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Why is Continuing Professional Development (CPD) important?

Continuing Professional Development for Bookkeepers- CPD and CPETwenty years ago you could safely complete a degree knowing that your qualifications will fuel your wages (that in turn fuel your lifestyle and desires) for the rest of your life. This is no longer the case. Changes in technology are partly to blame but so too are changes in legislation and workplace practices.

If you are an accountant, working in the finance or medical professions you would know about CPD (also called Continuing Professional Education – CPE). It’s a system of providing education for professionals to keep them up to date with what is going on in their professional and this is particularly important if your profession involves advising your clients.

CPD usually involves training seminars, short courses, watching online webinars and completing assessment tasks and each one of the tasks you complete give you a certain number of points towards your total yearly point requirement. Keeping track of your attendance or the results of an exam you did at the end of completing a short course are some ways of keeping track of these points.

Why do we mention it? Because it going to become VERY important if you want to be a professional bookkeeper.

If you have completed (or plan to complete) an EzyLearn online MYOB Bookkeeping training course you will be reassured by the fact that we are currently working on tools and assessment tasks to providing you with a solution for affordable Continuing Professional Development.

You’ll also be thrilled to hear that as an accredited training provider of the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers our CPD program will provide you with points towards their CPD program.

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New Training Material: Advanced Microsoft Excel 2010 videos

Excel Online Training Course 308 - pivot table value field settingsSometimes we use the EzyLearn blog to provide some free tips from new training material that we create, like manipulating Pivot Tables we mentioned earlier in the week. Today we are announcing that 14 new training videos are now available for our advanced Microsoft Excel course (number 308).

This is the list of videos that are now available:

Video for 3.1.1 – Using AutoFilter

Video for 4.1.1 part 1 – Cleaning up data using AutoFilter

Video for 4.1.1 part 2 – Cleaning up data using AutoFilter

Video for 5.1.1 – Perform an Advanced Filter

Video for 5.1.2 – Advanced Filter using Wildcards (search text within cells)

Video for 5.1.3 – Advanced Filter for multiple search criteria

Video for 5.1.3 – Narrowing search results using Advanced Filter

Video for 6.1.1 – Inserting a Pivot Table

Video for 6.1.2 – Filtering data in a Pivot table

Video for 6.1.3 – Sort dates by month in a pivot table

Video for 6.1.5 – Changing the value field settings in a pivot table

Video for 7 – Creating pivot table charts

Video for 8.1.1 – Get months values using the Choose function

Video for 8.1.2 – Show grades for student results data using CHOOSE function

 

Our new video references match the many exercise tasks you can complete to master the skills taught in the videos. Everything you watch in the videos you can re-produce using the exercise files that come with the course. The training workbooks contain step by step instructions so you can print them out and practice where-ever you are.

If you are an existing EzyLearn student with LIFETIME access you’ll have access to these new videos and all new content that we create. Stay tuned for more updates soon as we create new videos for the other advanced Excel topics covered in courses 308 and 309. Plus we’ll show you how to create your own macros.

If you like what you read and want to enrol to take advantage of lifetime student access as well as access to all levels of Microsoft Excel for just one price, use our enrolment form. Enrol into the Excel course today and start by 5pm tomorrow (next business day).

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Live Excel Pivot-Table Stats: self-paced learning versus class-based training

Excel Course 308 - pivot table value field settings for intermediate to advanced Excel training courseWant to see some live data from when we operated our Sydney-based training centre? We conducted courses for Absolute Beginners (we call it Computer Learners now), Microsoft Word and Excel, MYOB Accounting software for bookkeeping and others. We also offered different start times and different methods of delivery including self-paced (which has evolved into online) as well as class-based training courses.

The data in this free Microsoft Excel training video is taken from our student enrolment database the same year we created our first training videos. We created these videos to make them available to students who couldn’t fit into a schedule or wanted a more personalised training experience. Want to learn more about my fond journey in computer training? Feel free to also subscribe to my small business blog while you are at that site.

If you are reading this as an email, click on the heading to get to our blog site and enjoy the free training video about Pivot Tables using Microsoft Excel (the exercise file is provided in our Excel Training Course) and shows live data of enrolments for that year. We used a pivot table to find out:

  1. The popular courses,
  2. The popular training methods
  3. The popular start times for courses.

Can you see in the video which year the data is from? Back then we had experienced trainer like Maria Landrelli and Marie Diblasio to deliver our popular MYOB Day-to-Day courses to find work as a bookkeeper.

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Do you need more customers, more people, or more time?

Professional bookkeeper and online WordPress training course and hostingI was going through our EzyLearn blog library of articles today. In doing so, I was reminded that we started blogging back in 2007.

This was one year after we closed our three Sydney-based computer training centres to focus solely on online training courses.

After reading some of the old posts, I again realised just how much work is involved in maintaining a blog!

The Necessity of Blogging

When I analyse the workload of the EzyLearn team members and the hours we spend creating step-by-step training workbooks, training videos, knowledge reviews and assessment tasks, I realise that it is all very necessary.

Back in 2007, blogging wasn’t new. In fact, many people had heard of it but most small businesses (or large ones) weren’t really doing it much.

We at EzyLearn wrote a workbook to teach people how to use WordPress and it highlights one of the most important parts of being a training organisation. This being, to study what is new and understand how it will affect businesses and employees that use technology into the future.

This blog you are reading right now is read by a lot of other people and it highlights:

  1. Our commitment to keeping you informed
  2. The range of skills our team has
  3. The number of customers who come to us as a result of reading this blog

Why Blog?

Why am I talking about this? One of our most popular online courses is the MYOB Bookkeeping Course and a lot of people who complete this course want to start their own business.

These same people are keen to build their customer base enabling them to work their own hours, use their brains and earn a good living.

Having a website with built-in blogging functionality based on the WordPress Content Management System is a fantastic way to tell people what you know and drum up new customers. It enables you to keep in contact with people, keep giving them information with no strings attached, and remain top of mind.

Blogging and “content marketing” just takes a bit of time to learn and then keep up to date, but you’ll end up with more customers and won’t have to pay for Google Adwords! 🙂

Read more about why we do content marketing

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New Macros in Excel Course to handle prepayments

Excel Macros in advanced Microsoft online Excel Training courseWe are please to announce that our most advanced Microsoft Excel course (course 309) now includes a training exercise on Macros!

You may recall we asked the question as to whether it is better to give a discount and accept prepayments or to charge your normal price and chase invoices and statements? Well, we got our Microsoft Excel expert to create a simple table that enables us to keep track of prepayments as well as incremental reductions from this prepayment.

This file is a great tool to keep track of how much credit a customer has if you decide to invoice them in advance. There is a way of accepting prepayments in MYOB and our MYOB expert and resident BAS Agent is currently putting a guide together on how to handle prepayments using MYOB. Using Excel  can be a handy replacement for using MYOB in this one aspect of your business.

Best of all, Karen created a short guide that we have added to the 309 course training manual which explains how to replicate what she created. Both the Workbook and the demonstration file that Karen created are now at the learning site.

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Certificates issued

Institute_of_Certified_Bookkeepers Accredited MYOB Training CourseWe would like to congratulate all the students who successfully completed their course this month, your certificates have now been issued.

If you are contemplating our online MYOB training course you’ll be very happy to know that the certificate includes the logo for the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers (ICB). You may also recall that you can join the ICB as an EzyLearn student for free.

Here are some comments made by students about the course this last month:

The video durations made the course easier to absorb and having to complete assessment question at the end of each video session reinforced the knowledge gained.

– Julie from Mt Isa

Being able to work at your own pace & the ability to go back over anything, at any time. Easy to understand language, with added hints was also very helpfull.

– Maria from Macksville

Easy to understand and follow, Steve’s soothing voice

– Alexandra from Catherine Field

The Video’s are  quick and to the point

– Shauna from Green Point

 

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EzyLearn MYOB students now get free membership to the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers

Accredited online MYOB training course and support institute of certified bookkeepersIf you are learning MYOB because you want to become a bookkeeper you should know that the bookkeeping industry is undergoing huge changes at the moment and that you need to be aware of these changes.

One of the best ways that any person or company can keep up-to-date with changes in an industry is to participate in continuing professional development training and by joining an industry body. EzyLearn is a member of a number of professional associations including:

  • Australian Institute of Training and Development,
  • Australian Web Industry Association, and the
  • International Coaching Federation

We are also an Accredited Training Provider of the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers. This industry group ensures that all industry participants abide by professional standards and we are also thrilled to announce that as of today all EzyLearn MYOB course students are eligible to join the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers as a student member for free (normally $75)

The forms to access this free student membership have been updated in our learning platform so please feel free to log into your course and get your free membership.

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MYOB Professional Partners and Certified Consultants and EzyLearn

professional MYOB Partners and online training coursesWe recently mentioned our EzyLearn online training business opportunity and were surprised at the response. We were particularly surprised the receive applications from some MYOB Professional Partners who are looking for an online training solution to provide to their clients.

This makes sense when you understand that every business has different circumstances and they use MYOB software in different ways. When they need individual attention to these problems they turn to someone who understands the software intimately and they understand the price they have to pay for this expertise.

An MYOB training course however is designed to give 80% of the people who need to USE it on a daily, monthly and quarterly basis most of the skills they need to be confident with the software to perform the bookkeeping function.

So combining the EzyLearn MYOB training courses with some professional one to one consulting is a beautiful combination.

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MYOB Day-to-Day course now available separately

Receive-payments-using-MYOB-training-courseUp until now we have sold all our courses as one package because we felt that that is what everyone wants. Guess what? A lot of people did and still do love it, but we found that a lot of people just want enough skills to get then a job performing data entry tasks using MYOB. For this reason we’ve made that course available.

The MYOB Day-to-Day course is still a full days worth of training on the Sales, Purchases, Banking and Inventory modules. The workbook in that course takes you through the process of a company ordering products from the wholesaler, receiving the stock and then selling that stock combined with the services they provide to their customers. Along the way, there are part payments, full payments, Accounts Receivable reports, sending of statements and much more.

The new individual course is available with 12 months access so that we can provide a great resource with up to 12 months to access it when you need to. MYOB Day-to-Day training course includes all the topic in course 502. See what’s included in the MYOB Day-to-Day Course.

If you are interested in this new low cost online MYOB training course option, discover the price for this an our other online training courses at our enrolment page.

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Want to operate your own online training business?

Online training course and support business for saleEvery business owner makes decisions about how they want to grow the business and the different “channels to market” are discussed in strategic management textbooks regularly. In 2010 EzyLearn made an executive decision to build a Partner program so that other companies can benefit by working with us and our training courses and content.

We explored many options including affiliate marketing and in 2012 our line up of available partner plans has evolved completely. You can start with

  • some code which can go onto a page on your website and receive a commission for each sale,
  • you can have a new website commissioned with all the information about our online courses and an enrolment form where you receive the payments, or
  • you can plug right into the EzyLearn enrolment process and receive payments from the general public.

If you are interested to learn more complete our online training business opportunities application form and begin your journey.

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Can MYOB repay it’s debts with its head in the clouds?

cloud-accounting xero vs saasu vs myob online training courseWe wrote back in early 2010 about what appeared to be a revolutionary move at the time about MYOB founder Craig Winkler jumping ship and moving to Xero. In the recent bad press about the bug-ridden upgrade of MYOB AccountRight 2011 there is an interesting mention about Cloud Based accounting and MYOB’s goals to get into that space.

In the past 12 months we have worked with as well as provided training for many virtual assistants (remote contractors) and we’ve come into contact with other cloud-based accounting/bookkeeping services you might like to know about. Our pick of the bunch would have to be SAASU at this stage because they have a product that is perfect for remote contractors or micro businesses.

It appears that Xero and SAASU own the online accounting market space but it will be interesting to see how MYOB go as they diversify into cloud accounting as well as their many other products like website hosting, which we’ve never really understood when there are market leaders like MelbourneIT and NetRegistry as well as thousands of small providers.

While we’re on the topic of cloud, here’s a little plug for virion business grade voip. Our trainers have compiled an Excel spreadsheet to demonstrate the cost savings of VoIP over traditional telephony and this year we will have some training for IT Consultants about the Siemens Gigaset office phones.

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Is it better to repay your debts or prepay with discounts?

Microsoft Excel prepayments online training course and MYOBThe recent bad news about MYOB AccountRight 2011 demonstrates the risks involved when you borrow money for any venture (MYOB have a $575M loan that they need to repay). The money needs to be paid back and luckily you can use MYOB software to keep track of what is owed to you. It also brings up the question of rather than having a debt to repay can you pre sell what you do (at a large discount)?

We are asked many questions in our MYOB online training course support service we call “EzyLearn ANSWERS” and one of the recent questions was “what is the best way of keeping track of Prepayments”. We took the question to our Registered BAS Agent and MYOB Tutor as well as our Microsoft Excel Expert and we’ve come up with two scenarios, one using MYOB and one using Microsoft Excel.

What is the best solution?

You could use MYOB to handle pre-payments, or you could use it as a simple track of the lump sum payment you’ve received into your bank account and use Excel to enter the day to day information about how and when that prepayment is used.

We’ve created an Excel “Handy file” for you and we’ve putting the finishing touches on the workbook that explains how to do it using both Excel and MYOB so stay tuned to this blog or subscribe to receive these blog posts via email as they are published.

Need something created in Excel? Enrol into the online Microsoft Excel course and use EzyLearn ANSWERS to put it to our Excel guru.

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Accountants now refusing to recommend MYOB

As part of our commitment to create new training content every quarter for our online MYOB training course we’ve added some addendums to the bank reconciliation and payroll courses in line with the latest version of MYOB AccountRight Plus available. Many Accountants however are not recommending that their clients make the upgrade.

We received some complaints from students about issues they experienced with the MYOB Bank Reconciliation and Payroll Intro courses and as a result our Registered BAS Agent and MYOB Tutor, Jacci, went through the course and wrote some notes to help students come up with the correct results.

Just as we suspected after speaking with bookkeepers and accountants it appears there are major flaws with the current version of the software and it’s affecting the revenue of MYOB Professional Partners and Consultants (who are being encouraged not to share the information).

It’s times like these that we are all tested as trainers, installation consultants, bookkeepers etc to be confident that we are doing our best to use the software to provide the information that we need. It’s also a good time to understand the benefits of having alternative ways of working with your data (ie. using a spreadsheet like Microsoft Excel) to perform calculations for PAYG and Superannuation.

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Will Your Smart Phone Become Your Future Computer?

 

Office applications on a smartphone in the cloudMANY OF US are already using our smartphones in ways that overlap with our PCs and laptops.

For instance, when we looked at Google Analytics to see our blog readership stats, we found that a good number of you are reading this on your smart phones.

Smart phones have so permeated our lives and become so powerful that it’s little wonder they could become much more.

There’s talk about smartphones becoming your electronic wallet (or at least your credit card). Then there’s Ubuntu, a company that make software that helps your “Android” smartphone become a computer. Of course, right now many of us already use “the cloud” to communicate, write letters and much more.

We spend a lot of time looking at new technology and thought you would be interested in this cutting edge technology.

Apple or Android?

Although the Apple iPhone is the market leader that everyone talks about, some of our team members, including myself, use an Android-based phone. I find this preferable as it’s easy and has live integration with Google Apps (ie. gmail).

The great thing about companies that manufacture Android-based smartphones is that they are building in HDMI, USB and other great connectivity features that enable this type of technology.

It’s a beautiful example of convergence in technology.

 

Are you making the most of the Cloud?

Xero accounting software can enable you to price work from the road and do your business bookkeeping from anywhere 24/7 — or help you get an accounts job. Find out more about Xero Accounting for Invoicing and Accounts Receivable by accessing our FREE Xero workbook 

Just visit our new Online Training Course Catalogue website and get the Xero Training Course Workbook for free instantly.

 

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Are you a mum returning to work? Receive an instant discount coupon!

mums returning to work online training courseOur online training courses help people gain new skills and keep job seekers up-to-date with software so they are confident in job interviews. They also provide skills to create their own resumes.

Our training includes

  • website design and blogging using WordPress,
  • office administration using Microsoft Office and
  • bookkeeping using MYOB

We believe we have the best solution for online training in Australia but we always want to be certain by understanding  what students want in an online training course.

Features like training videos, knowledge reviews, LIFETIME course access, Tutor Support and Student Community enable students to immerse themselves in the training and make it less stressful. After all, who does a course because they enjoy it? We all know that structured learning is something we do because we have to if we want to get ahead!

Complete the Training Course Needs Assessment and receive an instant discount for one of our online training courses. Tell us what you are looking for and be rewarded. You can forward the reward to someone else if you don’t need it now.

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Do you pay yourself but don’t use the Payroll feature of MYOB?

Australian Taxation office ato logo - payroll myob bas paygSometimes we use the EzyLearn Blog to inform readers about general course information. Today we’re announcing a new exercise file that is included in our Microsoft Excel Course 308 (which covers Macros) as well as the MYOB Payroll Course.

If you are a small business owner and you only have yourself or a handful of employees you might come across the dilemma about how to keep a record of payments you’ve made to yourself so that you can pay the correct amount of PAYG, Super etc. If your business is only small you may decide not to purchase and use the full MYOB AccountRight Plus version of MYOB accounting software and opt to keep Payroll records separately or in an Excel spreadsheet.

In a previous post we mentioned that one of our course content creators was working on a spreadsheet to help with PAYG and Super calculations for BAS reporting. Well it’s now ready (AND there’s more to come).

The Excel spreadsheet we have created enables you to enter the total amount that you have paid to an employee (or yourself) and calculates the PAYG and Superannuation that is payable for that amount (you can adjust the superannuation rate). All you have to do now is enter the payment into MYOB and your compliance is assured.

This file is handy if you pay yourself irregularly or differing amounts as you need it. Using this PAYG spreadsheet you simply enter the total amount you’ve paid yourself (or an employee) over the quarter and it finds how much you need to pay in PAYG and Super.

This excel file uses the VLOOKUP command in Microsoft Excel and the tax tables for weekly pay at the ATO website. If you are an existing student you’ll find the exercise file in the Excel 308 course (under the heading Handy Files). This course covers 3D formulas, CHOOSE, VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP, MATCH and INDEX, nested functions and how to protect worksheets.

Did you know that when you enrol into the EzyLearn online Microsoft Excel course that all levels are included for the one price? This also includes access to new content as it is created and you have lifetime access.