You and your feedback and goals are at the centre of our course content development. Since 1996 we’ve been driven by the training you need to get a promotion, up-skill to find work and run your own small business.
Accounting, Office Admin, Digital Marketing and Online Customer Service and Sales tasks are changing rapidly with the quick adoption of new technology.
We’ve been blogging for over a decade about office and productivity skills training and this is where you’ll find
announcements about new services,
new and updated training materials, and
extra training and support resources to help the students who turn to us to learn.
I HAVE JUST BEEN THROUGH a gruuelling experience with our hosting company, technical people and course creators to make sure that EzyLearn continues to be the first choice for Bookkeeping and Marketing Courses.
Our servers are now twice as fast and have more storage so existing students should experience some nice and fast access speeds — unless you’re in an NBN area that drops out all the time (sorry Telstra, I love you BUT the access speed is no different from what it was over here in the NSW Lake Macquarie area!)
In case you weren’t aware, I was recently heavily involved in a renovation of an investment property in Newcastle (which I really enjoyed and has given us a whole lot of extra content from real world experiences with local tradies like electricians, plumbers, chippies, painters and more) but am now back on the tools (the internet and software tools, that is) and keen to continue improving every aspects of our courses for existing AND new students.
We’ve coming up to the crazy, silly season once again that is Christmas, and I thought I’d push our marketing up another notch to help those who want to learn more to improve their lives and businesses in 2018. I hope I’m not too early in thinking like this but it’s a great time to think about what’s important in life and go and get it.
New people, new experience and MORE new content
I’ve spoken with some fantastic people who’ve joined us in the accounting software space and they have some tremendous experience in the ERP (Enterprise resource planning) side of accounting — that is accounting software as used by mid size companies. From this, we’re going to share some great information, tips and experiences to help those businesses who either deal with larger companies as clients, or who are at the stage of ramping up their accounting as a mid size business.
We’ve also just gone through the upgrade of training materials for Microsoft Excel 2016 and Xero Courses, including the new Xero Cashflow Course, and I’ll share some of that information with you as it gets published on our LMS.
If you are an existing Xero Course student you can access this course for free as part of our EzyLearn Updates policy.
There’s much more news to come, but for now please take advantage of and share our current “LAST DASHer SALE!” with your friends. And do subscribe to receive our updates!
Although the daily data entry is a frustration for many business owners and manager, particularly if you are quoting, ordering and invoicing regularly, the bank reconciliation is the most frustrating for bookkeepers, BAS agents and accountants because they need to make sense of EVERY transaction and make sure it is accounted for correctly. Xero bank reconciliations are made easier with bank feeds and today we announce that this course is available as part of our All Xero Courses for 1 Price Offer!
The thought that stuck in my head the most was “Wouldn’t it be great to design my own bank statement! A bank statement that I would like to see for my business each month” but that is a topic for another “business development and goal setting type blog”.
The important thing for bookkeeping students is that this bank statement includes most of the transactions that you’ll come across each month including interest, capital purchases, loans etc that you’ll probably need to check and make sure they’re coded correctly.
Xero and all cloud accounting programs make bank reconciliation easier because they enable you to import bank feeds directly from your bank. This saves a lot of the typing involved in data entry but you still have to get the codes right.
Xero 513 Bank Reconciliation Course
Learn more about what is included in this course at our Xero Bank Reconciliation Course landing page. In this course we introduce a new “character” in our course design – Jerry. Jerry is an ordinary man who decides to go into business because he loves talking to and helping other people but he’s not that tech savvy (or accounting savvy) so he makes a lot of the mistakes that many other business people make when they are starting out for the first time.
If you are an existing student enrolled into our Xero Courses, just contact support and ask them to enrol you into the Xero 513 (Bank Recs) course – there’s not charge for you if you are within the 12 months course access period.
Stay tuned for more updates to our Xero and Quickbooks Training Courses.
It’s Christmas time and we’ll be open every day (except the public holidays) which means you can make contact with questions or support during your course.
But best of all, we’re offering a fabulous special offer with a saving of over $300. Check out the quick video below which shows you how to get $663 dollars worth of training for just $296 — a saving of $337!
All you have to do is choose your courses at our Online Course Enrolment page and the discounts will be applied automatically.
Get New Skills for A New Year!
With the New Year coming fast we find most of our students are looking to change careers and/or up-skill so as to feel confident with their computer skills in job interviews and the like, so our current special offers will train you up to be your best, cheaply. Here’s all you need to do:
Scroll down to the discounted courses section to see the Xero Training Course available for $30 less.
Scroll down further to see the Microsoft Word Course (12 month’s access, all 9 courses and Certificate), which is normally $267 is now FREE
Tick the box next to “Yes, I have a discount voucher code” and enter 8881818 to receive a further $70 discount off the Microsoft Excel course!
If you don’t have the time right now, don’t worry, you’ve got 12 months to complete all these courses at your own pace — so just enrol now to get the current special offers.
Watch this video to see how to get the discounts
New Online Courses for the New Year
It’s been a very busy year for new course creation and we’ve just launched two new courses that are all based on new online cloud-based services in bookkeeping and marketing/advertising. Read about them here:
QuickBooks Online
Provide quotes on your tablet computer, convert them to invoices when you get the order and take photographs of your receipts for expenses — works on your smartphone too. These are the features of America’s most popular accounting software program that is now aggressively promoting itself to Australian small businesses.
Tired of struggling to post consistently on Facebook and other social media sites? We’ve had a WordPress course for several years to teach you how to create your own website and blog, edit images, and optimise it for search engines (like Google). But if you’ve ever struggled with fleshing out a Facebook Page, or want to start promoting yourself or your business in social media, try our Digital Business and Social Media Marketing Courses.
We show you what you should include on a modern day website as well as including Facebook Page, Content Marketing and Facebook Advertising training (which we used to help Derek Farmer show up on Page 1 in Google for the competitive Cammeray Real Estate Agent search query).
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Most of all, from all of us here at EzyLearn, HAVE a FANTASTIC and SAFE Christmas — doing things you love!
Critical Office Skills and Job Seeker Confidence with Microsoft Office Essentials
A HUGE PERCENTAGE of EzyLearn students complete an online course with us because they are looking for a new job. However, many people lack confidence because they are not competent using Microsoft Office software programs.
At EzyLearn, we have always included Beginners to Advanced-level training content for our software courses; we don’t want students wasting their time worrying about whether they should do Beginners, Intermediate or Advanced. That said, we’ve consistently had requests for a combination course.
One of the most powerful internet based applications that we use everyday is Dropbox. It’s powerful because it enables you to automatically backup any files you save into your Dropbox folder AND it enables you to access your files from any computer. When you delve deeper into Dropbox and start using it on your Smartphone you’ll also discover that every photo you take on your phone (and screen shot) can be automatically saved into your “Camera Uploads” folder within Dropbox so no matter how much phone storage space you have you’ll always have a copy of images in Dropbox.
I personally use Google Apps for emailing, contacts, calendar etc because many years ago when I made the switch it was free and Google’s email program (gmail) had the best SPAM filtering on the market so I was guaranteed to only receive the emails I wanted and not all the rubbish — before then I used Microsoft Outlook for many years. Our Microsoft Outlook courses will teach you how to:
Manage your emails
Manage your calendar and meeting appointments
Manage contacts and use Outlook as a CRM
Manage tasks and checklists
Our Microsoft Outlook training course is not available separately but is included as part of our Microsoft Office Beginners Essentials training courses. With a confident knowledge of all of these Microsoft Office Productivity programs you’ll perform better in any job interview and who knows maybe even be able to help other people in the organisation!
Would you like to be an EzyLearn Trainer?
We’ve beefed up our EzyLearn Partner program — if you want to earn a couple hundred dollars a week OR make a living out of using and teaching people how to use computer software, Internet services, accounting software and online marketing, then take a look at our EzyLearn Partner page.
Case Study: Tradespeople Using Xero Cloud Accounting
Tradies across Australia are getting onto the cloud for their accounting and there’s a good reason for it — many busy people can use the system from remote locations to get their work done.
This means the estimator can use it to generate a quote at a site, the office administrator can convert quotes to orders and invoices and the remote contractor can sign in and do accounts receivable calls from their home office. This is good news! All major accounting programs now offer cloud access — MYOB, Xero and Intuit Quickbooks.
I wrote in the past about Rohan from Painters, Men in White; Ken the home theatre installer and Jason the kitchen appliance repairer. Today I’m happy to announce that we’ve released a case study in the Xero Daily Transactions course that relates to the building and construction industry — in particular a concreting business that quotes for the pouring of a 3 level apartment building. Sue, a contract bookkeeper from Yarra Junction helped me write this Case Study based on her experience in the building sector and in particular with concrete companies.
Bookkeepers Upskilling with EzyLearn
Sue is typical of the students who enrol with us to broaden their skills in cloud accounting — existing bookkeepers who want to upskill. She has a lot of experience in the day-to-day management and accounts for tradespeople and found that she could perform the bookkeeping from her own home at any time.
We’re Constantly Updating Online Course Content
While I’m blowing my trumpet I may as well add that this is an example of what we promote with our online courses — that during your student access period you’ll have access to ALL the courses you’ve enrolled into including updates and new content. This is particularly useful for MYOB and Excel Course students who enrol using the LIFETIME course access option.
Xero Course Student Testimonials
I haven’t posted any new pages with student testimonials to the website for a while (but they come in with every course) but today it must be trumpet-practising time for me because here I blow again! When Sue completed the course, she commented:
“I would recommend this learning site to others and I am thinking about studying Excel next with this learning centre“. She also commented: “Convenient in that I can do it from home at my own leisure. The price was very reasonable.“
While Sue was working with us we put her through our Microsoft Word and Excel courses at no cost and the main thing that really stands out to me is how much everyone benefits by doing a Microsoft Word course!
Use Microsoft Word to Create Xero Courses
Helen from Bright is a registered BAS agent who did our WordPress course and got paid creating a website with out help!
Many students enquire about the Microsoft Excel courses because spreadsheets are complicated for people who don’t know how to use them. However, I never cease to be amazed at how many people confidently state, “I know how to use Word, that’s easy”.
Microsoft Word is used in so many aspects of a business yet too many people think that just because they can type they are good at Word. Things like:
are covered in our 203 to 205 courses (so they are considered beginners to intermediate Word skills) yet I am surprised at the number of people I meet who don’t truly understand how these work!
When we work with a new contractor, even as part of our National Bookkeeping Network, we ask new members to write up an education guide if a bookkeeping customer is looking for a certain task to be completed. We end up putting the bookkeeper through our Word course and they discover a whole new world of computer skills that enable them to do more office admin work for their employers or customers — particularly when it comes to long form documents like instruction guides, tenders and even eBooks which are becoming increasing used in online digital marketing.
Bookkeepers Can Be Great Web Designers!
As I’m sharing so many EzyLearn student stories, I’ll provide another example of a recent student, Helen from Bright in Victoria (check out where Bright is located in Google maps and you’ll see just how far away she is from the nearest capital city — again, the beauty of working from home using the internet!)
Helen is a Registered BAS Agent and has been for a long time. She performs all the bookkeeping tasks that many of our students aim to offer by being a BAS agent, but she is also interested in being a little more visually creative — at least part of the time — so she completed our WordPress Course and as a result we’ve introduced her to some clients. Since then she’s actually been paid for creating and editing websites! One website she created and continues to edit as required is for ANOTHER student, Sonia who completed our MYOB course years ago to help her with her husband’s business!
Sonia now spends a lot of her time teaching mums (AND dad’s) about baby massage and how they can use infant massage to build a bond with their new baby and help them relax when they are uncomfortable. With a nursing degree and a huge amount of experience with children, Sonia is able to help parents and babies alike create a special bond through touch, and ease new parents into the sometimes stressful experience of welcoming a new baby into their family.
I hope I’ve managed to share with you how we genuinely like to support our students and clients in their journey. We welcome your feedback and love to hear directly how you’re progressing along the way, how we can improve what we do, and any other input you may have.
If you’re looking for a new job, we can advise you on our comprehensive courses with lots of content and examples and a fantastic price. If you’re looking to start a new business we can help you with our Business Startup Course. If you’re a small business in need of a good bookkeeper, writer or website designer — we can connect you.
Stay tuned for some new training content releases about Selling Your Property, Facebook Marketing and Intuit Quickbooks.
You don’t need to know double entry bookkeeping to complete our online MYOB, Xero and Quickbooks Courses but the more you know the better. We include educational videos about basic bookkeeping terms in our bookkeeping courses and they were created by Jacci a Registered BAS agent, but we’ve also created a separate bookkeeping basics guide that is available to you for free.
These are the types of terms I am talking about:
General Ledger
Chart of Accounts
Trial Balance
Tax codes like FRE, N-T, GST and CAP
How to create proper tax invoices
Cash and Accrual accounting
Income and Expense accounts
Sales & Purchases vs Cashbook
Debits/Credits
Change in Debit and Credit accounts
Credit Control
Debtors and Creditors report
When you perform the daily bookkeeping tasks for a business you focus on the tasks at hand like:
buying goods on account,
paying bills,
making sales and generating invoices and then
keeping track of the payments and receipts.
When you learn how to do these tasks using accounting software you don’t need to understand all the debits, credits and double entry of accounting because the software takes care of it for you.
The most popular of our MYOB courses is the Daily Transactions Course 502 because it takes students through a typical scenario of the accounting transactions of a VoIP telephone system supplier and installer.
This telephone company is very similar to a plumber, electrician, builder and most tradespeople because they combine products and services in their invoices. They’ll also often hold an inventory of items they sell regularly and they need to purchase items specifically for a job they are working on for a client.
If you are looking to take on all the bookkeeping tasks for a small business you’ll need to know all aspects of how to use accounting software but if you are just looking for data entry or an accounts payable and receivable job the Daily Transactions course may be all you need.
I’ve created some education guides for real estate agents
If you’ve read my recent blogs about the free WordPress training video for Youtube and real estate agents or Facebook Advertising for real estate agents you’d get the feeling I’ve been pretty submersed in the real estate industry! Well, you’re right and the good news is that if you’re a bookkeeper looking to start your own bookkeeping business this will help when I start sharing what I’ve learnt about the sales techniques used by real estate agents to sell property – it could help you sell your bookkeeping services.
Now, just to be clear we’ve done a LOT of research to come up with this guide because we make it available to the real estate agents that use our Digital Marketing services over at virion. Real estate agents can use this guide as a giveaway as part of their “Call-to-action and Lead Capture“. In creating this Education Guide we interviewed:
real estate agents,
property valuers
conveyancers,
property owners,
property stylists,
photographers,
video producers
auctioneers,
building and pest inspectors
tradies
online marketing experts, and more
Winter is the perfect time to plan your property sale
Spring is the season that is most often touted as the best time to sell your property. Property buyers start coming out of their homes after the chilly winter to go and inspect properties at open houses and most people want a sale to be made before Christmas. If you’re one of these people looking to sell then this guide will explain why you need to start preparing now. Here’s what we’ve included in this guide, our table of contents:
If you are a real estate agent you can use this
Content marketing has been my marketing method of choice since 2008 after we spent a lot of money on Google Adwords and other advertising methods to try to attract students to our online training courses. I like content marketing because people (like you) get to know a bit more about us, you get to see the quality of our work and over time (after over 500 blog posts!) you get to see my commitment to EzyLearn and EzyLearn students. This is the type of commitment I believe real estate agents will need to make to stand out from the crowd and become more relevant in a digital age.
I’ve been fortunate to work with Derek Farmer (real estate agent in Sydney’s Lower North Shore) who understands the need for agents to change the way they come across. He spent tens of thousands of dollars to create a series of educational videos about each of the steps in the property selling process because he wants his vendors to understand each of the steps. He also realised that he was spending a lot of time explaining what goes on during the selling process and created the videos to share his experiences in these situations and inform vendors about how they can deal with their emotion and what decisions they can make when these situations arise.
If you’re a real estate agent and you want to re-brand our “Selling Your Property” Education guide please make contact with us via our Digital Agency (virion). Happy preparations!
Coming Up… The Facebook Page Checklist
Facebook is one of the tools that real estate agents are jumping onto as quickly as they can and there’s a good reason for it demographic targeting – they can promote their brand to every person who lives within 2km of their office or “sales patch”. Bookkeepers or any other businesses can also use this targeting for their marketing and we’re putting the finishing touches on our Facebook Page Checklist AND our first Facebook for Business Course – Setting Up Your Facebook Page.
We’ll be giving away the Checklist for free so make sure you subscribe to receive it via email.
Free Excel, Word, WordPress and PowerPoint Courses
We’ve secretly been offering these courses for free for at least 6 months so students (if you’re already one) will have known about it, but I wanted to tell everyone that this is available. What does it mean? It means if you enrol into an MYOB or Xero course for example that once you log into our training site using your student account login details you’ll automatically be able to click on these courses and enrol yourself into the beginners course without paying any money or entering any course password!
We’ve always made samples of our training workbooks or videos available to students who want to learn more about EzyLearn and how we work so we want to do MORE for students who have made a commitment to pay for a course with EzyLearn.
How does it work
The first thing is to choose the course you want to do (or the combination of courses – to get a special offer discount!) and then enrol. Once you are a student in our system you’ll then be able to explore each of the other courses. When you get to the Free Courses (we use the term Free Student Inclusions) you’ll be able to enrol yourself and jump right into the course.
The great thing is we literally give you EVERYTHING in that course: videos, workbooks, exercise files and knowledge review tests, and not just a couple of training resources, so if you’re a beginner with any of those courses you’ll have the fundamental skills under your belt!
Share the love
My team and I have been doing a LOT of work lately on social media to help real estate agents build strong online profiles (check out the free video about inserting Youtube videos into a WordPress website!) so we understand the benefits of a Facebook page and to build a community so please feel free to “Like” us and share our details with your friends, family and contacts. Heck, that’s even easier to do now that you can give them some free stuff!
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Xero is a great bookkeeping program for tradies who are on the go and using their phones (or a tablet) all the time. From receipts scanning to creating quotes and invoices, receiving payments and keeping track of project costs.
bookkeepercourse.com.au/produ…
With the New Year coming fast we find most of our students are looking to change careers and/or up-skill so as to feel confident with their computer skills in job interviews and the like, so our current special offers will train you up to be your best, cheaply. Here’s all you need to do:
One of the most powerful internet based applications that we use everyday is Dropbox. It’s powerful because it enables you to automatically backup any files you save into your Dropbox folder AND it enables you to access your files from any computer. When you delve deeper into Dropbox and start using it on your Smartphone you’ll also discover that every photo you take on your phone (and screen shot) can be automatically saved into your “Camera Uploads” folder within Dropbox so no matter how much phone storage space you have you’ll always have a copy of images in Dropbox.
