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Do You Need a Bookkeeper or an Accountant? Or Someone Else?

find a good local bookkeeper

There are many finance professionals — who does your business need?

find a good local bookkeeper
Does your business need a bookkeeper, accountant or perhaps just a BAS agent – or a little bit of everyone?

WE’VE MENTIONED PREVIOUSLY THAT finding a bookkeeper, when you may not know much about bookkeeping, can be a difficult task.

In fact, a lot of new business owners assume their accountant will take care of everything for them, which may be costly if their accountant has to perform a year’s worth of bookkeeping in order to file the business’s tax return. But bookkeepers and accountants can work harmoniously in your business.

As a general rule, every business needs at least two finance professionals working on their business accounts, but which two professionals you’ll need to hire depends on your business needs. If you’re not sure who you need to hire for your business, here’s a cheat sheet to help you out.

Bookkeepers (not registered with the TPB)

An independent bookkeeper not employed by an accountant and not registered with the Tax Practitioner’s Board (TPB) may only perform basic bookkeeping services, such as the

  • entering of receipts,
  • coding financial transactions,
  • generating invoices and purchase orders
  • accounts receivable and accounts payable

If you hire this type of bookkeeper, you’ll still need an accountant.

BAS agents

BAS agents must, by law, register with the Tax Practitioner’s Board (TPB), which certifies that they are qualified and have completed the necessary continuing education requirements to perform the tasks of a BAS agent, which involves carrying out most of the bookkeeping tasks mentioned above, in addition to preparing and lodging business activity statements on a business’s behalf.

If your business is registered for GST, you will need to file regular activity statements. If you hire a BAS agent, you’ll also need an accountant. In some instances, you may find a BAS agent who’s also a registered tax agent and vice versa, who may be able to take care of all your taxation needs.

Tax agents

Although tax agents, like BAS agents, must also register with the Tax Practitioner’s Board (TPB), a tax agent is focused on income tax — how much income you have to declare, how much you can claim back, etc.

This is distinct from a BAS agent who is concerned with the day-to-day financial tasks of your business (bookkeeping and BAS lodgements). That said, some tax agents will also perform some the basic bookkeeping tasks on a regular basis, though they primarily specialise in lodging tax returns.

If you’re not registered for GST, and your tax agent will also perform regular bookkeeping tasks (or you can do it yourself), you may not need to hire an accountant. In some instances, you may find a tax agent who’s also a registered BAS agent and vice versa, who may be able to take care of all your taxation needs.

Accountants

An accountant is mostly concerned with planning and strategy. Unlike bookkeepers and BAS or tax agents, an accountant will assess and advise you on what actions you should take to maximise your income. Great accountants will get involved with planning the direction of your business and ensure it’s been structured properly and that you’re meeting any additional tax obligations.

They’ll also help you to make strategic purchases for equipment and machinery, and work with your BAS agent or bookkeeper to ensure these decisions are reflected in your daily financial records. An accountant is also able to prepare and lodge tax returns on your behalf.

How much should I pay a bookkeeper?

Check out the National Bookkeeping Directory, which features the details of bookkeepers, capable of doing data entry and clerical tasks, through to high-level accounting work as undertaken by BAS agents, accountants and CFOs.

You can also see the National Bookkeeping rates page to find out what level bookkeeper your business needs.


cashflow reports in xero and excel

Our Xero online training courses include EVERYTHING for ONE LOW PRICE. Furthermore, if you select our Lifetime Membership option, you’ll have LIFETIME access to our ongoing course updates. All EzyLearn courses are accredited by the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers (ICB) and can be counted towards Continuing Professional Development (CPD) points. Find out more about our Xero online training courses. 


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How to get employers contacting you

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Employers like small business owners are looking for staff online using Google. From office admin and business administration tasks to bookkeeping and customer service and sales, employers need staff to keep their businesses running.

The only way you are going to get discovered is if you have an online profile that CAN GET DISCOVERED and that is what membership to the Bookkeeping Academy does for you.

The biggest difference between applying for jobs and having employers contact you is that rather than go through the job application elimination process you’ll need to know what to say to employers when they call.

Questions to ask employers and clients

You can’t just say “I need more money, can I have the job”. You need to be able to identify:

  • what work they need you to do,
  • how they want you to work
  • the working hours and pay

One of the hardest things you’ll need to learn is how to say, “Sorry I don’t think I can help you!”

Xero Training Course and Xero Certificate - Daily Transactions - EzyLearn

In bookkeeping work alone there are so many different types of work that you need to clarify what clients want.

The easiest way for you to get into bookkeeping if you are new to it is through data entry of invoices and purchase orders.

These are all basic bookkeeping tasks you’ll learn in the daily transactions courses in Xero, MYOB and QuickBooks Online.

Do more after your online course

The-Career-Academy-for-EzyLearn-Online-MYOB-Xero-QuickBooks-and-Microsoft-Office-and-Excel-Training-39-cropped

Get discovered online with a Bookkeeping Academy membership and other Career Academy Services to help you become more productive and efficient in the workplace.

If you want the support and nurturing that comes with an Internship you can explore becoming a Remote Contractor.

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Who do you trust less? Microsoft, Mailchimp, Google or Apple?

The features that each of these companies provide is invaluable for businesses. We can’t do without most of them in some way and when they started you, like me, probably turned on all the features and opted into their “labs” to test out new features. Then things changed.

These companies are now mature and they command respect as market leaders. Their financials are also very healthy because they’ve managed to monopolise some aspect of their market. These are some of the things that has happened to me over the years, has this happened to you?

Continue reading Who do you trust less? Microsoft, Mailchimp, Google or Apple?
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MYOB is better than Xero Payroll for some things

Aussie Timesheets is a Xero Bookkeeping Connected App - MYOB and Xero Courses Online - enrol now, learn fast - EzyLearn

All the marketing messages I hear is how much better Xero is than MYOB but that isn’t always the case.

MYOB and QuickBooks both had more in-build inventory features than Xero but Xero has always promoted their integrations to fill gaps in their core software. I wrote about this several times:

QuickBooks-MYOB-Xero-Integrations-Training-Course-Certificate-Hubdoc-HubSpot-Planday-Harvest-Deputy-EzyLearn

The Integrations for Xero Courses reveals some of the powerful features that other companies do better than the accounting software companies!

Continue reading MYOB is better than Xero Payroll for some things
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Is Microsoft using Antitrust Techniques to Beat Google using AI

How is Microsoft and Bing Competing against Google using AI - Online Business Training Courses

I’m a Google fan, from the simplicity of using most of their software programs to their low cost services I’ve always loved how they compare to Microsoft who charge a licence fee for their software.

But once upon a time I was a Microsoft fan because of the low cost model they had compared to Apple.

I’m watching this Artificial Intelligence race with interest (everyone on Linkedin is commenting about it) but I noticed something recently that shocked me.

Continue reading Is Microsoft using Antitrust Techniques to Beat Google using AI
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How to earn $50 per hour

Learn bookkeeping with MYOB and Xero courses to earn money as a virtual assistant and remote tutor with EzyLearn

Are you earning $50 per hour at the moment? If you aren’t it can seem almost impossible to believe that you could, particularly when you look at your boss and imagine yourself asking them for a pay rise.

I searched online to see who earns $50 per hour and most of the search results in Seek and Indeed showed up saying you have to be a doctor, pharmacist or HR Manager but bookkeepers earning this much regularly.

Continue reading How to earn $50 per hour
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How can anyone trust you to work online for them!?

Businesspeople discussing business on virtual staff meeting during pandemic

Do you want to work from home? Why?

Some reasons to work from home include

  • saving travel time,
  • saving money by using less petrol,
  • less driving and risk on the road, and
  • no need to find a park
  • not having to dress up nicely every day to see your work colleagues

It’s easy to see the benefits for you, but what about your boss? What do they want? If you’re going to work from home you need to start thinking and acting like a boss.

Continue reading How can anyone trust you to work online for them!?
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Is Xero Getting TOO Aggressive?

MYOB and Xero training courses. Advanced Certificate in MYOB and Xero

The constant need for some companies to continue to grow revenue or subscriber numbers can make the employees do things too aggressively.

Xero has always done a great marketing job against MYOB because it was easy – all they had to do was have good software that was easier to use and in the cloud – now they’re ALL in the Cloud!

Xero focused on a cloud only model and the integrations between it and other online software programs. This was a marketing strategy that may have stretched the truth a little!

Xero boasted about how good their software is for Real Estate Agents but it was one of their ReLeased integration that users loved.

Why Xero is better than MYOB now?

MYOB’s problem was that is WAS a Windows based software program. This made using the software harder because you had the constraints of running only on a Windows computer and had to upgrade that software regularly. It also caused issues with their Mac version and they ended up having to discontinue that software and push their Mac users straight to their Cloud version, MYOB Essentials.

Continue reading Is Xero Getting TOO Aggressive?
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Business Office Administration Training to find Remote Work

Selling Academy Sales Training Courses logo

I recently wrote about the Internship opportunities for selected business and office administration training courses – this work can all be done online, remotely working from home.

One of the best things about running an online training business is that we can deliver our courses to the thousands of students who live in remote parts of New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland and the rest of Australia!

Read on to discover how you can up-skill and learn how to become a remote working virtual assistant performing business and office administration work from your own home

Continue reading Business Office Administration Training to find Remote Work
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Aldi specials all the way down to the toilet

Aldi Toilet Fixed Price Installation - Office Admin and Business Administration Courses - Xero & MYOB training web

One success story worth watching in Australian grocery retailing is Aldi. With their special buys, weekly catalogue and well known overseas brands (that no one knows here) they have an unbelievable advantage in price and differentiation.

One thing they did that really stood out to me a couple years ago was their $299 toilet offer, including installation. Who else includes installation as part of the sale of something that NEEDS installation!

Marketing-Academy-Joint-Venture-Training-Course-Creating-the-Perfect-Offer-Magazine-Advertisement-1-Aldi-Toilet-Suite-Installation-Package-small

Harvey Norman do and both operate a certain way to do it.

The tricky parts of this marketing strategy are:

  • Installation quality can vary from site to site
  • Installation issues can vary massively depending on how old the home is
  • Co-ordinating plumbers in every suburb is a huge job
  • Managing the ordering of trades for new purchases is a customer service hot spot

Aldi nailed it all and provided a good quality product and service. How do I know? I tried it out!

Business Course – How to create a Perfect Joint Venture

QuickBooks Online Training Courses - Acquired CreditKarma to help clients check on credit scores and get loans

Learn how they created a Joint Venture that enabled them to sell a product that is normally delivered and installed by a trades person.

Not only did they sell a good quality product at a good price but they also helped their Joint Venture partner earn some money too.

One of the biggest risks that trades people have is credit risk, particularly the credit risk of supplying a product AND a service and copping the risk on both items.

The Xero Beginners Course includes training on Credit Risk to help reduce it.

Harvey Norman and Aldi use “perfect scenario installations” to sell their products. Very few installations are perfect so most people will need extra services and that is how both parties benefit from the Joint Venture.

Digital Marketing, Customer Service and Sales Training

Creating the perfect marketing offer is a strategy to increase sales but the follow through and communications from your team is what makes it successful.

Selling Academy Sales Training Courses logo

The Targeted Ads, Customer Service and Training course gives you the knowledge and tools to create marketing strategies that provide results that you can measure.

It is built for micro businesses who sell products and services and one of the case studies is someone starting a bookkeeping business.

See the Special Offers, Customers and Sales Training Course

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Extra Training with Business Administration Courses

Online Office Administration and Business Administration COMPLETE Training Course Package Logo

I went into great details 2 years ago about the differences between Office Administration and Business Administration, including how much you can expect to earn.

To cater for students who want to find business administration jobs we created the Online Business Admin Course Combination, which includes

  • Data Entry and Microsoft Office Courses,
  • Daily Transaction bookkeeping using Xero and MYOB Courses, and
  • Courses in Payroll Administration using Xero and MYOB.

The Online Business Admin Course is well priced and includes most of the skills you need to perform the work but you also get access to the FREE Student Inclusions shown here.

Office Administration and Business Administration Complete Training Courses Combined

If you have decided to go all the way with your office and business administration skills and/or want an ongoing resource for your work or business I present to you the Office + Business Administration Certificate Course.

This includes all skill levels from beginners to advanced skills in the leading bookkeeping software programs and Microsoft Office – including the Microsoft Forms bonus course.

Enrol into and complete this course and if you join the Bookkeeping Academy we’ll take you on as an intern!

We’ll create an online profile for you to help you get discovered online and pass on leads for bookkeeping work or tutoring clients.

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How will Xero and MYOB Training get me a job?

Re-leased-property management software integration image at Xero partner integration website - smart digital marketing

The most challenging question we receive when students need to upskill in how to use Xero and MYOB relates to getting work. The question of how our online bookkeeping courses will help students find work can be answered in different ways but the only real answer is that it will give you knowledge and practical skills using Xero and MYOB to do bookkeeping work and this increases your confidence.

Some students ask us if there is a guaranteed job after completing our bookkeeping courses and I am still surprised when I hear that question.

Bookkeeping Interns

The closest thing a bookkeeping course graduate will get after completing any course is an internship with an accounting or bookkeeping business. Some training companies that I have seen offer internships but the bookkeeping courses cost close to $10,000 – in other words you are paying for the ability to work for free for an accounting company.

What a Xero and MYOB course offers you is leverage. The ability to pay a small amount of money to get an advantage that can result in you earning much more money.

When you complete a Xero and MYOB Course combination with EzyLearn you get discounted membership to the Bookkeeping Academy where we create a digital profile to help you get discovered online by potential employers.

Leverage is how people make money in real estate.

What is Leverage?

In property investment leverage is the ability to borrow a large sum of money to buy an asset that you don’t have enough money to buy by yourself. The cost of borrowing that money is the interest that is charged every week or month and this is called the holding cost.

The main benefit of having debt when buying an investment property is that the debt stays constant even if the value of your property increases.

Here’s a scenario:

  1. You use your own savings of $100,000 to buy a property worth $1M
  2. You borrow the difference which is $900,000
  3. Your equity in this transaction is 10% and you are borrowing 90% of the value of that asset
  4. In 5 years that property is worth $1.5M
  5. During those 5 years you have been paying the interest to hold onto the asset
  6. If you have been paying interest only then your debt is still $900,000
  7. You now have $600,000 equity in that property
  8. Your equity in that property is now 60% as a percentage
  9. If you sold that property for $1.5M you have turned $100,000 into $600,000

What I haven’t factored into this scenario is all the other costs associated with property investment, including:

  1. You need a good job or 2 incomes to get the loan in the first place
  2. Income rates can increase and property prices can go down
  3. Rental income from the property usually helps pay the mortgage
  4. There are transaction costs like stamp duty,
  5. You’ll need to pay council rates and utilities costs
  6. You will need to pay agent fees if you use a real estate agent to sell the property
  7. You’ll need to pay capital gains tax on the profit from your sale

If you’ve followed this blog or completed one of our Xero and MYOB courses you would have come across some case studies around property investment. There are more articles and training content coming that relates to property investment so make sure you subscribe.

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Do I need to be a bookkeeper or have accounting experience to learn Xero and MYOB?

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We receive a lot of inquiries from students who are interested in changing careers to do accounting work or become a bookkeeper and you DO need to know about bookkeeping to do this work.

That is why we include basic bookkeeping training in our Xero and MYOB Complete training courses. The Basic Bookkeeping Training Manual is available to all EzyLearn bookkeeping course students.

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This training manual goes through and explains common transaction types that relate to:

  • Assets,
  • Liabilities,
  • Income, and
  • Expenses

You don’t need bookkeeping knowledge to do an EzyLearn Xero or MYOB Course

Apart from the bonus Basic Bookkeeping training manual the reason you don’t need to have prior bookkeeping knowledge is because we lead you through all the transactions in a logical, well explained course.

Jerry profile startup course and social media marketing for small business entrepreneur

We’ll show you step-by-step how to perform the bookkeeping transaction you’ll enter when you work for an employer.

One of the hardest things about creating an accounting course is designing the flow of transactions for students to enter to ensure that they receive comprehensive knowledge. We’ve been refining our office admin and bookkeeping courses for over 25 years using case studies of different business types and with the help of our humorous business owner, Jerry Lame.

Watch some video testimonials from EzyLearn students to see how easy it is to learn Xero and MYOB.

Learning bookkeeping can be fun and we try to combine serious knowledge with humorous and REAL case studies of what really goes on in many businesses.

Bookkeeping Academy MYOB & Xero Courses

MYOB and Xero are completely different software programs and MYOB has several versions! For the most comprehensive bookkeeping training we offer these courses in a combination package and at a discounted price.

Bookkeeping Academy courses also include an online listing to help you get discovered by local businesses and employers.

See the MYOB & Xero Bookkeeping Course Combinations

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Is it hard to learn Xero & MYOB?

If you are looking for and applying for junior bookkeeping jobs you can learn how to use Xero and MYOB in just a few hours with a short Bookkeeping course. Learning how to use Xero and MYOB is not hard when you work through a well designed, step-by-step series of exercises where you do the bookkeeping work.

We have lots of students who come from other industries and are attracted to bookkeeping work because it can fit into their daily routine (if they have children) and because it can be performed remotely from home.

The Certificate in Xero Course for Daily Transactions teaches you how to perform these tasks, which include

  • creating invoices
  • receiving payments
  • creating purchase orders
  • paying invoices
  • tracking incomes and expenses
  • entering expenses and managing receipts
  • accounts receivable
  • accounts payable
  • profit and loss reports,
  • balance sheet reports

What makes it ezy, not hard to learn Xero and MYOB

Learning how to use accounting software like Xero and MYOB is easiest when you go through practical training exercises using bookkeeping tasks that are performed doing bookkeeping work.

EzyLearn Online Course Case Studies real world scenarios examples for Xero, MYOB, Excel, Digital Marketing Courses

This is a far better way to learn than just trying to copy what you see in a video tutorial.

When you watch an instructor tutorial that shows you how to perform a bookkeeping task and then have to enter the data for a months worth of transactions you get the theory and the practical experience.

Xero and MYOB Micro Courses help you learn bookkeeping in small and easy to manage courses which you can complete within 3 hours.

MYOB and Xero Training for Setup, Daily Transactions and End of Month

Learn how to use Xero in as little as 3 hours. Here are some short courses in Xero and what you can expect to learn.

Bookkeeping data entry work forms the biggest number of jobs available for bookkeeping work. These jobs involve a lot of data entry to get the numbers into the software from every aspect of the business.

If all the data is entered correctly then the end of month bank reconciliation is quick and easy.

Discount Coupon Code for MYOB and Xero Courses

If you want to enrol now then make sure you check out our current promotion and use that discount coupon code to get a cheaper price for your MYOB and Xero course.

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PRE COVID Bookkeeping Course Prices

Businesspeople discussing business on virtual staff meeting during pandemic

Do you remember what happened during the Covid 19 pandemic? Apart from the sick people, vaccine mandate and isolation the biggest difference has been the cost of it all and it seems like we are STILL paying for it!

Real estate prices are up a ridiculous amount as well as the cost of almost everything: Petrol, food, rent and Interest rates – all up. If you have a mortgage you will know exactly what I’m talking about.

Some people think that it is the result of the cost of all that spending by our governments but I don’t want to get political!

I’m writing to let you know of our current promotion for most COMPLETE course packages – Pre Covid pricing. Check out the offers and enrol now and learn at your own pace.

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What is the best way to learn Xero (and MYOB)?

MYOB and Xero Courses online for self-study are detailed and practical

There are several ways to learn Xero, including

Some people might find it easier to learn the software through video tutorials, and replicating what they see on the tutorial using the software. This is a good way for experienced bookkeepers to up skill quickly on a feature that they haven’t used before. It is also a good way for beginners to lose their fear of accounting software.

Watching videos and replicating what you see is very easy to do but once you get past the 4-5th video you realise it’s not the same as performing bookkeeping tasks in an office.

Others might prefer to work through a printed manual with step by step instructions and sample data.

Combining instructor video tutorials, self-study, workbooks and case studies is best

EzyLearn Premium Xero & MYOB courses combine video tutorials which compliment and explain the tasks in the step-by-step training workbooks.

At the end of each subject an online assessment test insures you remember the important parts of each skill level. Each different Xero and MYOB course covers a very specific skill level which is aligned with the job requirements for accounting and bookkeeping jobs.

You can experiment with different methods and start with just video tutorials to see what works best for you. In my experience the MAJOR reasons that people choose video tutorials over practical exercises with case studies is

  • the higher cost, and
  • time and effort required

MYOB & Xero Training Course Contents

When you enrol into a Complete training course with EzyLearn you get the Beginners to Advanced skills and everything in between. Learn more about how much MYOB and Xero Courses cost.

See what is included in these courses: