Learn how to use MYOB, Xero and QuickBooks and Start a bookkeeping business from home.
Define what your ideal client looks like and then advertise to capture leads.
When speaking to prospective bookkeeping leads you need to know which questions to ask to see if they are an ideal client for you. Then you need to provide your services efficiently and at a competitive price, invoicing regularly and getting paid promptly.
Starting a bookkeeping business enables you to choose your own working hours and perform some, if not all, of your work from home.
QuickBooks, MYOB & Xero Training Courses and Certification will help you achieve your goals while membership to the Bookkeeping Academy will help get you discovered online by local businesses and employers.
ERPs, or Enterprise Reporting Planning systems, are divided into three categories or tiers. Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks and other cloud accounting software used by small businesses, sit at the low end of the scale; they’re tier three ERPs.
Xero is using it’s 3rd party app integrations and its API to climb up the ERP food chain and some good bookkeepers are being dragged up along with it.
Continue reading Xero, MYOB, ERPs and Supply Chain ToolsIT’S VERY POSSIBLE THAT at the end of financial year, you discovered your accounts needed a bit of rescue bookkeeping. One of the issues that leads to a business needing rescue work is not keeping your accounts up to speed, and also having an inexperienced bookkeeper set up or handle your books.
A way to avoid this is to hire an experienced bookkeeper or finance manager on a contract basis, or you can do a course to learn a bit more so you can manage them better. Continue reading Do You Need a Bookkeeper, Accountant or Finance Manager to Run Your Bookkeeping?
THE ACCOUNTING SPACE is currently dominated by systems that make it easy for small businesses — a builder or tradesperson, virtual assistant, online retail shop — to manage their business’s accounts with the help of their bookkeeper, tax agent or BAS agent and/or accountant.
However, very few systems are dedicated to helping the bookkeeper, tax or BAS agent or accountant manage their clients — that’s the builders and tradespeople, virtual assistants and online shops and retail outlets they provide bookkeeping and tax services to. Until now.
The new way to automate your quoting, defining your scope of bookkeeping/BAS services, having clients agree and pay for your services – all in one streamlined system Continue reading When Does Practice Ignition Make Financial Sense for a Bookkeeper or Tax Agent?
ONLINE INDUCTIONS ARE WIDELY used for contractors who visit building sites or any other site where they perform work that can be risky, like plumbing, electrical, HVAC, roofing, security etc.
Many inductions are delivered manually by a qualified staff member (usually in the WH&S department). Usually any person in the organisation or business who hasn’t yet been inducted will be notified about the forthcoming induction and urged to attend.
However, this way of carrying out inductions can be a little hit and miss — people can be absent, overlook (or ignore) communications, and the quality of the inductions themselves probably vary. Continue reading She Shares “Sales Secrets” for Bookkeepers Starting New Business
ACCOUNTANTS DO GREAT WORK for their clients (so be sure to see our EOFY checklist and our EOFY series of blogs for tax preparation for how to keep ’em happy). Accountants find ways to help them save money, make money, and improve the profitability of their businesses. But too many accountants spend too much of their time on compliance work, when they should be focused on the kind of work that will help their clients grow successful businesses. Continue reading How Accountants Can Remain Competitive
ONE OF THE BEST THINGS about cloud accounting software is that your data is live, which means, providing your reconciliations are up-to-date, you get a complete snapshot your business’s performance and financial health regardless of the day, week or month you run those reports.
Running regular finance reports is the key to ensuring your business maintains a healthy cashflow, which is also linked to your credit management process and procedures. Previously, the main gripe many bookkeepers and business owners had about QuickBooks was that it lacked the reporting functionality of other apps, like Xero and MYOB.
That’s all changed now that the reporting features in QuickBooks have been given a major upgrade, giving business owners more power and flexibility to monitor their business’s performance. Here are just a couple of the things you can — and should! — do with the updated reports feature in QuickBooks.
If you’re like a lot of businesses, you probably offer a couple of different products or services, and, like a lot of businesses, there are certain products or services that are more profitable to your business — and, therefore, should be a major focus — to sell.
Now that QuickBooks offers the ability to customise and save any of its reports into your management reports tab, you can filter your customer sales reports by services or products, and also run them across multiple periods. If you have multiple sales people, you can also filter your reports by sales people, too.
In addition to being able to customise and save your management reports, so you don’t have to keep filtering out the data you don’t need and adding in the stuff you do, you can also setup a schedule so your preferred reports are automatically emailed to you (and your business partners or other stakeholders) as required.
QuickBooks gives you the option to select which reports you’d like to see, and the frequency at which you’d like them — daily, weekly, monthly, twice a month, or custom. This’ll mean you won’t have to keep asking your bookkeeper to run them for you, nor will you need to go in to run them manually yourself. It’ll also give you a better idea of whether or not your bookkeeper is really paying close attention or not!
Here at EzyLearn, we believe Quickbooks has a lot to offer small business and bookkeepers alike. The reporting functions in QuickBooks now offer up seemingly unending possibilities by giving you the flexibility to filter and customise your reports by any number of variables — sales person, periods, services, etc. Sometimes you don’t know the kinds of reports you need for your business until your go in and have a play yourself, so that’s exactly what you should do.
Maybe you haven’t taken a good look at the capabilities of Quickbooks for a long time — check out the options available with our Quickbooks online training courses to take you up to speed. Alternatively, you can ask your bookkeeper, and they should be able to customise, save and schedule a report that suits your needs to a tee.
At EzyLearn we offer online training courses to help you up-skill and find employment. Choose from our range of cloud-based online accounting software courses, to business start up, real estate and investment management courses, to marketing and sales courses, or update and further your skills in a range of Microsoft Office programs, (including Excel, PowerPoint, Word) or social media and WordPress web design).
WITHOUT SOUND CREDIT management processes, any business can come asunder.
Credit management, in a nutshell, is the process of ensuring your customers pay you on time, every time, of which technology has played a big part.
Cloud accounting, for example, has sped up the time it takes a business owner to create and send invoices to their customers, which smartphone and tablet accounting apps has further aided too.
Continue reading Are Online Payments using PayPal and Stripe Right for Your Business Cashflow?
IN OUR FREE, EDUCATIONAL GUIDE, Bookkeeping Basics, we feature a section that discusses payroll, which we thought was worthy of being expanded upon on here.
You might also like to go back and revisit our other blog post that complements the free beginners guide, Bookkeeping Basics: Cash vs. Accrual Systems, if you haven’t already.
In this blog I explore some of the rudimentary knowledge for payroll administration jobs.
Continue reading Bookkeeping Basics: Payroll and Paying People
Consider going remote for your bookkeeping
THERE ARE MANY BOOKKEEPERS who do not undergo the rather stringent requirements to become a registered BAS agent. Even without becoming a BAS agent, a bookkeeper can be employed by a business on the payroll, rather than providing bookkeeping services ‘as a business’.
Usually, these bookkeepers will work on a casual basis, once or twice a fortnight, at the business’s premises, which means they’re provided with a desk, computer, and desk chair.
Unfortunately too many business owners don’t make their casual bookkeepers a priority; often relegating them to a desk piled skyhigh with un-filed documents, old or broken technology, ergonomically unsound chairs, and probably a thick layer of dust on nearly every surface.
Aside from sending a clear message that your casual bookkeeper’s contribution to your business isn’t valued, it can also play havoc with their health, particularly when it comes to unsteady or broken office chairs.
Over time, sitting incorrectly on an office chair that’s broken or not adjusted correctly can contribute to back problems and muscle pain, because it places large amounts of pressure on your back muscles and the spinal discs. Poor posture and slouching can overstretch the spinal ligaments and strain the discs, which can damage the spinal structures. It’s also pretty hard to produce your best and most accurate bookkeeping work under these conditions.
If you’ve been guilty of shoving your casual bookkeeper off to a workspace in the corner, with the wonky office chair and desk lined with dust, or even if you do just some of these things, it’s time to think more about how much you value your bookkeeper’s contribution to your business. This leaves you with a couple of options: invest in new office equipment — desks, technology, and ergonomic chairs — which could set you back a few thousand dollars, or hire remote bookkeepers instead.
A remote bookkeeper will cost you less, as they don’t require workspace in your office, so you won’t have to provide the office technology and furniture. And remote bookkeepers only bill you for the time they spend working on your accounts, not the time they spend making cups of tea and chatting around the watercooler.
National Bookkeeping is our online directory of bookkeepers and includes data entry clerks, BAS agents, accountants and CFOs. These people are trained and qualified bookkeepers willing to work all over Australia and ready to help you now.
Whether your business uses MYOB, Xero or Quickbooks (or even other specialist software) our members can help from the basics to the complex and advanced.
Alternatively, if you are a bookkeeper thinking about starting your own business, register with National Bookkeeping before June 30 so you can claim it as a tax deduction right away; alternatively, to learn more, visit the National Bookkeeping website or continue reading our blog.
THIS JULY A NEW ACCOUNTING SYSTEM is attempting to lure Aussie businesses away from the incumbent cloud accounting majors MYOB, Xero and QuickBooks, with the promise of “access to big-end-of-town technology,” according to a report in The Australian Financial Review.
Wiise, which is owned by the deep pockets of KPMG and will operate under a strategic partnership with Microsoft and the Commonwealth Bank, will combine cloud accounting, job costing, workflow scheduling and inventory management, payroll, sales and marketing and customer relationship management into one system.
Pricing hasn’t been confirmed, but it’s understood Wiise will operate a tiered model, costing businesses between $60 and $200 a month.
The software will integrate with all major Australian banks, but added functionality will be given to CBA customers, such as access to working capital and financing options.
Although Wiise will target SMEs; founders KPMG, Microsoft and CBA say the software isn’t competing with MYOB, Xero or QuickBooks for customers.
Rather, the Wiise software will suit complex businesses that have outgrown traditional cloud accounting systems, because their business operates in more than one location, has a complex supply chain, various legal entities or high transaction volumes.
The Wiise software will suit complex businesses that have outgrown traditional cloud accounting systems.
Wiise will also appeal to businesses that want to use one piece of business software, rather than multiple separate systems or cloud-accounting add-ons.
That said, it’s probably a worry to MYOB, which signalled it would grow market share by pursuing bigger and more complicated businesses; acquiring the enterprise reporting system Greentree in 2016.
So while contract bookkeepers should remain competitive by keeping abreast of new technologies, is Wiise yet another cloud accounting system bookkeepers, tax agents and accountants will need to learn how to use? Well, that depends on how quickly it penetrates the market. And if it penetrates the small business market in any significant way.
As a general rule, most small businesses want to spend as little time worrying about compliance as possible, which is as it should be. Simple businesses with straightforward tax and compliance requirements typically stick with simple cloud accounting systems.
So there’s value in bookkeepers that typically services larger, more complicated businesses learning more about Wiise, but probably not for bookkeepers that look after smaller, straightforward businesses.
If you’re a business owner trying to decide on an accounting system, speak with your bookkeeper or tax agent to determine the best option for your business.
If you’re looking for a reliable bookkeeper or tax agent to manage your business accounts, visit the National Bookkeeping website to find someone professional, able to work in your office, or remotely, to suit the needs of your business.
THERE ARE UMPTEEN REASONS why starting a bookkeeping business is a great low-cost venture for people looking to take a step back from the corporate world, or even for those looking to do quite the opposite by working from home so they have the flexibility they need as parents to young children.
If you’re a subscriber of this blog, then you’ve read posts about National Bookkeeping, the company EzyLearn has partnered with to deliver training courses to people who become National Bookkeeping licensees.
However, I’m going to talk about it again because there are still too many talented people out there who don’t think they have what it takes to go into business for themselves. And I’m here to tell you, you do, and we’ll help you!
Continue reading When a Bookkeeper Isn’t Just a Bookkeeper
THERE’S A COMMON MISCONCEPTION that, to be smart or successful, you had to do well at school.
But, in fact, there are scores of people who didn’t do well at school (usually because they weren’t engaged or interested in what they were learning), but who have gone on to become highly successful nonetheless.
Mark Zuckerberg is one of the most famous examples of recent years. (Zuckerberg’s failure to graduate has achieved such mythical status that his sister, Randi, often jokingly introduces herself as a Harvard Graduate, before acknowledging that, yes, she’s the sister of that Zuckerberg.)
I worked with a 16 year-old recently, who had an excellent aptitude for computers that weren’t being developed at school. As a consequence, his grades were suffering. I wanted to help him start a business of his own that he could grow and develop successfully, rather than see him end up in dead-end, low paid jobs. Continue reading Engaged Students Gain the Most From Their Training
I HAD THE PLEASURE of being invited to meet with some fabulous registered BAS agents at a recent function for VIP’s before this week’s QuickBooks Connect Conference in Sydney’s Intuit head office.
The VIP event included presentations from lots of App developers who provide Bookkeeping and Accounting Apps which integrate with QuickBooks Online (and also Xero and MYOB) as well as practice and workflow management systems like Practice Ignition and HubDoc which help bookkeeper’s assist their clients.
These BAS agents have been bookkeepers for decades, yet rather than sit on their past practices, they are constantly learning and improving their knowledge of software, systems and apps and talking to them about this new technology seemed very natural. This actually surprised me because I thought I was the only one who was right into this stuff — well, not the only one, but I can get very passionate about it! But I digress.
Continue reading QuickBooks Connect VIP Event & One-to-One Bookkeeping Training
IN ONE-TO-ONE training sessions, your job, as the trainer, is to help your client (the student) achieve their individual goals. This is very different to classroom or group training, where the purpose is to get students through the prescribed course content in the prescribed time.
Now that it’s well-known that nearly every person learns at a different pace to the person sitting next to them, online training has become popular because it allows an individual to learn at their own pace, rather than trying to keep up with the rest of the class.
Online and one-to-one training are similar in many ways. They both allow students to learn at their own pace, to pick and choose which modules they start and end with, and to practice until they feel confident that they’ve learned the content thoroughly.
But one-to-one training provides students with something online training can’t: guidance from an expert. This is important for some people who don’t feel comfortable learning on their own, or who need the added motivation of having a trainer with them.
The cost of one-to-one training is often justified by the benefit. For businesses, they can get paid faster if their bookkeeper has received in-depth training in MYOB, QuickBooks or Xero; they may win more tenders and save time working on them if their staff have advanced Word skills; have better reporting because their staff have advanced Excel skills; or save hundreds by increasing their productivity through their staff’s use of apps like Google G Suite.
The question for trainers is whether they can make it worthwhile printing out workbooks, driving to their client, finding parking, and spending their time training students in-person.
Some students will only require guidance on certain modules or at certain points during their training. For instance, most people need help getting started with MYOB, but only require help during the advanced modules of Excel. That has a lot to do with each individual person’s soft skills, and experience with the software package in question. (Most people are already very familiar with Excel, for example, but have almost no knowledge of MYOB until they start learning.)
Combining online and one-to-one training is a great way to keep your overheads down as a trainer (printing, petrol, parking costs, etc) and provide your client with an affordable training option that still helps them achieve their goals. EzyLearn online training courses are endorsed and by industry professionals, accountants, bookkeepers and registered BAS agents alike.
I’ve been a Bookkeeper for more than 20 years and find more and more business owners are asking for training because today’s bookkeeping tasks aren’t quite as easy as the software companies make out. Learning how to use bookkeeping software one-to-one combined with an online course is a great way to learn because, as a trainer, I cover all the topics my clients need in a logical order which follows the flow of the course and which will also help them in their daily operations, but clients can also learn what they need to specific to their own situation.”
— Tracey O’Neill, Registered BAS Agent and Bookkeeper, QuickBooks Pro Advisor
I RECENTLY SPOKE WITH a few different Novocastrian real estate agents recently about a property I was renovating. One of them had a billboard near a train station, another paid for bus stop ads, and another created trailer signs that could be towed and parked in strategic places. None of them used Google or Facebook ads. This was a missed opportunity, and I’ll tell you why in a moment.
Outdoor advertising, along with DL flyers and advertising in your local newspaper, are designed to keep your brand in front of mind with people who know you and live in your local area. Brand awareness is an incredibly important marketing strategy for any business. We took a look late last year at how bookkeepers can learn from real estate agents about marketing using Facebook.
Although outdoor and print marketing are important brand building tactics, digital and social media marketing should form a part of your brand campaigns. The internet is where most people turn to get information quickly, even local information.
We used Facebook ads in our social and digital marketing strategy we used for McGrath real estate agent Derek Farmer. A client list of names based on mobile phone numbers was used to target people in the Northbridge area who already had some past experience with Derek — they’d met at an auction, open home, he’d sold a friend or neighbour’s home, or they’d previously bought one of his listings. We helped Derek achieve Page 1 rankings on Google without using any paid advertising.
This targeted advertising helped build brand awareness with those people in a relatively non-invasive way, so that when Derek did reach out to them by phone, email or in-person, they would already be very aware of who Derek was and the type of property sales he specialised in.
This ensured Derek didn’t lose a listing because someone couldn’t remember who he was, and ended up listing their property with an agent who did take the time to build brand awareness within their local community and with past clients.
Are you in business as a bookkeeper, tradesperson, retailer, trainer or real estate agent and want to stand out from the crowd? We can teach you the online marketing techniques to help you do just this! Check out what’s included in our comprehensive Social Media and Digital Marketing online training courses. Alternatively, you can learn more about Facebook targeted advertising in our Facebook training courses.
TAX TIME IS NIGH and it might be a good time to think about whether there are any assets your business may need, and try to get them in before June 30 rolls around. Whether it’s new computers, tablets, office furniture, a new car — as long as each item costs less than $20,000, you can deduct it immediately, rather than depreciating it over time, as was the previous method for assets over $1,000 in value (depreciation still applies for asset purchases above $20,000) — but only until and including 30 June 2018.
The small business tax breaks were introduced by the Abbott-Hockey government, but having already been extended, they will cease on 30 June 2018. Following this date, any big ticket assets for your business (and of course there are some exceptions) can be used to reduce your taxable income immediately.
There are a lot of items you can deduct, with the exception of some small items, such as horticultural plants, software that’s allocated to a software development pool and some capital works, which have special depreciation rules. If you’re not sure of what you can claim, it’s wise to ask your account or financial adviser first, particularly if you have a penchant for horticultural plants (perhaps try artificial ones?), otherwise make sure to keep your receipts!
After 1 July 2018, the asset threshold will reduce back to $1,000. After then, any asset purchase you make that’s greater than $1,000 will have to be depreciated, using the traditional methods of depreciation, which you can read about in this blog post.
While you’re thinking about starting a business, don’t forget to consider starting a business within the leading four service groups, identified by Australia’s Chief Economist Mark Cully:
Professional and support services, in particular, is currently experiencing a phase of high growth, largely because starting a business in this sector is both low risk and cost. Most businesses operating within the professional and support services sector are home-based, providing vital services to other businesses located across Australia and, sometimes, the world.
One such profession currently in high demand is bookkeeping, specifically BAS and tax services. As more and more Australians start their own businesses, there becomes a greater demand for bookkeeping, BAS and tax services. EzyLearn recently partnered with National Bookkeeping to help registered BAS and tax agents to start, growth and develop their business, by becoming National Bookkeeping licensees.
Visit the National Bookkeeping website or contact their team for more information.
Read more about the requirements to become a registered BAS agent.
