Posted on October 20, 2015March 25, 2020 by Steve Slisar — 2 Comments

FREE Guide on Becoming an Independent Contractor & Working Remotely

The Contractor versus the Employee

In a recent post, I talked about the StartUp Academy, which helps people start their own home-based businesses as independent contractors. The StartUp Academy is something I’ve been working on for sometime after I noticed a compressing of regular salaried jobs – sometimes it was the consolidation of two jobs into one but most often, entire jobs were being outsourced to consultants and contractors.

Continue reading FREE Guide on Becoming an Independent Contractor & Working Remotely

Posted on October 19, 2015March 25, 2020 by Angela — 2 Comments

New You, New Business Startup?

Now is the time to explore new startup opportunities

Dreaming about setting up a new business startup — 365_The_Daydreamer_(6517625965)

As the end any year approaches, it’s easy to get caught up in the fun and frivolity of summer, by enjoying the few weeks of the holidays in the sun with friends and family. But it’s also a really great time to think about your career plans for the new year.

If you follow this blog regularly, then you may already be aware that EzyLearn has launched a new service called the StartUp Academy.

The goal of the StartUp Academy is to help people launch and operate their own home-based businesses, supported by our network of successful business owners and entrepreneurs. Continue reading New You, New Business Startup?

Posted on October 5, 2015May 12, 2023 by Steve Slisar — 2 Comments

What Type of Education Does The TPB Accept For Its New CPE Requirement

Type of Education for CPE Requirements of the TPB

Earlier this year, the TPB changed the requirements of the tax and BAS agent registration renewal process, now making it essential for all BAS and tax agents to participate in some form of education under its new continuing professional education (CPE) requirement.

According to the TPB, tax agents must participate in a minimum of 90 hours of CPE over the standard three year registration period, while BAS agents must participate in a minimum of 45 hours over the standard three year registration period. The Institute of Certified Bookkeepers have enabled completion of our Microsoft Excel Training Courses be accepted for CPD points.

Types of study approved by the TPB

As you’ve probably guessed, for your study to be recognised by the TPB and go towards your CPE registration requirement, the study has to relate to your area of work as a BAS or tax agent. While a short course on DIY home maintenance wouldn’t be covered, a seminar conducted by a qualified accountant who specialises in the building industry would be recognised by the TPB, even if it’s being led by a colleague at the firm where the BAS agent works.

The TPB has specified a number of activities that they consider relevant to tax advice, BAS and tax agent service you may provide:

Seminars, workshops, webinars, courses and lectures
structured conferences and discussion groups (including by phone or video conference)
tertiary courses provided by universities, registered training organisations (RTOs), other registered higher education institutions or other approved course providers
other education activities, provided by an appropriate organisation
research, writing and presentation by a registered tax (financial) adviser, tax or BAS agent of technical publications or structured training
peer review of research and writing submitted for publication or presentation in structured training
computer/internet-assisted courses, audiotape or videotape packages
attendance at structured in-house training on tax related subjects by persons or organisations with suitable qualifications and/or practical experience in the subject area covered
attendance at appropriate Australian Taxation Office (ATO) seminars and presentations
relevant CPE activities provided to members and non-members by a recognised professional association
a unit of study or other CPE activity on the Tax Agent Services Act 2009 (TASA) including the Code of Professional Conduct (Code).

If you’re a member of a recognised professional association

The second-to-last activity included in that list, you may have noticed, accepts any relevant activity provided by a recognised professional organisation. There are quite a few professional organisations recognised by the TPB, as you can see on their website, but the one probably most relevant to bookkeepers is the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers (ICB), with which EzyLearn is also a training partner.

The ICB is an association established to support bookkeepers and BAS agents by regularly holding seminars and training workshops, giving members access to marketing materials – such as customisable e-newsletter templates and unique email addresses – listings on the ICB directory and IT support, among many other things. Because they’re also accredited with the TPB and recognised by the ATO, they also possess a fair bit of influence with both organisations, making the lives of its members much easier.

In this case, being a member of the ICB, gives you access to a number of TPB-certified continuing professional education courses, seminars, lectures and workshops that can be counted as part of your CPE quota; members can also access a CPE register within the ICB dashboard to record their CPE activities.

Courses you can study as an ICB member

As a member of the ICB, you’re able to take any of the courses that they consider relevant to your profession as a bookkeeper and BAS agent, and which they consider to be continuing your professional education. This would include any of our MYOB or Xero training courses, but would also include our Excel and Word training courses as they’re both used to assist you in doing your job as a bookkeeper and BAS agent.

If you’re a BAS agent and your registration with the TPB will come due on or after July 1, 2016, you will be required to have participated in CPE to be eligible for renewal.

Joining the ICB and taking advantage of the many free and discounted seminars, workshops and courses, like one of our online training courses in MYOB, Xero, MS Excel or Word, is a good way to ensure you remain compliant with the TPB’s tax and BAS agent registration terms.

To find out more about joining the ICB, visit their website. Alternatively, if you’d like to learn more about starting your own bookkeeping business or working as a home-based bookkeeper, subscribe to our blog for all the latest news and updates delivered straight to your inbox.

Posted on October 2, 2015 by Steve Slisar

Why Continuing Professional Education is Important for Bookkeepers

CPD for Bookkeepers is Becoming More Important

Education is obviously something we think is very important, whether you’re changing careers, starting a new business, or looking to upskill for a promotion. But what about education to keep your current job? The Australian Government thinks that’s equally important, especially for BAS and tax agents.

In March this year, the Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) changed their renewal process to now include continuing professional education (CPE) as a mandatory for all registrations after July 1, 2016. Between now and June 30, 2016, it’s sufficient for BAS and tax agents to merely show they have read and understood the new CPE policy to renew their registration, but this arrangement can only be used once; moving forward those BAS and tax agents will still need to complete further education to register again as a BAS or tax agent the in the future.

Are You a Currently a BAS or Tax agent?

Over the last few years, the Government has introduced a lot of new measures that BAS and tax agents have had to comply with in order to continue to offer their services to clients, namely the changes in 2010 that made it mandatory for all BAS and tax agents to hold a minimum qualification of a Cert IV in bookkeeping.

The new CPE requirement could seem like just another measure that BAS and tax agents need to comply with just to be able to keep their jobs. It’s not. CPE has been introduced to ensure that BAS and tax agents continue to understand, not just their own industry – that of tax and finance – but also how other industries are changing too.

There are more people leaving their jobs as employees and starting to work for themselves as consultants and freelancers and contract workers, across a wide array of industries. Marketing professionals, for example, no longer simply come up with marketing hooks for companies; they also have to understand how to create websites and how SEO works and social media. In some cases, they even become unofficial spokespeople and sales reps for the companies they’re consulting with, leveraging their contacts on their clients’ behalf.

CPE makes BAS and tax agents more valuable, not less

This vastly complicates a marketing professional’s tax if that marketing professional’s job now encompasses the roles of several other professions within it. Similar changes have been observed in bookkeeping, with registered BAS and tax agents now providing more operational and administrative-type services, in addition to just bookkeeping.

The point, then, of CPE is not to make it more difficult for tax and BAS agents to renew their registration with the TPB, but to help tax and BAS agents to remain as highly skilled as they’ve ever been, in an ever-changing labour market. And the better skilled you are as a BAS and tax agent, particularly those self-employed BAS and tax agents, the more value you’ll be able to provide your clients, and the more work you’ll get from them in return.

To learn more about continuing professional education for bookkeepers, visit the TPB website. Otherwise, to read more about bookkeeping, particularly starting your own bookkeeping business, continue reading our blog.

Are you a Writer and Want to Work from Home Blogging for Businesses?

I write about marketing professionals because they are increasingly important in small businesses as businesses grapple with getting discovered online. I recently wrote about Blogging for Business and our new training course to help businesses with their content marketing strategy and tasks because it’s something that my team are spending more and more time on. It’s also an area that is evolving every month and requires writers to learn about and adapt to new technology.

Enrol into the Blogging for Business Course now and take advantage of it’s current cheap price. We’ll soon be adding real life exercises where blogging students will be asked to create content and have it edited and published so they can participate in a real world business blogging project!

Posted on September 14, 2015July 26, 2021 by Steve Slisar — 3 Comments

Tis the Season to Switch to Xero

MYOB – Bain Capital Cashing In While They Can

Switch to Quickbooks or Xero from MYOB — Intuit Quickbooks has made this offer for a long time already

You may be aware that MYOB is once again listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) as Bain Capital aim to grab some cash back for the massive investment they made in the accounting software company.

In the recent lull in the share price of companies on the ASX in general you’d think that MYOB company executives are worried about getting their money back let alone making a return on their initial investment. After all they are now competing globally with small startups like Xero (and SAASU) as well as MASSIVE accounting software companies like Intuit.

We’ve always been committed to MYOB accounting software training courses because the software is so popular with most Australian accountants and it is (even today) by far the most used accounting program for small business in Australia.. BUT, we’ve noticed a significant increase in enrolments for our Xero Accounting Training Courses and we wondered why? Why is August and September such a popular time for enrolments in Xero and it was then obvious.

[quote]Everyone is finishing off their end of year accounts for the 2015 financial year and those that want to make a change away from MYOB are switching to Xero now.[/quote]

Our Xero Course is Now Beefed Up and it’s Yours for Nothing Extra

We’ve just increased the cost of our Xero courses because we’ve beefed it up with:

3 new Xero Training Course Workbooks,
More detailed Xero knowledge review questions AND some
Industry specific training guides for the tradies who want to change to Xero.

[box type=”tick” size=”large” style=”rounded” border=”full”]Existing Xero students can access all of these new training aids for no extra cost and that is a great feature of our 12 month membership offer- you can lock in the current price and get all of the future benefits as we get the Xero course to the same level of detail as our popular MYOB courses.[/box]

Xero Seems to be the Tradies Choice

Plumbers are switching to Xero from MYOB accounting software — From The Reece Plumbing Website

Ever since I interviewed Ken from Love My Home Theatre I started to realise the appeal of Xero for tradies! Plumbers, Electricians, Concreters, Builders, Pest Inspectors, Painters and most other tradies are always out doing their work whether they are quoting, working or finishing off they are always seeing their customers and potential customers so it make sense for them to do as much as they can while they are ont and about. They also have to keep good records of:

Products they purchase for their customers
Resources they allocate to their customers
Money that is owed after the work is completed
Progress payments as the jobs are gradually completed

Bookkeeping is also something that isn’t second nature for tradies and it’s usually done by their wifes, partners, a trusted friend or someone who knows their industry very well. Being cloud-based (online) accounting software tradies can now create quotes using an iPad or other mobile device and the invoicing, debtors follow-up and bank reconciliation can be done by a bookkeeper (from anywhere).

For this reason we’ve created a Xero Training Guide for Plumbers and Concreters. We’ve got some classic examples of how a plumber may buy products from Reece plumbing on their account for one of their clients and they need to keep track of this purchase.

Reece Plumbing Integrates with Xero

One of the most interesting observations about what Reece Plumbing have done with their purchase and payment system is their integration with Xero Accounting software so that customers don’t need to perform data entry and automatically have a copy of each of their tax invoices.

The benefits sited by Reece are:

No need for manual uploads of tax invoices/receipts
No data entry mistakes
Save time and money
See your tax invoices in Xero

Learn more about the benefits of using the Reece Plumbing Xero Integration.

After School Holidays is a Good Time to Learn How to Use Xero?

If it is time for you to migrate or transfer your accounting information to a new platform we’d love to help you. We’ve also had a lot of bookkeepers learn how to use Xero so it’s clear there is a ground swell to good online (cloud) accounting software and Xero seem to have done well so far. If you are interested in adding Xero to your pack of software skills take advantage of our current prices – you can always start your course when you come back from school holidays and the kids are back in school.

Will the NEW Quickbooks Make a Comeback?

I’ve written before about Quickbooks and they are still doing great stuff with their pricing. As the blog image above suggests they have maintained a steady first year discount for at least 12 months (from our observations) and maybe this is their strategy to squeeze the margins for much smaller startups like Xero.

It’s a good time to note that the Quickbooks we’re talking about is the NEW Quickbooks from the massive US Company Intuit, not the one that WAS distributed in Australia by Reckon before Intuit and Reckon dissolved their distribution agreement.

I’ve taken the time to explore Quickbooks and it’s pretty impressive and easy to use. If its something you want to learn about make sure you visit our Quickbooks Training Course page and pre-register to receive the course at an Introductory price.

Posted on September 10, 2015 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

Has the Australian Government shelved its Teleworking initiative for good?

How Teleworking Began in Australia

In 2011, the then-Gillard Government introduced a teleworking initiative, established to encourage private sector employers to allow their employees to regularly work from home. The teleworking initiative was soon followed by Gillard’s own commitment in 2012 to have 12 percent of all Australian public servants teleworking by 2020. But the initiative also served another purpose: to promote the use of the national broadband network (NBN).

That was then. By 2013, the Gillard Government had been ousted, and the NBN has been through many different incarnations since it was first announced – it’s still moving forward, albeit as a significantly scaled back offering to what was originally proposed. Also ousted in 2013 was the Department of Broadband Communications and the Digital Economy (DBCDE), which oversaw the Government’s Teleworking initiative.

In place of the DBCDE, the Government formed the Department of Communications. It’s primary functions are the same as the DBCDE’s, with one exception: there’s no teleworking initiative, which has ostensibly gone the way of the clog (remember those?). For whatever reason, it now appears that the Federal Government isn’t very interested in encouraging Australian businesses to have their staff telework or to utilise teleworkers, who may be scattered across Australia.

Employed Teleworkers not Independent Contractors?

Could it be that the telework initiative stepped on the toes of various of state and territory level telework initiatives that involved funding, what the NSW Government has dubbed, Smart Work Hubs? Smart Work Hubs, like the one at Wyong on the NSW Central Coast, are essentially co-working spaces established to encourage employers to allow their staff to telework – from one of the government-funded smart hubs, of course.

This is an interesting move, but it relies on people who are already employed and already commuting to a major city centre or business district to utilise the smart hubs, which come at a cost to either the employee or their employer. The locations of the existing five pilot smart hubs in NSW are already located in major areas – Western City and the Central Coast; all areas with easy access to high speed internet services.

For more smarts to be rolled out in other regional areas – Newcastle is rumoured to be next – the existing ones need to prove they’re worth the investment, and that relies on numbers. A significant number of teleworkers, the emphasis here being on teleworkers and not the self-employed, need to be using the smart work hubs regularly enough for the NSW Government to rollout the next phase of smart work hubs.

But as I hinted before, this relies on people who already have access to high-speed internet services at their home and who are still within commuting distance to their place of work, to be willing to pay to telework regularly. Maybe the reason the Federal Government really scrapped its teleworking initiative had nothing to do with the NSW Government’s smart work hubs at all. Maybe it had more to do with it’s new-look NBN.

What the scaled back NBN really looks like

When the NBN was originally proposed, the original plan was to deploy high-speed-to-the-premises (FTTP) broadband for most Australians, but that was soon ditched by the Abbott Government for being too expensive. The new-look NBN now consists of a mixed network that prioritises fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) technology, which means that fibre optic cables are run to each internet node and the rest of the connection is completed through Telstra’s ageing copper wire network.

Under this NBN, the speed of your internet will vary on how far you live from the node. The further away you live, the slower it will be. But it’s okay, the Government has promised that the slowest NBN speeds could ever get to is 25 Megabits per second (Mbps), the same speed the US Federal Communications Commission defined as the absolute bare minimum to be able to call an internet connection broadband.

The other issue, of course, remains the copper wire network, which the Government now has to buy back off Telstra for $11bn (after the Howard Government sold it to Telstra a decade ago) when it discovered there was a lack of infrastructure in most regional areas of Australia that prevented many households from even connecting to the exchange, never mind the port – as well as some households in major cities.

So what now for teleworkers?

If you’re a teleworker and you live near a NSW Government smart work hub, use it. Certain hubs offer discounts to the NSW Government’s definition of a teleworker – someone who usually commutes to their workplace – while the self-employed can still reap the benefit of working from a smart hub, which are located near or offer child minding facilities, cafes, parking, and gyms.

If you were counting on the NBN to make it easier to work remotely or start your own business, don’t give up on it yet. The Government knows that the key to remaining competitive in the global marketplace is to have access to high-speed telecommunications networks, so the NBN is still, and will continue to be, a major priority.

If you’d like to start your own home-based business, but don’t know where to go for advice and support now that the Government has, seemingly, abandoned it’s teleworking initiative, visit the WorkFace website. WorkFace is an EzyLearn business partner made up of a network of teleworking professionals who have helped many EzyLearn graduates start their own home-based virtual assistant businesses.

Blogging is a Teleworking Task

The article you’re reading is part of the EzyLearn blog and this work can be done from anywhere in the world so it’s a popular outsourced task. If you want to explore blogging for your business or want to learn how it works so you can offer it as a service then discover our Blogging for Business Online Training Course.

Posted on September 9, 2015April 24, 2018 by Angela

Is Single Touch Payroll Really Dead?

For a while there it looked like the ATO would introduce single touch payroll for all Australian businesses by July 2016, but after feedback from the businesses community that original plan has been shelved – for now. With SuperStream simplifying the way businesses manage the superannuation contributions for their employees, it’s highly likely that we’ll be seeing some form of the single touch payroll model in the near future.

Single touch payroll was an initiative developed to simplify the payroll process for Australian businesses. Currently, most businesses are burdened with a number of tax and superannuation reporting obligations, which single touch payroll would have put an end to.

What exactly was single touch payroll?

Single touch payroll, like SuperStream, was a proposed interactive tool that would allow a business’s accounting software to automatically report payroll information for their employees to the the tax office, eliminating the need for businesses to report pay-as-you-go withholding (PAYGW) in their activity statements throughout the year, as well as end-of-year employee payment summaries.

There was also a proposed digital service that would have streamlined tax file number declarations and Super Choice forms, which would obviously reduce a lot of the red tape and paperwork associated with employing staff.

Single touch payroll would have integrated with nearly all accounting packages in Australia, including MYOB, Xero and Quickbooks, just as SuperStream does now, so why was it shelved by the ATO until further consultation with the business community?

Single touch could have caused cash flow problems

The main concern for many businesses was that single touch payroll would impact their cash flow by requiring employers to pay the tax withheld from wages and super guarantee payments at the same time they paid their employees’ wages. There were also concerns about whether compliance by July 2016 was realistically achievable for the majority of businesses, especially when the SuperStream changeover is still ongoing.

For businesses with a substantial number of employees, single touch payroll could have been a godsend. Unfortunately, the original proposal alienated smaller businesses by making it necessary to pay both tax and super guarantee payments at the same time as employee wages, when most employers currently make those payments to the ATO each quarter.

But that doesn’t mean the single touch payroll system has been scrapped altogether. The ATO, in consultation with industry groups and the Minister for Small Business, is working on developing another single touch payroll scheme that will make real-time payments for withholding and super guarantee payments voluntary, which will be tested with small business owners before it’s rolled out across the board.

There’s still life in single touch payroll yet

What single touch payroll really highlights is how important it is for small businesses to make sure that they’re using a current accounting software package – and there are many on the market, developed especially for small businesses – that supports SuperStream and will also support any other ATO initiatives, like single touch payroll.

If you’re not using an accounting package for your small business, it’s wise to choose one of the major accounting software providers, which Margaret Carey of Business EEz also suggested when we spoke to her not so long ago about SuperStream.

You can read more about SuperStream and the new measures the ATO has introduced to make payroll and superannuation compliance easier for small businesses by subscribing to our blog. Alternatively, if you’re a small business owner using either Xero or MYOB and you’d like to know how to properly setup and use payroll in your accounting software, enrol in one of our MYOB or Xero training courses today.

Posted on August 24, 2015August 19, 2015 by Steve Slisar

Seriously, Why Wouldn’t You Use WordPress for Your Website?

Finding Income Opportunities for EzyLearn Students

We’ve had some exciting news in the last couple of weeks: EzyLearn students who are completing the MYOB Training Courses and WordPress Courses are starting to earn money because we’re helping them get customers AND improve their skills!

I’ve been working with the team at Workface and we’re assembling a training and mentoring program to help EzyLearn students start and operate a business from home. The best part of this, and something I am passionate about, is that we’re helping people from all over Australia become remote contractors (teleworkers, call it what you want) and work from anywhere via the Internet.

Yes, you can start a business & work from home

I recently wrote about how cloud-based software is enabling people who live in regional Australia perform work for businesses in the capital cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide etc) and also about the Teleworking hubs that are starting to appear around the country as part of the evolution of people living outside the cities and working at home or close to home.

You may also recall that we’ve also launched the Startup Academy this year to provide formalised and structured training and mentoring support. It’s for you so if you are interested in starting a business and working from home we’ve teamed up with some products/service providers to give you a flying start and projects to start on right away.

Explore running your own business from home now

Bright VIC to Melbourne Virtual Assistant is doing content marketing for infant massage business in Sydney — Imagine travelling this far to work for a client. Content Marketing can be done from anywhere

There are opportunities to provide office/admin support services, content marketing, business telephone systems and IT support and of course bookkeeping services and if you’d like to start a business in one of these areas then explore the business opportunities.

When you sign up and join our team you’ll gain exposure to many new online (cloud-based) software and services that enable us to:

collaborate,
share files,
work on project together,
set and manage goals and daily tasks,
turn to each other for support,
create and build your own online profile, and
many more skills that will enable you to work for yourself and generate your own income, no matter where you live.

Remember our goal is to help you start a business and work from home – NO MATTER WHERE YOU LIVE. Helen from Bright is our latest virtual assistant and she is doing some website design and content marketing for an infant massage business starting up in Sydney’s Northern Suburbs! I looked at a Google Map and discovered that she’d have at least 3 hours travel if she wanted to work in her nearest capital city!

Are you looking for someone to help you in your business?

We’re going to document our journey with these remote contractors and share with you some of the growth they go through as they grapple with the new frontier of internet working.

If you are a business looking for any of these services you can Find a Contractor through Workface and our team can get to work for you too.

[button link=”http://workface.com.au/services/find-contractor/”]Find a Contractor[/button]

Posted on August 20, 2015May 26, 2016 by Steve Slisar — 2 Comments

Is Xero now more appealing because of Inventory Management?

MYOB Account Right Plus Has Inventory Management, But…

Yarra Junction to Melbourne city for online MYOB, Excel, Xero training courses The premium MYOB product with the PLUS on the end of its name has always come with Inventory and Payroll. These have been the major services that justify the premium price that users have been willing to pay. Now Xero comes with it as standard! Is it another nail in MYOB’s coffin?

The great thing about Sue…

Sue highlights yet again one of the great features about running an online business and working remotely in the cloud. Any business can work with staff or remote contractors from anywhere (in the world!). Sue is located over one hour’s drive from Melbourne and I’m sure the commute would be hell – it would cost her time and money in transport – yet because we operate on online environment our team are all over Australia! No more travel time, no more traffic, no more sitting in a carpark on the city roads in peak hour. Just a good internet connection and some competent computer skills and we’re off.

If you’re not sure by now, you’ll be happy to know that my focus has always been to help people learn how to use software. Why? So they can get the job they’re after or start their own business. If you like, you can watch a short video (sorry for not shaving for it!) where I talk about my Work at Home Seminar (or WAHSeminar) which is a program we’re constantly working on to help people operate a business or telework from their own home.

If you haven’t already read about it, read the blog I wrote about teleworking centres that are springing up all over regional areas of Australia. Make sure you ‘like’ this blog and share it with your friends on Facebook because the more we all encourage teleworking and the use of technology the more we’ll be able to take back dozens of lost hours each week in travel time (and cost).

All existing Xero course students receive this training

Like all EzyLearn courses, we offer all our training courses for one low price and include every training resource we create. This Xero training course content is the same – every student who has enrolled into the Xero course within the last 12 months will be able to access these new training resources when they’re published.

If you are a business looking to move across to Xero, feel free to write your questions or comments. If you are trying to find a way of working from home, please make contact. We’d love for you to share with us what you are going through. We can very probably help – and others can learn from it.

Posted on August 13, 2015August 11, 2015 by Steve Slisar — 4 Comments

Live on the NSW Central Coast? The State Government wants you to be teleworking

NSW State Government Incentives for Teleworking

The State Government wants the NSW Central Coast to become the next Silicon Valley by encouraging commuters and freelancers to work from one of their two Smart Work Hubs located at Wyong and Gosford. The Smart Work Hubs are part of the State Government’s $1.5 million pilot program of co-working spaces, which are also part of the Government’s greater push to get more people teleworking.

I wrote a post recently [The NBN makes it easier to run a business from home] on how the NBN is making it easier for people to move out of the city and relocate to regional parts of Australia and still conduct a business from home that provides valuable services to businesses in our major cities. The NBN is just one aspect of the Government’s push to get more people teleworking, and their new Smart Work Hubs Pilot Program is another initiative that will encourage trade and investment in regional areas.

Teleworking Commuter hubs in five regions across NSW

The program is also operating in Western Sydney, with spaces located in Penrith, Rouse Hill and Oran Park, three areas that were identified as having a large volume of residents commuting to the Sydney CBD. The two spaces on the Central Coast are unique, however, because they’re the first co-working spaces of their kind in the region.

Co-working spaces have been around for some time in Sydney, originating in inner city suburbs like Chippendale and Ultimo, and spread quickly across the city as more people started businesses and began working remotely from home. Co-working spaces give home-based workers an alternative space to work from, as well as an opportunity to meet and collaborate with other like-minded individuals.

But while those inner city co-working spaces were established to encourage collaboration between creatives and start-ups, the NSW Government’s Smart Work Hubs Pilot Program has a slightly different focus, targeting commuters instead.

Member for Gosford Chris Holstein said that Gosford and Wyong been selected for the Smart Work Hubs Pilot Program due to the high volume of residents who commute to both Sydney and Newcastle for work.

“Around 40,000 residents commute outside the Central Coast region each day for work and this can have significant impact on their work/life balance,” Mr Holstein said.

“By establishing Smart Work Hubs in locations with large commuter populations, we can take advantage of the benefits of using technology to support smart working practices.

“New technology and high speed broadband are changing the way people work and NSW has much to gain by taking a leading position in this emerging landscape.”

State of the art facilities, with a 12-month government subsidy

If you’re a teleworker – that is, an employee of a business and not self-employed – then you’re eligible for a daily $20 workstation subsidy from the Government to be used at the Wyong Nexus Hub, which reduces the daily workstation rate down to just $15 and is available for the first twelve months of operation.

Although the Smart Work Hubs are aimed at commuters, freelancers, home-based workers, and small business owners are also encouraged to make use of the spaces, which have been guaranteed state government funding for twelve months. Although the self-employed aren’t eligible for a government subsidy, the day rate for booking a workstation at the Wyong hub has also been reduced to $15 for a limited time; the Gosford hub isn’t currently eligible a government subsidy.

Over the course of the twelve-month trial period, the hubs at each five locations are being monitored to determine their viability in other regions across NSW, and, if successful, the Government hopes to trial sites at other locations throughout NSW, including Newcastle and the Illawarra.

The Smart Work Hubs in both Gosford and Wyong are both been fitted out with high-speed broadband Internet, photocopiers and printers, video conferencing facilities, private offices, meeting rooms, a kitchen, and use a swipe card system to ensure security; the space at Wyong also has an onsite gym and childminding facilities for Hub customers, as well as a café and easy parking.

Why start a business at a Smart Work Hub?

Work hubs and co-working spaces are not only a cheaper alternative to renting an office, but with all the facilities they offer – gyms, childminding, etc – they’re also more convenient for home-based workers with kids. Many people who complete our training courses intend to start a business from home so they can spend more time with their kids, making a co-working space or work hub perfect for mums or dads who need time away from the kids while they get some work done.

Better than that, though, work hubs also have the added benefit of providing a space where you can network or collaborate with other small business owners. A work hub provides home-based workers with an environment not dissimilar to a regular workplace, but it’s one that’s more conducive to working productively – i.e., there’s less time spent complaining about the boss!

If you’ve been thinking of starting a home-based business, I don’t think the climate has ever been more start-up friendly than it is at the moment. Aside from the State Government’s Smart Work Hub Pilot Program, new small business owners can also take advantage of the Federal Government’s small business tax breaks, in addition to the NBN’s continued rollout of high-speed fibre optic Internet in regional areas across Australia.

If you’re looking for a low-risk new business opportunity, our partner National Bookkeeping has a number of licensee opportunities for people interested in starting a bookkeeping business. You can visit the National Bookkeeping website for more information or to register. Alternatively, read more about EzyLearn’s partnership with National Bookkeeping on our blog.

Posted on August 11, 2015March 25, 2020 by Steve Slisar — 2 Comments

The NBN will make it easier to move out of the city and start a business

Regional Australia Is Available To Work For Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth

A lot has been said in recent weeks about the cost of housing in Australia’s capital cities, but in particular, Sydney, which has the highest median housing prices in the country; a figure that, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, has increased by 30 percent since 2012 and is continuing to rise, seemingly unabated.

As a result, people – and I mean all people; couples, families, singles – are moving out of the city to regional areas, where housing prices are lower. Continue reading The NBN will make it easier to move out of the city and start a business

Posted on August 10, 2015August 11, 2015 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

Free Xero Course with Excel and MYOB Courses

It’s a Good Year for Xero Cloud Accounting

Many accountants and businesses are now using Xero instead of MYOB so it’s important for bookkeepers to be trained in this.

It’s been a surprising year this year for our Xero Training Courses. Xero must be doing something right with their marketing and strategy because we’ve seen a significant increase in the number of students enrolling for this course.

I was just speaking with one of our students only recently and she mentioned that of all the software programs she uses (and she uses them all) that Xero makes bookkeeping so easy that some of her clients who’ve gone onto it have reduced the number of hours that they employ her!

[quote]It’s a scary thought if you are an independent contractor who doesn’t have a professional services agreement in place for regular work with their clients, but it’s also a sign of the times for bookkeepers in the cloud (online) software era.[/quote]

The biggest reason for the ease of use? Bank Feeds. See below for our free Xero course offer..

Do Bookkeepers Need to Change What They Do?

I recently wrote about content marketing and whether a bookkeeper is someone who can discuss or even recommend this service to the people they work for. The best way to think about this is how the bookkeeper role works in many companies, for example, do small businesses look for a bookkeeper who can provide a wider range of services than just bookkeeping? It’s common for a bookkeeper to work in the administration areas of a small business because finance and administration go hand in hand and it’s common for contractors who understand cloud based services to delve into and explore other cloud based services.

I was speaking to another bookkeeper who is a Registered BAS Agent about her website and online marketing and she was telling me about all these fantastic things she was doing to promote her own business.

[quote]After talking to her for an hour I started thinking that she is a good person to talk to about Internet marketing – and that perhaps she starts offering these services to her clients too![/quote]

In the end it often depends on the size of a bookkeepers clients and the type of work they want to do. When you develop your bookkeeping and accounting skills you become more valuable as an accounts contact, particularly as a Registered BAS Agent, however you can become more of a small business administrator if you are aware of how to manage many different parts of the business.

It’s a Great Time for Free Xero Courses with MYOB Course enrolment

Sorry, I digress.

[box type=”tick” size=”large” style=”rounded” border=”full”]What I really wanted to announce was our new fantastic special offer of a free Xero course or Microsoft Word course when you enrol into a Microsoft Excel or MYOB Training Course with EzyLearn.[/box]

Xero is great to know if you want to delve deeper into the various software programs available to do bookkeeping (and a great tool to offer if you want to operate a bookkeeping business from home). Microsoft Word is a great program to master if you want to create documents for yourself or the business you work for and the tool of choice for creating a great resume so you can get that next job you’re going for.

Posted on July 28, 2015July 28, 2015 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

Don’t pay for Microsoft Word when you enrol into Excel or MYOB Training Courses

It’s not a freebie we’re proud of

I recently asked our course development team to review the contents of our online Microsoft Word course and got some feedback about the versions we’re currently using in that course. Let’s just say that although the structure of the course is excellent and it takes students from the basics to intermediate and advanced tools using Microsoft Word, we use an earlier version of Word in most of the Workbooks and Training videos. The RESULT – we are offering the Microsoft Word Courses for free for any student who enrols into our Microsoft Excel or MYOB Accounting Training Courses from the www.ezyLearnonline.com.au website!

This offer is available for a limited time only and may be withdrawn at any time.

[quote]Microsoft Word Training Course is currently free when you enrol into Microsoft Excel Course or MYOB Training Courses.[/quote]

Commitment to Improve

The excuses are that we were focussing on MYOB, Xero, Excel, WordPress and the Small Business Management and Marketing courses AND our new National Bookkeeping service, but the truth is that we didn’t give the Word course enough attention and that makes me sad. So, we are currently creating updated workbooks and videos so our students will once again have not only beginners to advanced Word courses for the one price, but also several different versions included for the one price – just like we do for our Microsoft Excel and MYOB Training Courses.

The great news for students who enrol into this Microsoft Word Course is that they’ll also have access to all of the updates and new course content we’re currently creating!

You’ll still learn a lot

As I was writing this blog post I realised how fantastic the Internet is. How it enables me (and all other small businesses) to speak to their students and prospective students and make offers like this one. Although I am not proud of the fact that we haven’t updated our Word course the same way we have with our Microsoft Excel Training Courses it is still a fantastic course that covers LOTS of topics that are relevant regardless of which version you use.

Knowledge covered in the course includes tools that will help you make a professional looking proposal, letterhead, flier, brochure, pricelist and many other important documents for small businesses. These skills are relevant regardless of how the navigation changes between the versions and they include:

tabs and tables,
styles and tables of contents,
ruler and margin settings,
how to manage data in a mail merge etc
text, paragraph and page formatting
headers and footers
inserting and aligning with images
working with text boxes and text wrapping

Take a look at what is included in the Microsoft Word Courses

Have a look to see what’s included in the course and I’m sure you’ll agree this is fantastic value. The most popular documents that students want to create are:

Invitations
Letterheads
Flyers and brochures
Proposals
Training / Education Guides
Menus
Resume

[button link=”http://ezylearnonline.com.au/courses/microsoft-word/”]Microsoft Word Course Contents[/button]

Posted on July 28, 2015July 28, 2015 by Steve Slisar

SuperStream is good news for small businesses (and bookkeepers!)

What is SuperStream?

I recently wrote about SuperStream, the government reform introduced last year to improve the efficiency of the superannuation system, and which provides businesses with a set of standards to ensure super contributions are paid in a timely and consistent manner.

For small businesses, operating with nineteen or fewer employees, the ATO is encouraging them to take steps to become compliant with the new SuperStream measures, before the June 30 deadline in 2016, giving them twelve months to ensure compliance.

We’d heard grumbles from a few small business owners and bookkeepers who felt that SuperStream sounded like just another scheme they needed to become compliant with, which would ultimately end up creating more work for them, so we decided to speak to an expert to find out.

Why is SuperStream Good?

Xero and MYOB cloud accounting training courses Margaret Carey is a registered BAS agent, accounting software and cloud specialist, and owner of the accounting software consultancy firm Business EEz. She’s contributed to our blog in the past regarding She agreed to answer a couple of our questions about SuperStream and what it means for small businesses and bookkeepers alike.

EzyLearn: How does SuperStream change the way small businesses make super contributions for their employees?

Margaret Carey: There are two sides to making a superannuation payment, from the perspective of the employer; firstly, they have to tell the super fund which person they’re paying the money for and the period they’re paying it for, and they have to give that information to the super fund every single time for each of their employees. The second part of the process is actually transferring the money to the super fund. What SuperStream does is it streamlines that entire procedure into a one-step process – so the information has to be provided electronically and the payments paid that way too. SuperStream cuts down the time delay, it cuts down the potential for error, and it ensures the money arrives in the employee’s super fund much more promptly, as well as being fully traceable.

EL: So with SuperStream you can virtually go in and input all of the employee information and also make the payment at the exact same time, like shopping for something online, almost?

MC: Yeah it is, but this is where accounting software really helps people because it takes care of all that for you. All of the small business account software packages are now SuperStream compliant. Just as an example, with Xero, when you set your employees up in the system, you also put in their super fund details, and then when you do your payroll, there’s just a button that you push to create the super fund report, which goes straight off to the super fund and the money goes straight out of your bank account to the super fund; it’s just so straightforward, so much easier than anything else.

EL: Wow, so really SuperStream has made the super process much, much easier?

MC: It has. It really was an administrative nightmare. But I think a lot of people don’t appreciate [SuperStream] and they think, ‘Oh god, another thing I’ve got to comply with,’ but it makes their life so much easier, so I think lots of people are unnecessarily worried about it when, in fact, it makes life easier and automates things a lot more. A lot of people, anyway, without realising are already SuperStream compliant; it’s just now that they’re being told they absolutely have to be, but I think it’s a really good initiative.

EL: So the Australian Government has also set up a Superannuation Clearing House for small businesses, how does that work – do you still use your accounting software? How does that fit into the SuperStream picture?

MC: If someone is using an up-to-date accounting software – and all accounting software has to be compliant now – then they’re probably better off just doing it through their accounting software. Each accounting package has a clearing house linked into it – Xero, for instance, uses ClickSuper – so there’s no need to use Australian Government’s clearing house. But I’ve got other clients who aren’t up-to-date with their accounting software subscriptions or they’ve got old versions of MYOB and they haven’t got the SuperStream compliance function there, so they use the clearing house. But you would only use that now, in my mind, if you were not using any payroll accounting software. Mostly, I think people would or should be looking to use their accounting software because you haven’t got to do anything extra – it’s all there; press two buttons and it’s done.

EL: What else can you tell me about SuperStream that businesses or bookkeepers should be aware of that we haven’t already discussed?

MC: There is just one slight difficulty with self-managed super funds. Because you have to send everything electronically, self-managed super funds have to have some sort of messaging service. So let’s say I have a self-managed super fund and I’m an employee, then I would give my employer all my super fund details and I would have to get a messaging service so that they could put that into their records so a message would get sent to my self-managed super fund each time they make a contribution, so that’s a bit of an overhead for people with self-managed funds. But other than that, I support it. It’s a really great initiative.

We concur and recommend the main accounting software providers

SuperStream is a great initiative that helps streamline the superannuation process for business owners and bookkeepers, providing, of course, that you have a current subscription to an accounting package that has Australian operations, such as Xero, Reckon, MYOB, Quickbooks, and Saasu. Any overseas-only based accounting packages, like Zoho, won’t be compliant with SuperStream, just as they can’t cater for BAS either, so for businesses that need an accounting package with payroll capabilities, it’s best to shop local.

To ensure you’re SuperStream compliant, you need to set up the payroll component of your accounting software. Our MYOB and Xero training courses both cover payroll, which includes how to set up an employee and their super details. Visit our website for more information or enrol in a training course today.

Posted on July 15, 2015July 15, 2015 by Steve Slisar

Microsoft Excel Online Training Course Includes Beginners to Advanced with LIFETIME Access

9 Microsoft Excel Training Courses from Beginners to Advanced for One Price

Most students know about us because of our online MYOB Training Courses (5 courses for the price of 1) but we have a fantastic offer for Microsoft Excel Training Courses where we include every course from Excel Beginners, Excel Intermediate and Excel Advanced for one low price.

We create our own courses so we have the perfect combination of:

Training Videos (where we use the exercise included with the course to demonstrate how to use all the features of Microsoft Excel),
Training Workbooks (where we lay out the exercises in a step-by-step approach so you can practise every new skill at your own pace and in your own time – even without internet access),
Microsoft Excel Exercise files so you can open them and see exactly how each of the Excel features work in a real life scenario
Knowledge Review Tests to make sure you remember the most important aspects of each training course and can receive a certificate of completion (if you enrol for that option)
Microsoft Excel Training Course Certificate to demonstrate the completion of your course

Worksheets, Charts and Databases

Microsoft Excel 2007 Beginners training courses and certificate Our Microsoft Excel Training Courses will teach you about ALL of these uses for Microsoft Excel and provide you with dozens of files to learn, practise and even use in your own home or business.

[quote]Charts or Graphs are visual tools that can make mundane data interesting and useful to demonstrate patterns.[/quote]

Excel charts are based on data that is entered into a worksheet but can also be produced from more advanced tools like Pivot tables.

Charts are introduced in our Microsoft Excel Beginners Courses, along with worksheets and databases and it is covered in more detail in the Intermediate Microsoft Excel Training Courses AND in the Advanced Microsoft Excel Training Courses that include pivot tables.

[box type=”tick” size=”large” style=”rounded” border=”full”]We even include the example of how we used enrolment data from 2003-2004 to find out the best time of the day and day of the week to offer our class-based Microsoft Excel Training Courses when we had our Sydney Training Centre in Dee Why.[/box]

12 Months or Lifetime Course Access

One of the fantastic things about operating an online training business is we can give students as much access as they need even LIFETIME course access. We can do this because we use a LMS (Learning Management System) called Moodle that is used by well regarded universities around the world (as well as many more humble training organisations like ours.

When we operated a class-based training centre we offered students free repeats so they could refresh their Microsoft Excel skills if they didn’t use the software for a while after their course – now we can offer unlimited access to all courses for 12 months or LIFETIME access.

No Need to Choose Between Beginners Intermediate or Advanced Excel Courses – you get them all

A skills assessment is the normal procedure a HR manager puts their employees through to understand how much their staff know and where they need to improve. It’s also the assessment that students used to go through with us over the phone when they had to decide between the different skill levels of courses (Beginners, Intermediate or Advanced), but because we include EVERYTHING in our online course there is no need to perform a skills assessment.

You can bone up on any Excel basics, reinforce your existing skills and hone some new skills because all courses are included when you enrol into Microsoft Excel with EzyLearn!

Learn more about what is included in our Microsoft Excel Course Outline and see our Enrolment page for detailed pricing and course options.

[button link=”http://ezylearnonline.com.au/courses/microsoft-excel/”]Microsoft Excel Training Courses[/button] [button link=”http://ezylearnonline.com.au/enrol/” bg_color=”#038a20″]Enrolment Prices and Options[/button]

Posted on July 15, 2015July 13, 2015 by Angela — 1 Comment

What is inbound marketing?

Will customers like you according to Google?

Inbound marketing is the focus on creating quality content that attracts and draws people toward your company and product. In the last few years, it’s come to replace the outbound marketing methods of old, which involved buying ads and email lists and paying for leads, making it one of the most effective online marketing methods. If this sounds a lot like content marketing that’s because it is, or at least, it’s a subset of it.

Content marketing is the process of consistently creating valuable, relevant content that you share online to attract more customers to your business. Inbound marketing is about being found online, through search engines, social media, and the like. See the difference? No, well allow me to elaborate.

But first, a little history lesson

Content marketing has been around for ages – it’s thought to have started with John Deere, the agricultural machinery manufacturer, which started it’s own magazine in 1895 called The Furrow – but it’s only recently gained more traction as businesses and marketers alike try to find new ways to engage customers online. Despite that, content marketing is just one cog in the greater online/inbound marketing machine.

Inbound marketing, though now very intimately linked to content marketing, is actually a far newer incarnation of the more traditional marketing activities. Inbound marketing is maybe only a decade old, and grew out of the shift in the way consumers interact and respond to advertising. Where consumers were once passive observers of advertising, the Internet made them powerful advocates or critics of a brand, aided greatly by social media.

Which side of that fence a company’s customers fell on was entirely up to what they did with their marketing. Increasingly, though, it became clear that consumers weren’t interested in straight advertisements, especially not on the Internet; they want content and they want content that’s informative or engaging – or both.

If you’ve been following this blog, then you know that EzyLearn is busy developing a new content marketing course, which we hope will complement our existing small business management course that currently covers traditional marketing – buying ads, telemarketing, letterbox drops; basically, what’s now known as outbound marketing.

If you’ve been following this blog, then you’ve also been following our own content marketing strategy: to share valuable, informative content with our students and prospective students, to form a community of individuals who are as passionate about learning and development in their professional lives as we are.

Can content marketing exist without inbound marketing?

Before I talk about whether content marketing can exist in isolation to inbound marketing and vice versa, I’d just like to summarise exactly what content marketing is and what inbound marketing is.

Content marketing is the strategic creation of informative, engaging, and valuable content. It’s the blog posts, newsletters, web pages, and – yes – print advertisements, flyers and brochures.

Inbound marketing is the overarching marketing plan or approach to attracting customers. It’s the distribution methods and channels of your blog posts and newsletters; it’s opt-in email lists; online community building (social media management); search engine optimisation; pay-per-click advertising; and so forth.

Because content is such a big part of marketing, whether it’s outbound or inbound marketing, I believe that, while you can use content marketing on its own, it’s not really possible to use inbound marketing without any content. Besides, there is some overlap between content marketing and inbound marketing, anyway.

Is there a career or business opportunity in Inbound Marketing?

In content marketing, you may decide to regularly write and publish blog posts, promote them on social media, and encourage people to subscribe to your blog using an opt-in widget on your web page. That single content marketing activity – blogging – involves, by default, some components of inbound marketing. No one writes a blog post, after all, and leaves it in their content management system without publishing it and then linking to it on social media.

That’s why we decided to develop a content marketing course, rather than an inbound marketing course because, by convention now, many elements of inbound marketing are carried out as part of the regular content marketing process. Content marketing also integrates better with other marketing activities, like networking or outbound marketing, which means you can create content for to be used on your blog and repurpose it for a letterbox drop.

Continue reading our blog to learn more about content marketing (or subscribe to ensure you don’t miss out!), where we’ll also keep you posted on our forthcoming content marketing course.