

  • Xero can be accessed from anywhere at any time
  • Xero can accommodate multiple users (accountant, bookkeeper, business owner) no matter where they are located (which is great for virtual assistants doing bookkeeping from their own home)
  • Xero integrates with other cloud software programs (watch the video interview about Xero accounting with a small business that love it)

The best thing about cloud based software services (apart from having experts making sure it is always up and running) is that when new features are built they are available to you immediately. Xero recently announced the capability to create quotes and manage inventory which brings it even closer “feature wise” with MYOB and although I haven’t had a chance to see it in action, Margaret Carey (who contributed to our XERO vs MYOB feature comparison) notes that:

[quote]Any business that requires more than basic tracking will need to continue to look at the add on solutions such as Unleashed or Dear but it is a promising start.[/quote]

Xero is Definitely Becoming More Popular

Whether Xero has just done some great marketing this year, or that people genuinely want the benefits of a cloud-based accounting program, we are experiencing increased enrolments into our Xero Training Courses.

It could also be because all of our Xero courses are included for the one low price – we don’t sell them separately AND we include new content during a students membership period.

We use all of the major cloud-based accounting programs and I can say personally that I like what I have seen with Xero and Quickbooks Online. The fact that you don’t have to go through that labourious process of downloading, installing and registering your software (for each user) is a great bonus, but the fact that you can use these programs from any computer is even better.

Stay Tuned for QuickBooks Online Training Courses

This year will become a very interesting year as online accounting software companies fight for your business as well as loyalty from bookkeepers and accountants. I can reveal that we have started writing the content for our soon to be launched Quickbooks Training Courses! Jacci, our Register BAS Agent is working to replicate the small business accounting processes we use in our MYOB and Xero courses to teach students how to manage business accounts using Quickbooks Online.

If you want to receive updates and launch information about this course please visit our Quickbooks Online Training Course page.

Is there a wave of innovation in online accounting from Canada?

Wave accounting has 1 million users and is free_freeWould you like to hear about MORE innovation in accounting? Want to learn about a cloud-based accounting program that boasts more than twice as many users as Xero?

I was speaking with an insurance agent who is contributing to the risk management components of our Small Business Management course and he was telling me about this great accounting software that is completely free unless you use their merchant services and/or payroll. I haven’t confirmed any of these features of the software, but a quick visit to their website shows an interface that looks very much like Quickbooks Online with the navigation panel on the left of the screen.

My insurance agent friend Ruben is sharing information with us about how Workcover works for small business owners as well as public and product liability. He’ll also share with us how these relate to contractors who might work for you and go to perform work at a customers site.

If you decide you’d like to take a look at Wave Accounting or you are already a customer of this accounting program please share your opinions with us at our Facebook page.

 

 

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Beginners to Advanced Microsoft Excel Course for $197 inc Exercise Files

$197 Beginners to Advanced Microsoft Excel Course includes Exercise Files

Microsoft Excel Training Course exercise files

One of the best ways of learning how to use a program is to use that program during your training. Some people can sit with programs like Microsoft Excel and learn by trying something out and making mistakes and then trying again.

[box type=”tick”]We’ve discovered that Microsoft Excel course students want to work with real world files in a logical step-by-step method that uses the exercise files for the basic skills and then keep using that file for the more advanced skills.[/box]

By the end you’ll have a powerful Microsoft Excel spreadsheet using advanced skills and because you learnt in a logical and methodical way, using gradually more complicated tools, you’ll have learnt most of the Microsoft Excel skills you’ve wanted and won’t even notice the time go by.

Real World Use of Microsoft Excel Spreadsheets

Excel training course exercise filesThe main uses for Microsoft Excel are as a:

  • Worksheet that enables you to lay out information in a logical fashion and then perform calculations with that data
  • Database that lists all of the information in a tabular format that can then be filtered and manipulated into a format that can be used in mail merges etc, and
  • Charts and graphs that visually present the information in a worksheet or table so that we humans can make sense of the information

Here are some of the ways that we use Microsoft Excel for our training business.

Present information for use in newspaper ads

In Microsoft Excel Course 303 we look at formulas and formatting and one exercise file we share with students and an example of what’s possible using Excel is the artwork we created for the newspaper ads for our courses at our training centres in Sydney. The table structure of Excel enables us to lay the information out precisely and if we need to change the dates

What costs us the most money

Yes, you can see the costs of running a business in a simple table, but when you put it in a chart you can visually see the differences in costs and in our 305 course on charting we’ll show you how to create the various different types of pie, line and bar charts as well as many other types. You’ll learn how to format the charts to make certain areas stand out and you’ll learn how to demonstrate trends.

Budgets and forecasting

It’s great when you have historical information to work with because you can spend a lot of time working out percentages, margins, budgets etc to try to figure out how you will go in the future. We include many exercise files in Microsoft Excel Course 306, including files to help you:

  • Maintain a household (or business budget)
  • Calculate sales margins and commissions for sales people (we have several different versions of this file to demonstrate how the file should look at the various stages of creating it).
  • Create a price list (including all wholesale product costings – that will be hidden from view)

 Making the right decisions

When we operated our training centres in Sydney we spent a lot of our time scheduling courses. We had to allocate training rooms, roster on our great trainers, print training materials and we needed to know when people where coming to courses. We discovered that most people who wanted to learn Microsoft Excel did a night class. We had these variables to work with:

  • The courses
  • What days people had come to these courses in the past
  • The time of the day that students had enrolled into these courses: morning, midday, evening or weekend.
  • Different training methods (class-based and Flexible Learning)

By discovering the best days and times that students had enrolled into courses from the past we were able to better schedule our courses to get the most students. It means we didn’t need to cancel courses.

See the contents of Microsoft Excel Course 308 for more information.

Figure out how to make more profit

In a business you can build a bigger business and make more profit by

  • increasing sales,
  • cutting costs,
  • focussing on your most profitable customers,
  • focussing on your most profitable products,
  • decreasing the time it takes to get your money (cash sale or terms).

Using Goal Seek in Microsoft Excel we discovered something that’ll help all independent contractors run a better more profitable business.

 

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5 x MYOB Training Courses and 12 Months Access

MYOB Training Courses delivered in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Darwin and HobartMYOB Courses

Because it’s the beginning of the year we are receiving a lot of calls from students who are looking to do an MYOB Course so we are thrilled to confirm that we offer access to ALL of our MYOB Courses for one low price and 12 months course access.

When we say ALL, we mean

Why All MYOB Courses for One Price?

You can follow our journey from operating training centres in Sydney’s Dee Why, to the decision to go 100% online at the About EzyLearn page on our website, but I’ll sum it up in 1 paragraph here:

We can guarantee consistent course content to every student, with MYOB Course content developed over 15 years in teaching people how to use MYOB and from some of the best MYOB Trainers in Australia. By creating our own MYOB courses and updating them we are able to focus on the content of our courses as well as the systems to support it online rather than paying for office rent, computers and software licences, trainers and advertising.

MYOB Course Options

The only decision you need to make is whether you want an MYOB certificate and 12 months or lifetime course access. Remember that unlike some MYOB course providers our students can move freely from one course to the next as they please and use the course as a resource while at their new job or operating their own bookkeeping business.

MYOB Videos, Training Workbooks and Knowledge Reviews

With a 100% focus on MYOB Course content we create every form of training material for MYOB accounting software: Videos, Workbooks (with step-by-step exercises) and Knowledge Reviews that test your skills. You can watch a video and try to replicate it with the free MYOB software or follow the exercises in the MYOB Trainingg Workbooks to perform tasks that bookkeepers perform every day in their working environment.

Money-back Guarantee

When we were the first training company to offer MYOB courses online in 2008 we offered the money-back guarantee because not everybody had great broadband Internet speeds, not everyone knew how to navigate around websites and online learning management systems and people where generally scared to use their credit card online. Now-a-days we find that the biggest reason some students find it a comfort is because many students are Mac users and are not sure that they would learn by using MYOB Course content created for the Windows versions of the MYOB software.

Why Thousands of Students Choose EzyLearn for MYOB EVERY Year

We use the Content Marketing approach to building our brand and product awareness and it takes a lot of effort to put the amount of detail we put on our website and in our blog posts. We do it because it shows an ongoing commitment to openness but also to leave no doubt as to exactly what we offer and how we support it. If you want to get to know more about us read some of our blog posts or watch some sample videos. If you are ready to enrol into an online MYOB course then enrol now online and start by 5pm next business day!

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69% of MYOB Skills Test Students Failed – Would You?

MYOB Skills Test and online training coursesMYOB Skills Test

It’s that time of the year again when people are acting on their new years resolutions and embarking on training to improve their knowledge and skills. In 2011 we introduce a free MYOB online skills test that anyone can do to test their knowledge of MYOB software and it interesting to see that the average score has increased from 40% to 55% over the last 4 years!

What more interesting is that most attempts resulted in a fail score – 69% of students failed to pass. You can do the test several times if you want and if you get an answer wrong the skills test can show you the correct answer – it helps you learn.

We have a test like this at the end of each section of each course (ie. there are lots of them) and we focus on using them to help students consolidate what they’ve learnt as well as show them what the correct answer is. We see our knowledge reviews as a teaching aid rather than something to be scared of.

If you are interested in learning how to use MYOB to find bookkeeping work or start your own bookkeeping business look at what is included in our MYOB Courses (5 courses for the price of one) and start your journey on a new career or the flexibility of having your own bookkeeping business.

 

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Who really cares about Sensis? Yellow Pages? Content Marketing shows you care

content marketing versus yellow pages and sensisYellow Pages vs Content Marketing?

A client of ours showed me an email that came from Sensis and it looked a little sad. It showed how many times an ad appeared and how many people clicked for more information. The saddest part is that this Billion dollar company is now just another online directory. It’s another example of how a traditional business, that hires professional and persistent sales people to sell high cost packages is dying an accelerating death. The other large one I recall was Encyclopaedia Britannica – remember those door to door salesmen who made a good income selling these for your children’s benefit? OK, now I’m assuming you’re over 45 😐

Why Content Marketing

We decided many years ago to go down the blogging route because it makes sense. These days the correct term for blogging for business is “Content Marketing” and it’s great because it’s a way of:

  1. Constantly informing readers,
  2. Demonstrating an active business and website
  3. Informing website visitors about changes in the business,
  4. sharing stories about how people use our services and
  5. Making general announcements.

How Bad is the Yellow Pages Directory Going?

Telstra recently offloaded their majority ownership in the Yellow Pages business they branded as Sensis and in the fine print on page 15 (2013 year) and page 18 (2014 year) you can see that the revenue for this business declined by 11.7% and 22% respectively.

I remember when most local tradies (plumbers, electricians, chippies, builders etc) would spend tens of thousands of dollars per year to keep their position in the large display ads. I even remember the days of the golden phone that Yellow Pages use to make available to business to PROVE just how many phone calls would be coming in the door as a result of advertising with them. If anyone remembers the golden phone offer I’d love hear from you on our Facebook page..

Where do you spend your marketing money?

The idea for this blog post came as a result of being forwarded an email, but it ties in nicely with our Small Business and Startup Course which is now available at a hugely discounted price! Read on to see how we changed our pricing structure.

Marketing and Communication course for small businessIn this course we have two subjects which cover marketing for small business and we have some great interviews with Michael Locke who shares information about the 4P’s. Sensis would represent an excellent case study of where the marketing function may not have been submersed in the strategy business decision making to stem this significant change in their business model.

Small Business Management and StartUp Course

The recent change we made to this course was to separate the business coaching and assessment options and make them available separately. In this way the Small Business and StartUp course is much like our MYOB course where you can work through everything at your own pace and request support if you need it.

If you are interested in doing a number of different courses as well as the Small Business Management course you might want to enrol at the Australian Small Business website where you can choose our software courses at a discounted price (when combined with the small business management course). This way you’ll be able to use WordPress for your content marketing, MYOB or Xero for your accounts and Excel for any spreadsheet work.

References:

Telstra Annual Reports 2013, and 2014

PS. By the way, you can still get Britannica and online it’s just under $70 pa. You can also still buy the printed edition for under $700 and you can pay $2500 for a whopping collection of short stories, plays and poems..

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Prevent Russian Attacks on Your WordPress Website with Google Analytics

Traffic from Russia, Eastern Europe, Philipines and India?

We’ve been busy these last couple months in upgrading and optimising our websites, fine tuning our online marketing and studying our Google Analytics and came across a Russian based website that was sending a lot of traffic to several of our sites. After closely monitoring our website traffic, landing pages, bounce rates, time on site etc, we found a lot of in bound traffic from a Russian site called Darodar. It made me wonder why we’re all so scared of web traffic from the USSR. In fact it’s a reminder of the fact that labour is very cheap in some of these countries and some companies or individuals can go to great lengths to

The best thing to come from all this really is that by looking at our statistics regularly, updating all scripts and plugins and server side applications not only do we have an up-to-date website with security and protection against online risks, but we understand our website traffic in detail. This is helping us fine tune our website content constantly to provide our website visitors with what they are looking for.

I don’t normally write like this

Google Analytics - Channels, Sessions, Conversions, Sources, Aquisition, BehaviourI don’t normally like to write about all the technical details we have to go through as an online training course provider, but we’ve been assembling some marketing information about our new online business opportunities and realised this is exactly the type of information that we’ll be sharing with students who come along on our online marketing business opportunity.

As it turns out the type of traffic we were getting is called HTTP Referrer Spam or just Referrer Spam and hundreds of people are talking about it online already. Here’s a snipped of some of the sites we discovered. There is a lengthy conversation on an official WordPress Support Forum, and an article on a popular article site called Reddit.

The Best Answer

The best answer we found was this link that confirmed that this type of attack is not malicious to your website, is not a server side issue and won’t affect the ranking and traffic to your site. The biggest issue is that we spent all this time and even ended up going to the site in question (that’s one of their goals!!) and that it distorts our Google Analytics information.

We disable the Darodar Spambot and any traffic from this location. It’s not the best solution because we can’t do this for every website that performs this type of activity, but again, it gives us more clarity about what is happening with our website traffic.

Who cares?

If you want to get to know more about our online marketing contractor business opportunity go visit the StartUp Academy website for more information. I’ll be sending more information out shortly so stay tuned – including the services we are launching to help people start their own bookkeeping business..

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Did I Mention a Free Excel Beginners Course?

Free Excel Beginners Course

I recently wrote about our Microsoft Excel [link]  Training Courses and how they have the features that make all of our online training courses popular, but I forgot to mention that we make the Excel Beginners Course available for free. These free training videos AND Excel Course workbook will give you the confidence to understand the main uses for Microsoft Excel.

Microsoft Excel can be used for lots of different things, but the main uses are:

  • Worksheet (to do calculations)
  • Chart (to visually show the data)
  • Database (to store data)

Our Excel Beginners Course videos will give you the basic Microsoft Excel knowledge very quickly, but the Excel Beginners Course workbook and exercise files will give you the chance to replicate what you see in the videos and LEARN BY DOING. You’ll get the training workbook to print out and we’ll also send you the excel files that we use in our demonstrations.

Excel Intermediate to Advanced Courses

Don’t worry, once you master the basics you’ll either want to know as much as you can about Microsoft Excel or decide that you’ll just use the software when you need it.  Either way, with our LIFETIME course access option you can complete and repeat the course as often as you want and with all skills levels (from Beginners to Advanced Excel) you’ll be covered.

We’ve been teaching people how to use Microsoft Excel since we started at Lane Cove in Sydney in 1996 and we look forward to helping more people learn Excel to become more productive, more employable and more successful.

Make sure you share our free Excel Beginners Courses with your friends on social media.

[button link=”http://ezylearnonline.com.au/courses/microsoft-excel/free-microsoft-excel-beginners-course-training-videos/”]FREE Excel Beginners Course[/button]    [button link=”http://ezylearnonline.com.au/enrol/” bg_color=”#99050c”]Enrol Now[/button]

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Forecast a Positive Future Using Microsoft Excel

Time to Reflect, Thank and Plan

sales-forecasting-using-microsoft-excel-training-courseWe had our office Christmas party (for our Sydney team) this week and I went through and individually thanked each of my team for their contribution during the year. I’m very lucky to be working with a great bunch of people – although, you know what they say:”The harder I work the luckier I get” – and I used our Christmas lunch to thank each of them publicly (in front of their peers) for their efforts because I think it’s important.

We started a lot of diverse and interesting projects during the year and they include:

  1. Assembling a course to teach people how to create their own course – ideal for sites that want to create their own online Inductions for contractors,
  2. Worked with the Australian Small Business Centre to create new sales and marketing courses for their Business Management Course.
  3. Created a MYOB Bookkeeper Directory to help our students start their own bookkeeping business and find new clients
  4. Established the StartUp Academy to help ordinary people start their own business working from home

Treat Yourself as you Plan for Success in 2015

Sales forecasting using Microsoft Excel Training Courses and MYOB DataOne of our team members said she’s going on holidays and really needs the time off because she will be studying VERY hard next year. She’ll have 5 weeks off and she’s 21. I started to wonder if I am a workaholic, am a little twisted in my opinion of what makes a good holiday or that I just love what I am doing, but I offered to give her work to do while she was on holidays overseas for that long period of time – after all, isn’t it great to earn some money working from your computer, using the internet for a couple hours each day and then getting into the festivities!?

I was thinking about my ideal holiday – work a couple hours every morning (early if possible so no one is awake to distract me), then feel rewarded and REALLY enjoy the rest of the day and night. It gives me the feeling of still being connected to the world at home, while achieving something workwise and then cutting off completely from work for the rest of the day.

When I think about the festive season and the quiet time between Christmas and when most people come back to work (5th January 2015 or later) I see an opportunity to stay in Sydney where it almost becomes a pleasure to drive on the roads and spend the time in thought and contemplation to plan for the coming year. It’s usually the time when I write down my major goals for the coming year and start to clearly define them, how they’ll look and operate and what is needed to achieve them. It’s the time when I end up getting on my computer and powering up Microsoft Excel to do those once a year checks on the past and forecasts for the future.

Microsoft Excel Course for Financial Forecasting

Export Sales Report information from MYOB AccountRight to Microsoft Excel
Export Sales Report information from MYOB AccountRight to Microsoft Excel

Forecasts are those interesting things that investments are based on. Someone with a spreadsheet and a business plan will guess how much they’ll earn in the forthcoming year/quarter/month etc and back it up with all their evidence in the business plan. To many people it’s a waste of time because “who can really predict the future”, but to those people who do it it’s a way of crystalising your plans into monthly or quarterly objectives that are based on the past (in most cases) and on intelligent estimates of what the market needs.

Export Your MYOB Reports

If you already use MYOB Accounting Software to manage your bookkeeping and accounts you can easily export a report about last periods sales and use that as a basis for next years forecasts. Many slight changes can result in more sales and higher profits in 2015, including:

  • new products,
  • expanded services or
  • price increases

But your decision to no longer provide 30 days credit terms or be more diligent with late payers can help you earn your money twice as fast. Either way you do it, now is a great time to export that data from MYOB, or Xero or Quickbooks and get it into a spreadsheet (worksheet) so you can start to do some mathematics to show how much more you’ll earn in 2015.

Online Microsoft Excel Training Courses

If you’ve followed our blog posts you’d know that we have a very popular MYOB training course. I wanted you to know that we have a popular Excel Training Course too and it comes with the same benefits as most of our online courses:

  • 12 months or LIFETIME Excel Course access
  • Assessment and Certificate Option
  • Includes 9 skill levels from Excel Beginners to Advanced
  • Includes exercise files to practice
  • Includes multiple version of the Microsoft Excel Software
  • Each of the 9 courses includes an Excel Training Workbook with step-by-step exercises
  • Comes with a 30 day money back guarantee

 

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MYOB AccountRight Live Looks like MYOB-of-old + Dropbox

MYOB AccountRight Live OR in the Cloud?

MYOB AccountRight Live Basics - is it really cloud-based accounting software or MYOB and Dropbox 2
This is where you can see the myMYOB login and the Live wording in the cloud

We were asked by one of our MYOB course students recently how you can manage user access to your MYOB accounting file and we did some looking around, spoke to our MYOB course creator and came up with the following useful information.

MYOB AccountRight Live Basics - is it really cloud-based accounting software or MYOB and Dropbox 5 - manage admin and users
Click on Image to Enlarge – How MYOB AccountRight Live enables you to manage users

You can go to the MYOB website and click on my.MYOB to get to the details of your “participation” with MYOB AccountRight –

[quote]sorry, NERD ALERT! I happened to be reading the MYOB Terms of Service and “Participate” is the term that the MYOB legal team use to describe how companies use the MYOB AccountRight service -[/quote]

which enables you to choose your administrators as well as who you want to be able to access your file (like your bookkeeper or accountant). But you can also manage users from within the software. Note the out of place word here? – Software – Yes, when you launch the software and Open your Online data file, you can setup users and be much more prescriptive as to what they can access or not, but also which areas they have read only access as opposed to full access (read and write).

MYOB AccountRight User Access Managed in the Software

MYOB AccountRight Live Basics - Modifying User Access 2 - Role Based User Access
MYOB AccountRight Live Basics – Modifying User Access 2 – Role Based User Access

The silly part of this is we would expect cloud-based software to enable you to do everything in the cloud! If you look at the current MYOB model for their AccountRight Live product you still need to download the software to use it and you still need to update the company file if you update the software version!? We thought that this day had passed when the concept of cloud based accounting arrived.

Is it Designed to Help Current MYOB Users?

When I look at the way that MYOB AccountRight Live is managed at first it looks like it was built for people who are used to having a software program on their computer. Then when you see the capability to Open company data files that are stored “Online” you get the feeling that it would be just as easy to use Dropbox to store your datafile. The worst news comes when you expect the MYOB AccountRight Live software (that has a little cloud around the live) to work just like other cloud-based account programs like SAASU, QuickBooks Online and Xero you get dissappointed in having to install and use software on every computer you use – and I haven’t even tested to see if they have a program for the iPad.

MYOB AccountRight Live Basics - is it really cloud-based accounting software or MYOB and Dropbox 6 - company file needs upgrading
MYOB AccountRight Live Software – Company file still needs upgrading

If you are the kind of person that loves storing a local version of your datafile (and take the risks of protecting your own computer against, viruses, crashes or other corruption) this might seem like a good feature. I bet we see this product evolve until the point where it is finally an all online accounting solution.

How to change User Access Rights using MYOB Account Right Live

Although you can make some rudimentary changes via my.myob.com the best way to add users and make specific choices about what they can see as well as what they can edit and see, you need to launch the software (make sure you’ve downloaded it of course) and then go to Setup, User Access.

We used a current version of AccountRight Live Basics to perform our tests and any new content we create and publish for our MYOB Training Courses are available to existing students – whether you are on a 12 month course access program or LIFETIME course access. Feel free to enquire with us if you have any questions about our online MYOB Training Courses, or enrol today, start by 5pm tomorrow and be comforted by a 30 day money back guarantee.

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The Power of the Homegrown Australian Business

When ‘Aussie’ is a gold winner

Reach Accounting free course from EzyLearnIN ADDITION TO OUR MYOB and Xero online training courses, we also offer an online training course in Reach Accounting, the cloud-accounting software by Aussie-owned company, Net Registry.

Not many people are aware of this, and I’ve been quite remiss when it comes to talking about it on this blog. In fact, I’ve spent more time talking about Zoho and QuickBooks recently, than I have spent time talking about Reach.

This is partly because I’ve been quite interested to see how QuickBooks has been resurrected by it’s American-owned parent company, Intuit, as it attempts to take on Xero and MYOB in the Australian marketplace again.

Zoho is both comprehensive and cheap

My interest in Zoho, meanwhile, stems from one of my contractors, who uses Zoho Books to manage her business accounts; she was telling me about Zoho’s many features, and I surprised to learn just how comprehensive the Zoho Books software is for such a low price.

Zoho and QuickBooks are both positioning themselves as low-cost accounting packages to appeal to the substantial small business market in Australia, but there’s just one thing they can’t compete with Reach Accounting on, and that’s ‘Australianness’.

Reach Accounting is an Australian owned and operated business, and as the owner of an Australian owned and operated business, I like to support other Australians in their business ventures. Reach Accounting focus their accounting software towards people who start a business as a website designer.

Why it’s harder for Aussie businesses to compete

I’m always saddened when I hear of Australian businesses being sold to overseas conglomerates, which take the Aussie jobs back overseas with them, where the wages and materials are cheaper. It makes it all the more difficult to compete for customers in the Australian marketplace when your once-Australian competitor is now producing products or services at a much lower price at their offshore headquarters.

It’s also difficult to compete with the increasing number of overseas-owned businesses entering the fray, now that the Internet has unlocked a global marketplace. What many Australian businesses don’t realise, however, is that they possess a power those overseas businesses don’t: they speak Aussie.

Whether you’re a home-based bookkeeper or virtual assistant, one of your greatest assets is that you’re an Australian and that means you have a deep understanding of what it means to be Australian – from the accent to the vernacular, you get it.

The power of ‘G’day’

It’s also a lot easier to call an Australian company than it is to call an overseas one. My Zoho Books-using contractor was telling me of a complex situation she was experiencing with her account. Unfortunately, the nearest customer service office she could call was located in China, so she had to email.

Several confused emails later, she finally realised what had happened with her account, and managed to resolve the issue herself. She later told me: “It’s a good thing I studied semiotics at university, because deciphering those emails was like trying to interpret hieroglyphics.”

I suddenly thought about Reach Accounting, which is based in the Inner Sydney suburb of Ultimo. For the same price as Zoho Books – possibly even cheaper now, thanks to the fluctuating Aussie dollar – it would have been much easier to say “G’day” to one of the guys at Reach than it was to email China or India or Japan or wherever in the world Zoho’s customer service offices are based.

Don’t be afraid to say “G’day”

As an Australian business, don’t hide your Australianness from view. Wear it proudly, because it makes a big difference to customers trying to decide between your company and the multinational after their business.

For more information on any of our cloud-accounting courses, visit our website.

Become a Virtual Assistant and Start a Business

start a bookkeeping business
Business Opportunities for Ordinary People

While we are on the topic I want to mention our StartUp Academy because we are planning some fantastic ways of helping ordinary people start a business in 2015.

We’re using a combination of our Small Business Management Course and business opportunities from established companies who want to find people who can work from home and sell and support their products.

We’re also using our Small Business Management course to help our existing students start businesses using the skills they learn in their EzyLearn course – namely MYOB and WordPress. If you’re interested in starting a bookkeeping business read on about National Bookkeeping.

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Rapid Induct Staff and Contractors or Your Arse Can be on the Line

Online Induction Training for Your Company

online contractor inductions are important for safety training whs complianceTraining is something that I have been involved with since the mid 1990’s – sure, I don’t look that old, but it’s true – and we’ve used all sorts of tools to create our training courses, including:

  • Creating educational videos using Camtasia,
  • Creating some courses using PowerPoint presentations
  • Hosting the videos online using Wistia,
  • Writing training workbooks using Microsoft Word
  • Creating our website(s) using WordPress
  • Promoting our courses using Google
  • Deliver and managing the online training courses and students using Moodle

I spent a lot of time recently speaking with councils, city building managers, schools, aged care facilities and hospitals and have noticed a massive demand for inductions. These organisations want to rapidly induct their staff but more importantly their contractors about how things operate at their facilities. If you read my previous post about rapid induction you’ll know what I mean.

Staff Inductions

We use our own internal inductions to get new staff members up to speed quickly in how our business works, what we expect from them in customer service and most importantly how we offer, sell and support our online training courses so it makes sense to have a training program for existing staff. The most apparent need however is for contractors who come and work at your site and may never have been their before – for these contractors the biggest reason for having a contractor induction is to educate the contractors of any know risks at the site – like asbestos.

Contractor Inductions

EzyLearn free Powerpoint training course videos at Youtube for contractor inductionsContractors who come to sites like hospitals, councils, schools, aged care facilities, city buildings perform their work on complex equipment that could affect the safety of other people in the building. They need to be qualified to do the work they do and they need to have insurances to cover any potential incidents or accidents and WorkCover for their people. These aspects of a contractors work is often referred to as Contractor Management and when this term is used there is often confusion as to whether you are talking about the company or individual people who work for the company.

Many sites have a manual contractor management system which means they dedicate a certain time each week or month to go through files within folders for each supplier to make sure all of their contractors “credentials are up to date” – can you imagine doing this all of the time?! We have a system that automates this process by reminding them of when their credentials are due to expire and need updating, but I digress.

Create Your Own Contractor Inductions using PowerPoint

Startup Academy Create Online Induction Training CoursesContractor inductions are so popular these days because they are a sure fire way for site managers to demonstrate that they have informed the contractors about any potential risks at their sites – and that can save their bacon! Did you know that someone referred to as a PCBU (in WH&S law Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking), is personally responsible and liable if they neglect in their duty of care for safety at their site!

That is why it is important for everyone to have a contractor induction course. It’s also great that these courses can be initally created using software found in almost every office – PowerPoint. It’s up to you then how you want your induction to look to students, plain and simple slides or audio visual presentations.

[quote]Make sure you contact us to see how quick and easy it is to create your own contractor induction training courses and manage your own enrolments.[/quote]

Start Your Own Business Creating Online Induction Courses

If you like the thought of getting to know how to do this you should come and check out our Online Induction Business Opportunities page at the Startup Academy. My team will show you how to complete the whole process of creating a training course, starting with the creation of a simple powerpoint presentation. At the end you’ll have an online training course with test and completion certificates – just what every site needs for their contractor inductions.

Then if you want to build a business based on your new found skills you can work with us to find new clients and start living the dream of working from home helping local business with their safety training. Click on the StartUp Academy image and follow the links and you can even complete the first stage of the course for free.

 

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Why Telstra’s Wi-Fi Hotspots Are Good For Business

Telstra likes the Internet

Telstra and wifi in phone boothsIf you’re like me, then the only reason you still have an account with Telstra is because you need the phone line for your broadband Internet connection. I replaced my Telstra ‘wired line’ with a VoIP service years ago, which I still use to this day as my business phone, though my mobile picks up most of the slack being that I’m often out and about.

For years, I’ve wondered about the future of Telstra. As more companies entered the telco space and then the ISP space, Telstra seemed to becoming less and less relevant. Funnily enough, just the other day someone asked me if I knew where the nearest payphone was and, for the life of me, I couldn’t think of one. It turned out, there was one just a few metres away.

Telstra offers Wi-Fi hotspots to 7.5 million smartphone users

It seems that perhaps Telstra had been thinking the same thing, because this week they’ve launched free Wi-Fi hotspots in payphones right across Australia. I thought this was a pretty genius move, given some 11.9 million Australians own smartphones and, of those, 7.5 million are accessing the Internet from them. Now there’s a reason for people to head to those little orange and blue phoneboxes again – only now they’re kitted out with a pink cube on top and a white Wi-Fi logo.

Of course, there’s a catch: the Wi-Fi isn’t really free. If you’re a Telstra home broadband customer, then any ‘free’ Wi-Fi you use at a Telstra hotspot counts towards your overall monthly broadband allowance, while non-Telstra customers will have to pay for a guest pass to access the network. Telstra will still make money, just as they did through their payphones until everyone started using mobile phones.

Telstra’s marvelous act of reinvention

Catches aside, though, using phoneboxes to offer Wi-Fi is a marvelous act of reinvention. Developing new concepts – or putting a twist on an old concept, at least – is something we cover in our Small Business Management Course, because it’s something every business owner will need to consider at some point during the life of their business.

Indeed, EzyLearn might not be offering training courses at all if I hadn’t done a similar thing a few years ago when I realised face-to-face learning was becoming a thing of the past. When we eventually closed out training centres that could have been the end of my business had I not made the decision to move our content online.

Every business should pull a Telstra

Keeping up with trends and making changes to your business model is what makes a business successful and gives it longevity. Though it doesn’t necessarily have to be something as radical as Telstra’s free Wi-Fi approach. It could be something simpler, like streamlining your business processes and taking advantage of cloud apps, as Rohan Calvert from Men in White has, for example.

Even though I probably wouldn’t use Telstra’s Wi-Fi unless I was in a real bind – perhaps when I’m on holidays and in need of an Internet connection, but I don’t want to use too much of mobile data allowance – I do think it’s a great idea. What do you think?

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Smart TV Guy Has Feet Planted Firmly In Cloud Accounting

Smart TV Installation & Cloud Accounting Guy

As smart devices and cloud-based apps have become more popular, I’ve started to see more and more tradies using their iPhones and iPads to handle their paperwork, a task traditionally left to the wee hours of the evening – or to their wives and partners!

Now, with cloud-based accounting software like Xero and a number of other great mobile apps, tradies can quote, invoice, and even take payments for work right from their smart phones and tablet devices.

Streamlined business processes with cloud accounting

I met Ken Burrows from Love My Home Theatre, a home theatre installation, TV installation and plasma wall mounting business based in Sydney recently, when he was installing a new home theatre system for some friends, and I was taken with how streamlined his entire business processes were.

Everything – from the quote through to payment – is performed entirely online, using a couple of different apps, including Xero which is used to maintain the business’s accounts. In the video you can Watch Ken talk about how he uses cloud-based apps in his business to streamline his business processes, and make him more efficient and I think it helps 1 business owner do the work of more than 1 person – perhaps he can use more people in marketing..

EzyLearn offers a number of cloud accounting training courses, including our flagship MYOB training course, as well as training courses in Xero and Reach Accounting.

Share your cloud accounting story

start a bookkeeping business
Business Opportunities for Ordinary People

We’ll soon be running meetups for our startup academy in these locations.

  • Brookvale
  • Hornsby
  • Epping
  • Chatswood
  • Parramatta
  • Blacktown
  • Penrith
  • Bankstown
  • Liverpool
  • Campbelltown
  • Sutherland
  • Hurstville
  • Randwick

If you want to come along and share your story or learn more about the StartUp Opportunities for ordinary people, make sure you subscribe to this blog to keep up-to-date.

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Xero: The Tradies Choice for Accounting Software

Xero and tradies

Rohan the painter tradie uses xeroI once wrote a post about Xero and whether it had the potential to strip MYOB of its crown as the market leader in accounting software, and I’m starting to think that maybe it will.

I spoke with a couple of tradies recently, and they’re both using Xero rather than MYOB because of its functionality and the way it ties in nicely with other cloud-based apps, allowing them to spend less time in the office and more time on the road.

EzyLearn added Xero training courses to our already existing suite of MYOB training courses a little while back after it became clear that it was a major player in the cloud-accounting space. When Xero first hit the market, though, many people thought it was unlikely to have any major impact on MYOB’s marketshare (just as QuickBooks had failed to in the past), given MYOB’s long-standing relationship with accountants.

Xero perfect for tradies on the go

What most people overlooked, though, was that Xero was undeniably easy to use. Coupled with its flexible delivery – it was one of the first cloud-based accounting programs supported with mobile apps – it became an appealing option for many small business owners who previously found MYOB too difficult or time-consuming for day-to-day use.

Rohan Calvert, the director of Men in White, a Sydney-based painting company, is one those small business owners. He had been using MYOB to manage his business’s accounts for ten years, but decided it was time he moved his accounts into the cloud. After initially looking to upgrade to MYOB Account Right Live, Rohan opted to make the switch to Xero, instead.

Xero interview with a painter

Here’s what he had to say about Xero in the cloud:

EzyLearn: What features of Xero do you find most useful for your business?

Rohan: For me, the best thing about Xero is that there is a direct bank feed, so my [Xero] dashboard will show my bank balance alongside the balance in Xero, which makes reconciling [his accounts] very easy. I don’t use the mobile app very much – the functionality isn’t there for me yet. Instead I use the web version on my laptop. My office is basicallymy laptop – I have a laptop stand in the passenger seat of my car. With Xero, I can do payroll and issue invoices while I’m sitting in the parked car.

EzyLearn: How is Xero’s cloud-based software better for your business, compared to the older versions of MYOB you had used previously?

Rohan: I have a business coach in the US and we can look at my financials in real-time while we’re talking on Facetime. I have put a lot of work into simplifying and understanding my bookkeeping and with Xero my reports are accurate and tell me exactly how I’m going, and all in real-time. Previously, when I used MYOB, the financial reports were meaningless and my bookkeeper had to print them out and edit a spreadsheet, resulting in a lot of double handling.

EzyLearn: What do you like most about Xero?

Firstly, it is elegant and intuitive; secondly, it comes from New Zealand!

For more information on our Xero training courses, you can visit our website or, alternatively, click here to enrol online.

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Get Paid Faster Using Your Mobile Phone!

get paid faster using your mobile phone
You can use your mobile phone to get paid – great for tradespeople as well.

No doubt about it, one of the biggest hurdles you face as a small business owner is managing your cash flow. A big part of this is ensuring your clients and customers pay your invoices on time.

Setting up email alerts to remind customers when your invoices are due is a great way to ensure you’re never – or at least, rarely – paid late, which we’ve written about on this blog and even cover in our MYOB training courses. Continue reading Get Paid Faster Using Your Mobile Phone!

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Are Xero and MYOB going to get SMASHED by QuickBooks Online?

Is QuickBooks Online the White Elephant in the Room?

I recently wrote about QuickBooks, once the great competitor to MYOB accounting software, and I thought I would delve a little deeper to see what has happened with the company that use to be their Australian distributor, Reckon and how big they are in the US. I looks to me like we have a period of consolidation on our hands with some very big companies and many of them listed trying to earn the cloud accounting dollar.

We have online courses in MYOB and Xero and are exploring a QuickBooks Online training course.

What do you Reckon about Reckon?

Reckon 5 year Share Performance
Reckon 5 year Share Performance. Information from Commsec. Click to Enlarge

As a public company you can see Reckons financial results and industry commentary at the ASX website and in their latest financial announcements they confirmed that they had parted ways with Intuit as the Australian distributor earlier this year (saving them $2.5M in royalty costs).

Reckon is now a competitor to their previous partners, Intuit, and a participant in the online accounting and bookkeeping software market with their own software service called Reckon Hosted.

If I were Reckon the scariest thing for me would be that the brand that I helped to build over such a long period is now strongly competing directly against me in the local market. Let’s hope they built some good relationships with accountants who’ll continue to work with and recommend their new product lineup. Their share price seems to indicate that they are currently falling out of favour.

Xero vs QuickBooks Online

Xero Oct 31 2014 Share Performance. From Commsec. Click to Enlarge
Xero Oct 31 2014 Share Performance. From Commsec. Click to Enlarge

Xero is the nameplate for online accounting software because they pioneered accounting software that ONLY works in the cloud. A major shareholder in Xero is Craig Winkler, the man who successfully helped MYOB dominate the accounting marketing in the PC era and sold out to Archer Capital who then sold to another large US private equity company Bain Capital.

I wrote about Xero’s financial performance not long after they listed their XRO shares on the ASX (they are a New Zealand company) but their recent share price performance seems to indicate that they are not popular in Australia. The next frontier in online accounting and bookkeeping seems to be integrations and accounting suite tools for accountants. These integrations and add-ons are one way of making their software more important in the suite of programs that small businesses use and a good example is the recent announcement of Xero’s integration with Microsoft’s Office 365.

Visit Xero’s website and you’ll quickly be able to get to their Add-on Market Place.

MYOB vs QuickBooks Online

Bain Capital paid over 1 billions dollars for MYOB to include it in it’s bag of technology investments – see if you can spot MYOB! Although they are no longer an Australian public company they are listed on the ASX and Aussies can invest in the company that now offers a wider range of services that just accounting software. Their revenue has grown significantly in the 2014 financial year according to their announcement on 25th August 2014.

MYOB had many partners in their PC based software but went through a very tough period when accountants were refusing to recommend MYOB customer upgrade their software. MYOB had to re-write their software to cater for the cloud accounting market and some integrations just didn’t work as a result. It appears that the online version is still popular with MYOB Partners and you can learn more about MYOB Add-ons here.

MYOB is still the market leader for accounting software in Australia an although they appear to be a laggard in the online space they are agressively competing with Xero for new customer acquisitions. A recent article by Peter Dinham at IT Wire about Xero and MYOB customer numbers highlights how dirty the fight is getting and how important accountants are in the sale of accounting software. Peter talks about MYOB being the 800 pound gorilla but when you explore the global market for accounting software you cannot ignore Intuit.

QuickBooks Online and the Global Accounting Software Market

Go to Intuit.com and you’ll be presented with a message that says “we’ve gone global” and the option to go to your local country website site. Let’s face it, they’ve been global for a while but it’s apparent that their online marketing for Quickbooks Online is becoming stronger. I read a recent blog post from Sholto Macpherson’s popular Digital First website about the Top 5 Most Popular Features of QuickBooks Online and note that at the bottom of his post he disclosed that he travelled to QuickBooks Connect as a guest of Intuit. It’s a sign of the impending marketing blitz that a massive US company is capable of.

Visit Intuit’s investor relations website and you’ll see that the revenue for Intuit in 2013 was almost 4 times the total capital purchase price that Bain Capital paid for MYOB when they bought it. With that size, established software brand in Quickbooks and a network of Intuit Pro Advisers ready to help small businesses I think this is the space to watch for online accounting software.

Again, as a very established software publishing company Intuit have an impressive range of Add-ons to help improve the functionality of the software as small business look for ways of integrating the ever widening range of cloud-based software they use.

QuickBooks Pro Adviser Offer

Whilst writing this post I became aware of the big launch that Intuit are doing in Australia to strengthen their network of accountants and advisers. It’s started with a blubbery story about the great history of a 30 year old US company, but I found this video which shows what they are willing to do to help Australian Bookkeepers increase their knowledge, get new sales and better support their customers (Small Businesses).

Here it is..

Join our Bookkeeper Directory

Startup Academy - work from home as an independent contractorIf you are a MYOB bookkeeper and want us to help you get exposure and find new small business bookkeeping clients register with our partners at Workface as we build a national bookkeeping database to help you find new clients and help small businesses find honest, hardworking bookkeepers who operate their own home based bookkeeping business.

To be a bookkeeper in this cloud accounting era means that you can perform bookkeeping from your own home office if you do a great job and have a good reputation. Although you can perform this work from home its becoming more important to get that reputation and one of the tried and trusted ways is by meeting people face to face at networking events. When people get to know you and like you they’ll start recommending you to people who they know need a bookkeeper and that is when you’ll discover the power of referral marketing.

Registering for the bookkeeper directory is the first step in our plan to help people operate a business from home. If you want to read more about how we plan to help ordinary people start their own business as independent contractors visit the StartUp Academy website and learn more. You can subscribe for the free guide that I created to help people on that journey.