Category: Clients

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Does Your Business have a Facebook Page? Here’s 6 Reasons Why You Should!

Do your small business justice and develop a Facebook page.
Do your small business justice and develop a Facebook page.

After they complete our small business management course or MYOB training course many of our students go on to start their own home-based bookkeeping business. Among the many things you learn in our small business management course is how to effectively market a small business.

Why Market?

For any new business, it’s important to market your new business so develop new leads and customers, but it’s also important that your marketing costs don’t outweigh your income. In the marketing module of our small business management course, we talk about Google Adwords, which is a low-cost way to advertise your business online, using keywords.

Another Option is Facebook

Facebook is also another option for businesses large and small, but we think it works particularly well for small businesses, due to the community-minded nature of Facebook, itself.

There’s an old saying around EzyLearn: People like to do business with people they know, like and trust. Facebook helps you to develop online relationships with your customers, allowing them to get to know, like and trust you.

But in case you’re still not convinced, here are another 6 reasons why you should be on Facebook:

  1. Population and penetration: We know that over 1 billion people are on Facebook, but what’s the penetration rate for a market, like the USA, for example? 67 percent of internet users in the US are on Facebook; in Australia that penetration rate is much higher—82 percent.
  2. Age: Facebook skews young—83 percent of 18-29 year olds are on Facebook—but the 45-54 age-bracket has also seen 46 percent growth since the end of 2012.
  3. Income: The incomes of Facebook users higher than any other social media platform. 73 percent of Facebook users earn more than AUD$75,000 compared to 17 percent for Twitter.
  4. Mobile: Social media is the most popular social media app on smartphones and accounts for 66 percent of total social media sharing on iphones.
  5. Gender: Like every other adverting medium, Facebook also skews toward women, but it’s still more gender neutral than Google+ or Pinterest.
  6. Education: Nearly 75 percent of Australian Facebook users have some form of university or tertiary education.

If you’re looking to target any or all of these demographics for your small business marketing campaign, then create a Facebook page and start marketing your services to your followers.

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Superannuation News: What is the Small Business Superannuation Clearing House?

Allocating everyone's super into different super funds can be taxing! Now the government's stepping in to help.
Allocating everyone’s super into different super funds can be taxing! Now the government’s stepping in to help.

One of the modules we cover in our MYOB course is the tricky business of payroll, which includes the even trickier business of superannuation. Over the last 12 months there’s been a raft of changes to the superannuation guarantee, including its gradual increase to 12 percent, which came into effect this July. But super just got easier.

Super: Confusing and Consuming

Many small business owners find managing the day to day items confusing enough without having to look after payroll — a complex, but all-important aspect of any business. Fortunately, the Australian Government has recognised that the superannuation requirements are making payroll and increasingly complicated business that many small business owners struggle with.

Making super contributions for your employees is not just complicated — it’s also time-consuming. Under the current tax laws, each of your employees have the option of selecting their own super fund, which means you can be making super contributions into different super funds for each of your employees. With the Government’s new initiative The Small Business Superannuation Clearing House, those days are over.

The Small Business Superannuation Clearing House

Every small business with 19 or fewer employees is eligible for this free service that enables you to make just one secure superannuation payment to The Super Clearing House, which is then distributed among your employees to their nominated super funds.

The Super Clearing House minimises the paper work and red tape associated with superannuation for small businesses and also allows you to nominate a regular contribution amount for each of your employees, so you can easily meet the superannuation guarantee obligations.

Using The Super Clearing House won’t affect the rest of your payroll requirements in MYOB — though it does look like it’s a direct competitor for MYOB’s M-Powered Superannuation — and once you register for The Super Clearing House service online, you can access it 24/7.

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For more information on The Super Clearing House, visit their website, the Department of Human Services website or download The Small Business Superannuation Clearing House reference guide here.

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Friend or Foe? The Bookkeeper-Accountant Relationship

Bookkeepers and accountants can be allies.
Bookkeepers and accountants can be allies.

IF YOU’VE RECENTLY COMPLETED our MYOB course, or perhaps started your own bookkeeping business, or thinking about starting one, the word ‘accountant’ can sometimes make you feel a little nervous. Particularly if it’s hurled at you in a sentence like: “I’m going to check that with my accountant!”

It is unfortunate, but many people aren’t aware of the important function a bookkeeper can play in a business. Bookkeepers are often relegated to being “the accountant’s poor cousin” (not dissimilar to the way nurses are seen in comparison to doctors); while for some people the only bookkeeper they’ve heard of hangs out at the dog track!

Don’t Fear Your Accountant!

But the word ‘accountant’ really doesn’t need to put the fear of God in you. The fact is a bookkeeper provides valuable services that many accountants simply can’t; and nearly all accountants are more than grateful for the work bookkeepers do.

To work as a professional bookkeeper, you must show you are amply qualified in areas of Australian tax, payroll and sometimes, basic accounting. As it happens, there are many qualified accountants that work as bookkeepers — as is the case with bookkeeping firm, Build on Bookkeeping.

Since most business owners will find themselves an accountant first and a bookkeeper second, if you have a good working relationship with all of the accountants you deal with, they will more than likely refer clients on to you.

So if you can work well with your client’s accountants — by getting your EOFY analysis done in time and the relevant reports to them quickly — you may find yourself a personal advocate for your business.

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So don’t live in fear of the accountant — embrace them. Read our tips on keeping the accountant happy come EOFY and you’re well on your way to a prosperous working relationship with the accountants of all of your clients.

 

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EOFY Tips: Keeping the Accountant Happy

bookkeeper accountant eofy tax preparation list
As a business owner, you don’t need to dread the 30 June!

30 JUNE IS VERY LIKELY a date dreaded by most bookkeepers. If you’re new to bookkeeping, we know it takes a while to remember everything that needs to be done, which is why we’ve been putting together blogs containing EOFY tips and checklists to make sure you make it to August!

And continuing in that tradition, we’ve put together one more checklist to help you out with your end of financial year analysis — some tips on keeping your clients’ accountants happy.

End of Financial Year Checklist to Keep Your Accountant Happy

Once you’ve done all of your EOFY reports, reconciliation and payroll (see our EOFY payroll checklist), you’ll need to forward on a few reports to your clients’ account.

These reports will vary from client-to-client and depend greatly on the size of the company, entity, or what services you’ve been engaged to provide, but typically every accountant will need the following:

  • Reconciliation Reports — BAS GST, payroll and accounts
  • Reports — balance sheets, P&L, general ledger accounts, accounts receivable & accounts payable at 30 June
  • Details of any motor vehicle usage
  • Accounting Information System copy of data file (backup)

For more tips to help you through your end of financial year analysis, see our EOFY checklist or our EOFY payroll checklist posts or visit the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers website.

learn online training Xero courses videos for less

Want to learn everything you need to know about Xero? 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.  EzyLearn courses are endorsed by industry professionals and can be counted towards Continuing Professional Development (CPD) points. Find out more about our Xero online training courses.

 

 

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Survive 30 June: EOFY Payroll Checklist

checklist
Make it through July with our End of Financial Year Payroll Checklist.

While everyone else is excited by the prospect of receiving a fat tax cheque from Mr Tax Man, if you’re a bookkeeper you’re probably not so much excited as you are busy. If this is your first time looking after the EOFY analysis for your new business (or maybe you’ve just enrolled in our MYOB course and you’re wondering what you’ll be doing this time next year), we’ve put together an EOFY payroll checklist to help you make it through July.

Get Your Details Up to Speed

Before you get started, make sure you check you’ve got the correct details for each of your employees — check you have the correct addresses and TFNs for all staff.

Also check that employees who have been terminated have a termination date and check the annual leave entitlement flag has “carry remaining entitlement” in MYOB.

Now we can begin!

  1. Reconciliations: reconcile total gross wages payment register, outstanding PAYGW liability, super liability and payroll tax for the year — see the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers payroll tax resource on the ICB website
  2. Print Reports: print payment register summary and payroll entitlement balance sumarry/detail
  3. Reconcile PAYG Withholding: see Insitute of Certified Bookkeepers payroll checklist resource
  4. Prepare Payment Summaries: remember salary sacrifice and ensure you send magnetic media form and EMPDUPE file to the ATO by 14 August
  5. Rollover Payroll Year: backup payroll file and store in payroll folder, rollover year to the next payroll year and load new tax tables
  6. Superannuation: don’t forget that the superannuation guarantee increased to 9.25% from July 1 2013.

For more tips to help you through EOFY analysis, see our EOFY checklist or visit the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers website. Happy EOFY!

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Tax and BAS: How to Register with the Tax Practitioners Board

Bookkeepers Who Want to Provide BAS Services Need TPB Certification

start a bookkeeping business
Don’t stress: The TPB certification requirements may actually kick-start some people’s bookkeeping businesses.

Whether you are a bookkeeper who uses Xero or MYOB or one of the other accounting software packages that we offer training on, you are probably aware that Australian tax legislation has changed recently. As a result, providing BAS services to clients is not as simple as it once was. 

All bookkeepers who wish to provide a BAS service for a fee, must now hold a Certificate IV in Financial Services (Bookkeeping or Accounting) or higher to be eligible for registration.

What makes up a BAS service?

The BAS services page on the ATO website can provide you with information about the qualification requirements and the education requirements for BAS agents to become certified with the Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) so you can offer tax and BAS services to clients.

Becoming certified with the TPB is a lot like getting your drivers license: you need to be able to demonstrate the relevant experience of at least 1400 hours, or 1000 hours if you’re already a member of a professional organisation — like the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers — which you can become a member of for free when you complete an applicable EzyLearn Training Course.

If you’re working under the supervision of another registered Tax or BAS agent, you cannot provide any Tax or BAS services to any clients you may pick up of your own. In other words, you must only provide tax or BAS services to clients known to your supervising Tax/BAS agent.

For some newcomers to the industry, this may seem daunting. But that’s just because conventional wisdom suggests that you must take on some form of permanent employment, working for a bookkeeper or accountant who is registered with the TPB and can supervise you while you gain the necessary skills to go out on your own.

But that’s not actually the case. While this is an option — and a good one if you’ve never worked as a bookkeeper before — it’s not the only one. You can still work with another registered Tax/BAS agent as a contractor, providing these services to the registered Tax/BAS agent’s clients until you’re eligible to go out on your own.

Kick start your own business

This is a great way to get a start on your own business — perhaps just offering non BAS services to start with — while you gain the skills to become registered to offer GST and BAS services. Contract bookkeeping jobs of this nature are actually easier to find that it may seem — often by striking up a working relationship with an accountant or another certified bookkeeper.

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Find out more information on how to register with the TPB so you can provide tax and BAS services. And remember: you can become a member of the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers for free when you complete an applicable EzyLearn Training Course.

Online bookkeeping accounting training courses for CPD points

 

 

 

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More on Virtual Bookkeeping Businesses

Everyone's smiling: Your clients will benefit if you opt to go virtual.
Everyone’s smiling: Your clients will benefit if you opt to go virtual.

In our last post we discussed why we updated our MYOB training material to include MYOB’s cloud accounting software Account Right Live and how you could benefit from operating a completely remote or virtual bookkeeping business, which is great; but how do your clients benefit from your working remotely?

Convincing the Clients

Winning new clients is always difficult, but it can be especially difficult to convince the old school business owner that hiring a virtual bookkeeper is the way to go: “But I like having someone come in and sit down with me” is not an uncommon counter remark; while for many the idea of a remote bookkeeper conjures notions of unqualified cowboys.

If you’re thinking about starting a virtual bookkeeping business or turning your existing business into a virtual one, then you need to get used to overcoming these obstacles if you’re going to have any success.

It’s worth stating upfront to any potential clients, or existing clients you’re trying to convert, the benefits of retaining a remote bookkeeper over your bookkeeper that makes house calls, or office calls, rather.

Just some benefits:

  • By retaining a virtual bookkeeper, your clients only pay for time worked; that means their hourly rate is not inflated with hidden travel costs, which usually includes the time they spend commuting to your office
  • Virtual bookkeepers don’t have the costly overheads of renting office space, paying for utilities, equipment, storage space, and so forth — all of which decreases their hourly rate
  • For those businesses that may usually employ a bookkeeper as a full-time or part-time member of staff, using a remote bookkeeper means they’re no longer paying sick leave, annual leave and other entitlements
  • All bookkeepers, whether they work remotely or otherwise, have to be accredited by the Tax Practitioners Board to offer BAS services.

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If you’re thinking of starting a virtual bookkeeping business, our online MYOB course covers MYOB Account Right Live — a necessary piece of software to make any virtual bookkeeping business not only successful, but also feasible.

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Monthly Bookkeeping and Debtor Management

ID-10096058

We have previously talked about how to account for bad debt, but what about the ways you can manage your debtors to avoid things turning bad, so to speak, in the first place?

Much of your debtor management comes into play when you or your bookkeeper is doing your books.

It might be a good idea to find a bookkeeper who can chase up your accounts receivable every week rather than stress about it all month!

Continue reading Monthly Bookkeeping and Debtor Management
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Join the Google Petition to keep the Internet free

keep the internet free and open - from googleEverything we do in our business to help people find work, start a business or become more productive using our MYOB courses is made possible because of the Internet. When we provided MYOB training at our Sydney training centres we could only service people living around Parramatta, Chatswood and Brookvale because of the physical location of our centres and the costs were higher because we had to pay rent, good quality trainers, computer equipment, training materials and more.

Today I received an official blog post from Google about a petition they are compiling in support of their “Keep the Internet Free and Open” campaign and I thought this is something that needs to be shared. We’ve seen so many examples of restriction of speech for people in dictatorship type governments and we also know the financial cost of tightening controls on ownership of key business sectors (monopolies usually means strategic power, which means they can set the price they want).

You can do just as I have and participate and show your support by signing the petition. It also gives you the opportunity to write something meaning full… I hope I find my quote appearing somewhere on the Internet soon – it was very inspiring…

 

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What is Teleworking?

Teleworking from home in Australia - NBN

In a nutshell, teleworking is the ability for employees to work remotely, usually from a home office, rather than travelling to the workplace. And it’s something that Australia, and indeed, the rest of the world has been moving towards for some time.

If you think about it, ever since the widespread adoption of email, the wheels have been in motion for an era where people could opt to work from home rather than commuting to the workplace every day.

For a while, though, it has been a bit of a logistical nightmare. If you’ve ever tried to work remotely before, then chances are, at some point you’ve uttered one or all of these complaints: “This file is too large for me to email”, [quote]I don’t have that software installed on my home PC[/quote]  or “My Internet’s really slow. I might as well just come into the office”.

But when you throw things like broadband Internet, laptops, tablet devices, smart phones and the latest little life-saver, cloud accounting and storage software (like Dropbox) into the mix, working remotely, or teleworking, slowly but surely got easier.

The benefits of teleworking to employees and employers, plus also to the Australian government are huge, which is why the Australian government spearheaded the move to a National Broadband Network (NBN), which, when rollout is complete, will see high-speed Internet cabled into nearly every Australian home (93%).

The NBN will give you the freedom to things like enrol in distance education or complete one of our MYOB courses, work from home, or even start a home-based business without having to worry about poor or unreliable internet coverage.

Teleworking is the future of all Australian workplaces – you can learn about the benefits of teleworking here.

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Woman who loves tech loves MYOB software

Telework Australia Website - work from home and MYOB coursesI wrote an article about work-at-home mums earlier this year and handed out praise to our own EzyLearn team, who are mostly work-at-home mums. Ever since I opened my first training centre in Sydney’s Northern Beaches suburb of Dee Why back in 1999 mums have come to EzyLearn to get new skills to find work and MYOB was always a popular choice.

Our MYOB courses have been popular because bookkeeping skills enable mums to work their own hours and earn a good hourly rate. The bookkeeping industry is also evolving to the point where the Internet and cloud accounting is enabling bookkeeping as a virtual service that mums can perform at home!

I’ve always disliked the term virtual assistant (or VA) because it makes you think that VA’s aren’t real that they are virtual. I was speaking with an HR consultant from the UK and he told me that in Europe they use the term remote worker or remote contractor which I think it much more relevant because it’s more accurate. The Australian government appears to have adopted the term Teleworking and they’ve assembled a website to explain how it works and encourage this type of work in Australia.

Frederique Digitar - MYOB invoices and working from homeOn the topic of women working from home, I had the pleasure of meeting Frederique from Women Love Tech the other week and we got into a conversation about the blogging business. I write this blog to help our MYOB course students learn more about bookkeeping, accounting software and the computer industry as it evolves into the cloud, but Frederique covers a lot of topics that are of interest to tech savvy women. She’s written some interesting articles about technology and I thought this one was very handy for anyone operating a business. It’s about how to create a good invoice.

One of the best parts of working from home is that you can get more done (if you have a good working environment and dedication to the task), it saves on traffic and it empowers more individuals to control their own destiny!

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Will MYOB in the cloud take Bookkeepers jobs offshore?

accountants and MYOB bookkeeper jobs going offshoreI’ve written a lot about MYOB in the cloud recently as training companies like us, accountants and MYOB software users grapple with their changing software and upgrading issues and a recent article I read brought up an interesting topic. Whether Cloud based accounting software will takes jobs offshore?

MYOB in the Cloud and IT support

The article I read was more about IT jobs and IT departments and whether cloud computing was making It Departments redundant. When you think about the various jobs within the accounts department the same question can be asked. I wrote a blog post about the looming threat to Australian jobs by overseas workers earlier in 2012 and scarily, it was reinforced by an article in yesterdays Sydney Morning Herald about 1 million jobs going offshore in the next 30 years.

If you check out the article you’ll notice that not only bookkeeping jobs, but accounting in general is one of the largest sectors under threat from offshoring! The picture above shows some other sectors under threat.

MYOB in the cloud vs data files on your PC

MYOB in the Cloud will enable the bookkeeper, data entry operator and accountant to access accounting records at the same time and from different locations and this is one of the best selling features of MYOB in the cloud compared to a data file on your computer. The issue for Australian workers is that anyone in the world can now perform this work if they have the skills to use the software and knowledge of basic Australian accounting.

Keep upskilling

One of the best ways to ensure your worth and value as a MYOB user is to keep yourself up-to-date. Continuing Education is important if you want to be a BAS agent, but it is also a very good way to become the MYOB and Bookkeeping resource for your own customers.

When you enrol into our MYOB training courses, you’ll automatically receive 12 months membership to the Bookkeeping Academy as well as free student membership of the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers.

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EzyLearn students receive MYOB courses for free

MYOB AccountRight Plus 2012 online training coursesHave you pondered the benefits of a lifetime student access to our MYOB courses? Here is the best answer we can think of – our newest MYOB course is the MYOB Setup course for version 2012, and all students will have access to this course for no extra charge*.

I wrote recently about the significant changes that are occurring with MYOB accounting software as they take their journey from desktop to cloud and in-between. I’ll explain more about the in-between part in another blog post. These modifications have caused a change in how to use MYOB software so we’ve undergone a re-write of all of our courses. The MYOB Setup Course is now in beta stage and we are looking for existing students who want to give it a bit of a run through. Do you want to have a sneak peak at it?

Beta stage simply means it’s ready, but we want to see if our existing students like it. Do you want to become a VIP training member? It’s free, so submit your details in our Bookkeepers Register and select the VIP option.

I just want to use this opportunity to let you know another reason for choosing EzyLearn for your MYOB training: We create our own training materials and the people who create the courses also provide support to students. This means that we are amongst the first company to create training material for the latest versions of MYOB.

* If you have enrolled into a lifetime MYOB course access option.

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Another Reason to Start a Bookkeeping Business. Capital Gains.

Capital Gains or Loss on investments and businesses - Australian Capital Gains Tax - Learn MYOB & Xero in online training courses to start a bookkeeping business

I’ve written several articles about starting a bookkeeping business in recent months but an article I just read in the Sydney Morning Herald about the value of a bookkeeping business re-inforced a great reason to be in business for yourself. Capital Gains.

Yes, it can be hard to start a new business from scratch and yes, you may need to get out of your comfort zone to meet new people and share your story and yes, you may need to do some courses and learn some new skills, but the rewards are more freedom, flexibility, capital value and you might meet some great business owners and managers in the process.

Continue reading Another Reason to Start a Bookkeeping Business. Capital Gains.