COULD YOU EARN a second income by running a website? Thousands of Australians already are; if you have bookkeeping or creative skills, perhaps it’s suited to you too.
Most people now know that the old way of working — long hours in an office at a job they don’t really enjoy — is not living their best life. And simply dreaming of a better one simply won’t cut it, but there is a way. Continue reading Are You Living Your Best Life?
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]HE INTERNET HAS democratised many elements of starting your own small business, but, in particular, it has made marketing a small business a whole lot easier.
There are now plenty of inexpensive ways to have a logo designed for your business, just as it’s a lot easier to register a business name, ABN, or GST/PAYG.
Another super easy thing to vastly help your business along is getting your own “branded email address”. What do we mean by a branded email address? Simply an email address that carries your branding in the domain name, for example: info@thenameofyourbusiness.com.au versus the far less professional: yourbusinessname@gmail.com.
Continue reading Email Is An Important Part of Your Business’s Brand
ALMOST EVERY COMPANY needs to register an ABN, business name, GST, PAYG, Domain name and much more.
You can pay companies which, for a fee, will provide you with these services bundled together.
Oftentimes, they will also include in the bundle a logo and website. You then build your own website, using their templated options, for an ongoing monthly fee.
Sure, these services are an easy way to get a business up and running quickly. However, they’re often not the most cost effective option.
Continue reading Five Bucks for a Business Logo!
WHETHER YOU WORK as a bookkeeper in a small business, are self-employed with your own business, work as a freelancer or independent contractor (maybe even operating a side hustle), as a virtual assistant with a home office, or whether you work as an employee in a large organisation, morale is one of those things that tends to ebb and flow. Continue reading The Biggest Boost to Business Morale
As mentioned in an earlier post, job boards offer the best-quality jobs for people in professions that translate to any industry; and this includes bookkeeping and accounting jobs.
And as another post showed, there’s a vast number of bookkeeping jobs posted to those sites every day, be it for casual, part-time or full time work. In this post I’m going to explore some ways to do well in the job market. Continue reading I’m a Bookkeeper – How Do I Find Good Work?
MICROSOFT BUNDLED ALL THEIR Office Productivity Suite software programs decades ago for many reasons.
The MAIN reason was so that all businesses, big or small, could use these software programs to improve their productivity and make them look more professional.
We’re now bundling them together for students who want it all.
Continue reading ANNOUNCEMENT: NEW Microsoft Office Training Course BUNDLE now available
WHILE AUSTRALIA HAS NO shortage of jobs sites, only one of them dominates the Australian job market: Seek. It’s the largest and most profitable job board in the country — and the operator of leading sites around the world, in China, Southeast Asia and Latin America.
In Australia, Seek controls 85 percent of the online recruitment market, with 173,000 job listings and average monthly traffic of 19.2 million visitors; nearest competing job board Indeed, the aggregator owned by Japan-based Recruit Holdings, has 106,000 listings and average monthly traffic of 9.3 million visitors.
But there are many smaller websites where accounting jobs can be found.
Continue reading Which Job Site is Best For Part-time, Casual and Contract Bookkeeping Work?
EMPLOYEES IN GERMANY have the world’s shortest work week, according to SME Magazine. Their work week averages just 26 hours due to strict workplace relations laws that promote a healthy work-life balance.
Sweden is also known to have implemented a 6-hour workday, or 30-hour work week, following research which has found that countries with shorter working hours generally have higher disposable incomes, greater productivity, and a stronger economy as a result. How can you do this in Australia?
Continue reading Working Less to Earn More? Why Freelancing is So Darn Popular
AN OFFICE ADMINISTRATOR, or administration officer, will provide an array of general administrative tasks for a business or organisation.
These include filing, archiving, calendar & project management, reporting and customer service. Some office administrators carry out basic bookkeeping tasks, such as creating and recording invoices and expenses and the more skills you have the more valuable you become.
I’VE WRITTEN BEFORE about how you can diagnose whether your business needs rescue bookkeeping and what happens during rescue work.
Because rescue bookkeeping often involves fixing a problem with your data file, the way your MYOB or Xero software has been set up, or entering upwards of three months worth of transactions, it’s a fairly time consuming process.
That time will cost you money but there are ways of reducing and almost eliminating that time.
Continue reading Bookkeeper Communications During Rescue WorkGONE ARE THE DAYS when a bookkeeper only needed to know their way around MYOB. Since the internet democratised the accounting software market, abundant MYOB rivals have appeared.
But while there are close to a dozen cloud accounting systems on the market, most bookkeepers — thankfully — will only need to know their way around three: Xero, MYOB and QuickBooks. If you’re looking for a course or training resource on these programs we have a combo offer.
Continue reading Bookkeepers Need to Know All Cloud-Accounting Systems
THERE ARE ESTIMATED to be over 4 million Aussies working as freelancers. Of this, roughly 750,000 people work regular jobs but freelance on the side (which, needless to say, is a great way to break into freelancing while reducing your risk).
The number of freelancers in Australia has skyrocketed since the GFC, partly because of the overall reduction of the workforce; and partly because of the number of mature-aged workers staying in their jobs past the traditional retirement age.
These factors combined produced a bottleneck effect in the job market, which made it difficult for certain workers to advance their careers, while others, typically young graduates, struggled to gain a foothold in the job market at all.
Continue reading Why Freelancers and Contractors are Good for Your Company
There’s a growing freelancer economy in Australia which is being driven by the decreasing number of full time jobs.
Freelancing and working as a contractor is popular among young workers due to fewer job vacancies that exist because older workers are remaining in their jobs for longer.
There’s also more women with children starting their own businesses and working as freelancers and contractors. Without generalising older contractors don’t try to pretend they’re something they’re not and business respect their experience – AND small businesses need these people.
But when you look at some industries, like Bookkeeping, the numbers are massively swayed towards the female gender and one of the reasons is it can be the perfect business to run from home.
Continue reading How Aussie Mums are Starting their Own Businesses
IF YOU’VE EVER DIPPED your foot into starting your own business, while keeping a steady income flowing from elsewhere, all at the same time, then you’re far from alone.
During the global financial crisis and in the years that immediately followed it, a funny thing happened to the job market: it birthed a freelancer economy, of which a third of Australians in the workforce are a part, and many of these freelancing individuals are also working at (an)other job/s.
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 Tools
