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Is NDIS Bookkeeping & Care the Next Major Employment Opportunity?

NDIS Bookkeeping and starting a Disability Care Business - Xero, Splose & Hnry vying for NDIS Healthcare business owners - Pricing arrangements & Limits

With $41.9 Billion budgeted to be spend on the NDIS there is little wonder everyone is exploring disability care as either a job opportunity or a business opportunity. It’s not just individuals who are exploring this industry but accounting software and technology firms too.

I wrote about HNRY, the full service accounting software, accountant and bank account for small business owners that only charges a small percentage to cover ALL of these costs but other firms are also appearing to help everyone in the NDIS ecosystem, including Splose.

Continue reading Is NDIS Bookkeeping & Care the Next Major Employment Opportunity?
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Airtasker Desparately Seeking Links

Airtasker, Fiverr, Upwork, Freelancer - people starting a bookkeeping business or digital marketing business

Airtasker is an Australian success story in the Gig-economy for individuals who want their own micro business doing odd jobs for other people. Just like Uber, Ebay and other online marketplaces they leverage their digital marketing and brand to help individuals find clients and customers – for a fee. 

Airtasker and marketplaces are a great place for people who want to start their own business but these systems fail when a better alternative comes along.

Continue reading Airtasker Desparately Seeking Links

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How to get an accounting job with no experience

How to get an accounting job with no experience - Xero Course, MYOB Course, QuickBooks Course - find bookkeeping work

There are plenty of reasons that you have no experience: Changing careers, new graduate or re-entering the workforce after many years away (like when you’ve started a family and been out of the workforce as a parent). These circumstances justify your lack of experience but there are things you can do.

Our team has reviewed the features of some of Australia’s biggest job boards for accounting jobs and we’ve used some of the features that can help job seekers receive notifications when new jobs become available. There is hope and there are things you can do.

Continue reading How to get an accounting job with no experience

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Reduce stress and still earn good money as a bookkeeper

How to package your bookkeeping and digital marketing services and price yourself using value based pricing

Value-based pricing can make your bookkeeping business appear easier

To understand value-based pricing take a look at the fees charged for bookkeeping using Xero at National Bookkeeping. These fixed rates are offered to small to medium businesses to give them a clearly defined outcome for a fixed price that they can budget on.

Although the bookkeeping service is offered for a fixed price each week the bookkeeping tasks can include lots of different steps that can be quite time consuming and varied, including:

Continue reading Reduce stress and still earn good money as a bookkeeper
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She Shares “Sales Secrets” for Bookkeepers Starting New Business

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

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Sometimes “Real World” Marketing, Not Digital, is More Appropriate

IF YOU’RE A TRADIE, working as a plumber, builder or carpenter, handyman, gardener or electrician, then you probably already know that some of the best jobs come by referral.

Identify “real world” sales opportunities

During my recent renovation of an investment property in Newcastle, most of the good tradies would tell me, “Someone you’re working on a job with on Monday will ask you to do a job for them somewhere else on Friday, or a neighbour of a client will ask you to do some work for them.” I soon saw from other tradespeople how “work can come to you just because someone happens to be walking by while you’re on the job” — gardeners get a lot of work this way, for example.

The important thing in this scenario is to act efficiently in finding out what the potential client needs, finding out what else is important, and then selling them on your services. I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Kristine Seymour, an experienced sales person and business builder, for the Sales Training Course at the Australian Small Business Centre (ASBC). She spoke in detail about how to act when your future income depends on how well you can sell. This Sales Training Course is available on the EzyLearn LMS.

Continue reading Sometimes “Real World” Marketing, Not Digital, is More Appropriate
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How Bookkeepers Can STOP Losing Out to Accountants

Junior level 1 bookkeepers good cheap local bookkeeping services - Natbooks

Or is it just BAS Agents who are losing out?

THE BURDEN ON Australian small businesses to stay compliant with the ATO is immense. A lot of that is to do with the Government not distinguishing between a small business with upwards of 20 staff, and a micro business which may have 5 or fewer staff — sometimes even no staff.

All of this compliance — bookkeeping, activity statements, payroll, superannuation, and so on — is costly and time consuming, so most business owners outsource this work to a professional contractor. Before the Government changed the tax laws, it was bookkeepers who small or micro business turned to.

Continue reading How Bookkeepers Can STOP Losing Out to Accountants
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Online Training: A Cost Effective Way to Train and Motivate Your Staff

Take an online course to build will AND skill

online training for staff morale
It’s a real buzz when you learn something new: a great way to up-skill your staff members and keep people interested at work is to provide them with online training course material.

OUR MYOB TRAINING COURSE is basically an induction into the role of a bookkeeper, in that it provides students with an overview of the duties typically carried out by a bookkeeper. Most of our students take our MYOB training course because they both want, and need, to know how to use the software in order to find work as a bookkeeper.

In the world of business training and coaching, this is called the Will versus Skill Matrix. Employees who have both the will to succeed and the skill to succeed are highly desirable in the workplace.

Transparency, will and skill

Employees who have only one of those attributes, however, are less desirable. Helping staff maintain both the will and the skill to succeed in their jobs has a lot to do with how transparent you are as an organisation.

We’ve mentioned transparency in business before, notably in relation to induction training programs. Induction training programs are a highly efficient way to communicate easily and efficiently with your staff, while also testing their will and skill to succeed at their jobs.

While most induction training programs are used to merely address the requirements of the Work Health and Safety Act, or to induct contractors and consultants to a business’ premises, induction training programs can also be used to further your employees’ professional development.

Help your staff upskill with a Word or Excel course

Furthering your employees’ professional development can be done by providing your staff with online training courses that are relevant and useful to their jobs, such as a Word or Excel training course. You’ll be surprised how many tasks can be done with these software applications — and therefore how empowering this knowledge becomes!

boosting staff morale with online training courseOnline delivery of this content allows your staff to complete the course at their own pace, in an informal environment — at home or at their desk at work, rather than in a dedicated training centre on a dedicated day — and it also allows you to monitor their progress.

Being able to see how your employees are getting on with the training courses can illuminate areas where your staff could benefit from further training; it can also highlight those staff member who possess the will and the skill to succeed.

Those staff members who are have both the will and the skill to succeed in their jobs also happen to be highly engaged, and as we mentioned in a previous post, more productive.

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If you’re looking for ways to keep your staff highly engaged with your business, we can help you tailor and deliver highly engaging induction training courses to your staff. Visit our website for more information, or contact us today for a quote.


learn xero online training course videosAt EzyLearn you can choose from a range of XERO online courses, depending on your skill level — or you can access ALL courses for ONE LOW PRICE. All our courses are accredited by the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers (ICB) and can be counted towards Continuing Professional Development (CPD) points. Find out more about our Xero online training courses. 


 

 

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EOFY: Remember to Deduct Your Prepaid Expenses

The Cut-Off for Claiming Deductions is Looming

reduce-your-taxable-income-with-expenses-Xero-and-MYOB
Dive deep into your claimable expenses and don’t forget all those smaller prepaid expenses like magazine subscriptions or domain name registrations – you can only claim all of these during the period in which they occurred.

WE’RE IN THE LAST QUARTER of the 2016/17 financial year, so now is the time to dive in deep and check you’ve included every single business expense — prepaid or otherwise — to ensure all your expenses are in order.

We’ve previously posted about writing off stock and inventory and the reports you’ll need to file your activity statements and tax returns: all of these you’ll learn how to run in our MYOB BAS Reporting and GST online training course or our Xero GST, Reporting and BAS training course.

Expenses reduce your taxable income

We all know this, but remember, they can only be claimed for the period in which they occurred. If you forget to claim a major business expense in the financial year that it occurred, you can’t make it up by claiming it the next year.

It’s really important you thoroughly check your credit cards and business accounts to make sure you’ve accounted for each expense. The final quarter of the financial year is also a good time to make any purchases for your business, because you can claim them straight away.  

Prepaid expenses are often forgotten

what are some claimable expensesMagazine or journal subscriptions, domain name registrations, business name registrations, car registrations, website fees, insurances — collectively they add up, but they’re also the easiest to forget.

These deductions are often prepaid and may not come up on your radar and may certainly not show up on your final quarter bank statements.

Make a list and check it twice

Over the next month or so, make a list of all of your expenses as you think of them. This makes it easy to spot them when you’re going through your bank and credit card statements and checking them against the expenses in your accounting software.

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Learn how to run the reports you’ll need for EOFY with our MYOB BAS Reporting and GST online training course or our Xero GST, Reporting and BAS training course.


learn PowerPoint online training course

Want to make your business presentations and publications more eye catching? 

Gone are the days of excruciatingly dull PowerPoint slide presentations. Nowadays PowerPoint is the hidden gem used to generate animations, videos, movies, advertising and graphics. It’s a great ally to the marketer or social media person in your organisation.

This creative program can also be used to conjure up the most beautiful and modern pictorial slides to enhance any presentation or inductionFind out more about our 2016 version PowerPoint courses


 

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How Much Should You Pay for Bookkeeping Business Marketing

Bookkeeping business marketing includes price, packaging and the marketing message

michael-locke-talks-about-marketing-and-it-applies-to-bookkeeping-businesses-tooI had an opportunity to interview the man who managed the entire marketing program for Dyson when they came to Australia from the UK and helped Dyson become a phenomenal success and a leading brand in Australia. Michael Locke pointed out very clearly in that interview that product (and service) design, including packaging and pricing, is one of the pillars of good marketing – one of the Four P’s and Bookkeeping Business marketing is the same. Watch the video to learn more.

Many bookkeepers, particularly those starting a new bookkeeping business after coming from the corporate accounting world, think in terms of earning dollars per hour and days per week whether they work short term or several days a week so a big part of our bookkeeper induction into National Bookkeeping is to help manage their calendar for multiple clients and clients of different sizes.

Business plans, spreadsheets and other templates for bookkeepers

bookkeeping-basics-free-education-guideIt’s not hard to find a template for a business plan and if you are good at spreadsheets or have used Microsoft Excel in the past you’ve probably already got some good “templates” to work with. Things like business cards, flyers and prospect questionnaires are included in the National Bookkeeping licence but again I’ve met many bookkeepers who spend money on graphic design, websites and flyers before they even “advertise” their message to potential clients and I often ask how important that really is considering most clients make a decision based on the person they communicate with for bookkeeping work.

We include our Microsoft Excel Course – all 9 in the licence. We also include the MYOB and Xero courses and if you let us know you’d like to be promoted as a local face to face trainer for MYOB we’ll work to connect you to businesses who want to learn how to use these programs for their business.

While I’m at it I should mention that our Beefed Up Bookkeeping Basics – Level 2 workbook is included in the licence as well as a number of new workbooks, guides and other content that we are currently working on!

Less work for you and a team to help you succeed

deb-crompton-bookkeeper-from-mandurah-wa-local-myob-and-xero-portrait-smlI’m writing this post because I’ve had several conversations with Deb, our Mandurah Bookkeeper licensee, and we’ve managed to focus most of our time on constructive marketing content for blogs, flyers and other material that we’re working on together to get her discovered in her local area. There’s work that Deb needs to do but its focused on customer service and helping local businesses rather than on marketing.

The other aspect of starting a bookkeeping business as a National Bookkeeping licensee is that the

  1. Cost is very low
  2. Mark and I are able to provide mentoring support to our licensee to help them during the various stages of their bookkeeping business
  3. Our content marketing team can focus on building a great story around you, and
  4. We can leverage the national marketing reach of our existing websites

Something small business clients like is that National Bookkeeping licensee are vetted during the Pre Qualification process so they feel confident that they are working with high calibre bookkeepers (and even qualified accountants with corporate experience).

Looking for experienced bookkeepers in Brisbane/Gold Coast and Melbourne

We’ve received interest from small businesses in Melbourne and are also looking at expanding our marketing in Brisbane Gold Coast so if you are looking for more clients and want to be part of something bigger Pre Qualify now.

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Bookkeeping Basics: Cash vs. Accrual Systems

Bookkeeping Basics apply to every cloud accounting platform: MYOB, Xero or Quickbooks (QBO)

lifelong learning platform woman online learning for life

BOOKKEEPING IS THE PROCESS of keeping accurate records of the financial affairs of a business, and every business operating in Australia, whether it employs staff or whether it’s owned and operated by a single sole trader, must keep their bookkeeping up to date.

Bookkeeping plays a key role in the lodgement of your tax returns and business activity statements. It can also provide valuable information on the financial health and performance of your business.

The bookkeeping process for a business starts the very moment you begin trading, so it’s extremely important that you set up a system for managing your bookkeeping early in the life of your business — ideally, at the same time that you’re setting up your other operational systems (email accounts, websites, invoicing, etc). We’ve included bookkeeping basics videos in our MYOB training course for several years already but now these basics are part of a separate guide!

ezylearn-bookkeeping-basics-training-course-workbook-logo

If you’ve never been self-employed before, just the idea of setting up a bookkeeping system is probably enough to strike fear in your heart, which is why we put together a free guide to setting up your own bookkeeping system, called Bookkeeping Basics, which you can download, for free, from the EzyLearn website.

The Bookkeeping Basics guide is an instruction manual on basic features and terminology used in every bookkeeping system, and will provide you with some good foundation knowledge of how your accounting software works, which you can use before you enrol in one of our cloud accounting training courses or find a good bookkeeper to take care of your bookkeeping for you.

Bookkeeping Basics Topic: Understanding cash vs. accrual accounting

The main difference between cash and accrual accounting is the timing of when when revenue and expenses are recognised. Although, the two methods are distinctly different from each other, there are many businesses that use a combination of both.

Cash-based accounting

A cash-based accounting system records transactions at the time the cash was paid or received, regardless of when the transaction occurred. With this method, if you get an invoice from a supplier, for instance, you won’t record the cost in your books until you’ve paid the invoice. By the same token, you won’t record a sale in your books until you receive the money from your customer.

Cash accounting is common among small businesses, especially contractors who work on small projects or are on weekly retainers with their clients, as it’s the simplest way to manage cash flow.

Accrual-based accounting

An accrual accounting system, on the other hand, recognises both income and expenses when the sale takes place, rather than when cash changes hands. When a web designer, for example, raises an invoice for a website they’ve completed, the sale would be recorded in their books, even though they haven’t received payment yet.

With accrual accounting, debtors and creditors are created in your accounting software, which shows what is owing to you and when, as well as what you owe others and when. This helps to give you a truer picture of your financial situation, in particular it helps you keep track of money you do and don’t have in real-time, rather than after the fact as is the case with cash-based accounting.

Which system should you use?

Before cloud accounting software, like MYOB, Xero and QuickBooks came along, a lot of small businesses used a cash-based accounting system simply because the alternative required a lot of grunt work, a lot of the time. Cloud accounting has made it significantly easier to set up and maintain an accrual-based accounting system — in fact, many small businesses that use a cloud accounting system often use this method by default, without even realising.

That being said, there are some things to consider when selecting a system for your business, such as:

  • The size of your business — i.e., will you be employing staff or using lots of contractors?
  • How complicated your business transactions will be
  • Whether you will have the resources to manage an accrual system.

Accrual accounting and GST

There is one last thing to consider, and it relates to GST. For small businesses whose annual turnover is less than $2 million, but greater than $75,000 per annum, they must register for GST and they may choose whether or not to register on a cash or accrual basis. (Businesses with an annual turnover of less than $75,000 are not required to register for GST, but may do so if they wish to.)

How you choose to register for GST will greatly affect your business’s cash flow. If you choose to register for GST on an accrual basis, GST will be payable on sales for which payment hasn’t been received yet, and could leave you out of pocket until your client pays you. That being said, GST can be claimed on unpaid expenses if you hold a tax invoice. If your business has a lot of expenses, this may balance out in the wash. If you run a leaner operation, however, it most probably will not, so this is something you should give careful consideration to.

This blog post is part of our Bookkeeping Basics series, which are being published to complement our new educational guide, also titled Bookkeeping Basics, which you can download for free from the EzyLearn website.

[box type=”info”] This blog post is part of our Bookkeeping Basics series, which are being published to complement our new educational guide, also titled Bookkeeping Basics, which you can download for free from the EzyLearn website.[/box]

Featured Mandurah (WA) Bookkeeper

deb-crompton-bookkeeper-from-mandurah-wa-local-myob-and-xero-portrait-smlIf you’re looking for a reliable bookkeeper to manage your daily or weekly bookkeeping and accounts, either remotely or in-person, Deb from Mandurah WA is a qualified bookkeeper with tertiary qualifications and the practical experience of having operated her own business in the past. Deb has a lot of experience in the day-to-day accounting functions of a small business and you can contact her directly as a fully licensed member from her profile page.

Our National Bookkeeping website has recently gone through a significant upgrade so watch out for more stories about featured bookkeepers in forthcoming blogs! Join and we can feature YOU in our articles too.

Start a bookkeeping business in your local area

Start a bookkeeping business not a franchiseMany bookkeepers starting a bookkeeping business for the first time also find it quite daunting; after all, they have moved from the corporate world where various and multifaceted aspects of running the business are managed by other people.

We put these bookkeepers through our EzyStartUp Course to help them define their goals, pricing strategies, marketing message and professional profile. They also get support from a business mentor and brand building from our digital marketing team.


 

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Does Your Bookkeeper Have a Clue?

bookkeeper induction program
Having a bookkeeper induction program will add value to your business.

Having accurate business records is vitally important for any business — and most of that hinges on accurate account keeping. If you’re a small business looking to hire a bookkeeper, you want someone who’ll be able to manage all of the data entry and coding for your company accurately and efficiently.

The best way to ensure this is to have a bookkeeping induction program. Continue reading Does Your Bookkeeper Have a Clue?

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Keep Your Staff Engaged and Boost Morale with an Induction Training Program

An online induction can be a great way to open up the lines of communication with new and existing staff.
An online induction can be a great way to open up the lines of communication with new and existing staff.

WE HAVE PREVIOUSLY TALKED about what sort of information you should include in your new-employee induction training program, which we said helped boost staff morale.

Why is Morale Significant?

Company morale is important for any company, because it helps foster engagement between your staff and their work. If your business has a team of highly engaged staff members, they’re likely to be more productive and ultimately that’s good news for you as the business owner.

Keeping your staff engaged with their work and your business isn’t as hard – or as expensive as it seems. While money certainly plays a huge role in how satisfied employees are in their jobs, it’s not the be all and end all – just look at companies like Google, which have a highly engaged workforce, but which also allows their staff to bring their pets to work with them and includes an onsite games room. Your staff spend more time at work than they do at home – so they want to feel happy and appreciated while they’re there, otherwise they’ll go elsewhere.

‘Talk’ to Your People

But you don’t need to institute a ‘bring your pet to work day’ (although you could if you wanted), nor do you need to set up a pool table in the lunch room, because employee morale and engagement starts by opening the lines of communication. If your organisation has a policy of transparency, and routinely communicates new policies and procedures with their staff, they’re more likely to trust you and feel that as an organisation you trust them in return with company information.

Induction — A Great Way to Open Up the Lines of Communication

An induction training program, which is used both for new employees, contractors, consultants and existing employees is the easiest and most efficient way to demonstrate that transparency to your staff. And online induction training programs make it easy to deliver this information to your staff, while also making it easy to keep the information up to date.

Whether it’s a new procedure relating to work health and safety, or a new way of sending in invoices, you can create the content and deliver it to your staff with ease. Best of all, you can monitor and track which staff have completed their training and which staff haven’t, allowing you to follow up with them. This helps you ensure your due diligence as an organisation, and helps to boost that all-important staff morale.

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For more information on online induction training programs, visit our website or contact us for a free quote today.


Online bookkeeping accounting training courses for CPD points

EzyLearn Excel, MYOB and Xero online training courses count towards Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for bookkeepers and accountants. We’ve been an accredited training provider of the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers ever since the organisation started in Australia. Find out how CPD points can be of benefit to you.