Small Business Productivity Archives

Posted on October 17, 2023October 17, 2023 by Steve Slisar

When is the best time to study? Early mornings or late nights?

circadian rhythm-hypothalamus Master Xero and MYOB using EzyLearn's unique short course modular format

I’ve been getting up at 5.15am for the last 2 years – am I crazy?!

I’ve been getting up early because I work out with some friends and prefer early mornings to late nights. This means that I’m going to bed earlier and not working as much at night.

In the past I preferred to work late into the night and pushed myself to get as much work done as I possibly could. Sometimes this meant working until midnight but I noticed that the quality of the work wasn’t always the best.

The sun rises pretty early and I’d rather work with the natural light of the day than the artificial light of the night. I dug a little deeper into this and discovered that there are studies that explains how we perform at various times of the day and how that is affected by when we get up and go to bed – Circadian Rhythms.

Circadian Rhythms can affect how well you perform when studying too..

Posted on September 10, 2023September 11, 2023 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

Amelia and Steve can see if you “viewed” your invoice and have vision into their accounts

Steve from Whitaker Landscaping and Constructions - wife Amelia Whitaker enrolled with EzyLearn to do Xero Complete and loved the detailed case studies

Amelia and her husband run a landscape construction business in Melbournes Eastern suburbs called Whitaker Landscape Constructions. She enrolled into a Xero Training Course with EzyLearn while doing a Cert IV in Bookkeeping and Accounting at Chisholm because she wanted more practical skills using accounting software.

What she discovered was how detailed and in-depth EzyLearn training courses and workbooks really are. OK, that’s enough of the boasting – here are some things Amelia said she likes about using Xero in her husband’s business.

Posted on April 11, 2023June 5, 2023 by Steve Slisar

Employment Hero offers $100 if you’ll demo their software

Get $100 Invitation email for attending a demo of Employment Hero - Workforce Management Training Courses

A popular and well funded HR and Payroll software company, which is backed by Seek (yes, the employment site) is offering 100 to “qualified” businesses who agree to participate in a demonstration of their software.

This is an example of what companies need to do today to get in front of their prospects in business to business selling. This company is trying quickly and this tactic reminds me of the kind of marketing tactics that PayPal used to massively grow their user base. It looks like the kind of strategy that Peter Thiel writes about in his book Zero to One.

Posted on March 14, 2023March 14, 2023 by Steve Slisar

Xero Sacks 800 Staff, Highlights Hiring International Workers & Improves Button

Average-wage-for-staff-accountant-in-India-is-equivalent-to-under-6000-AUD-per-year-Challenges-for-Australian-Bookkeepers-using-Xero-Software-EzyLearn

It certainly is an interesting time we’re going through financially. Most of us (around the world) are hurting because of higher costs and as a result the RBA increases interest rates so we focus on paying down our debts rather than consuming more things. Some people I’ve been speaking with are predicting even worse times ahead and the recent sacking of staff from Xero and Atlassian show the global trend is affecting Australia.

After hearing about the recent sackings at Xero it was interesting to see what else was going on at Xero. The two things that stood out the most to me was an improved Approval button for invoicing (and that there are now two versions of invoicing) and how Dinesh Aggarwal from Fortuna Advisory is finding it harder to hire local staff so he’s outsourcing.

Posted on February 20, 2023February 20, 2023 by Steve Slisar

Reduce Debt, Cut Expenses, Up-Skill, Increase Income

EzyLearn Online Accounting, Office Admin & Digital Marketing Tutor

Are these the words going through your head right now? Probably the topic of lots of conversations too with all these interest rate rises we’ve been having.

One of our students got help from a debt negotiator and they do an effective job but they have to make money for the work they do. One of the biggest is called MyBudget. You can achieve a similar outcome yourself with some good spreadsheet skills and the courage to sit down and work out all your financial affairs you can do it yourself. There’s even an official government website that has a lot of free tools.

Posted on January 11, 2023January 11, 2023 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

Deep Dives, Huddles, Sprints & MYOB & Xero Training Course Resources

Project plans and gantt chart templates in Microsoft Excel 2016 training courses online

These are terms that I definitely have not grown up with but they describe what goes on in most modern workplaces, particularly when you are collaborating as part of a team.

These terms are usually associated with projects that are created in an agile development system and at EzyLearn they relate to our regular training course updates and additions as well as our digital marketing campaigns. Here’s some of the modern day terminology and how it relates to our training course development.

Posted on October 31, 2022November 26, 2022 by Steve Slisar

R U Spending Too Much Time Alone?

Do you spend more time alone or with your partner, co-workers or your children - Study Xero & MYOB Online Courses and spend time with your family - EzyLearn

Many new students learnt how to use online accounting software like Xero and MYOB Business Essentials during the Covid Period because they were working remotely from home. Most of those students thought we had just started working from home ourselves but we told them we’ve been online for over a decade.

The conversation topics that came up a lot was how can you work from home, do you get lonely, do you get distracted etc?

The reality is that our entire team work from home and once you are used to the discipline of working from home you can take lots of breaks when you need them and can focus better on customer service. I found some research that showed just how much time people are now spending alone.

Posted on June 6, 2022June 6, 2022 by Xero Training

Square Afterpay or PayPal Pay in 4: Which BNPL Service Your Business Should Use

Buy now pay later (BNPL) services are growing in popularity for many retailers. If you’ve been in store recently, or even online shopping as you go to click ‘proceed to checkout’, you might have noticed a poster or button that advertises how you can pay for your purchase in easy instalments.

Afterpay and PayPal are just two companies that provide BNPL options for customers. We’ve started to make all our MYOB, Xero and Excel courses available on PayPal’s Buy Now Pay Later platform: PayPal Pay in 4

The best part is that you can use the discount coupons to reduce the price of each course and then pay it on instalments!

Posted on May 30, 2022June 5, 2023 by Xero Training

Planday for Xero or Square Team Management: Which Should Your Business Use?

Physical timesheets and all the manual data entry of employee scheduling is a hassle. Even with technology like email and text, it’s always a task to try and figure out who swapped shifts with who and coordinate a schedule that works for all your employees.

Workforce management software like Planday and Square Team Management have become popular alternatives. Planday is now owned by Xero, and Square Team Management is a service offered by digital payment company Block Inc. (formerly known as Square Inc.)

But which one should your business use? Let’s go through some of the main features you’d expect of a workforce management software, and see how Planday and Square Team Management compare:

Posted on April 11, 2022April 11, 2022 by Xero Training

Engaging a New Worker? Here Are The Things You Need To Do, particularly if you’re classified by the ATO as a withholder:

There’s lots to do when businesses engage a new worker. As an employer, you’ll be busy going through the onboarding process and showing your new employee the ropes, but there are other important things to do when you add a new member to your team.

Keeping accurate records complete with the right information is essential for businesses to maintain, and that means updating and adding data when engaging a new worker. Here are some things to keep in mind as you go through this process:

Posted on March 14, 2022March 14, 2022 by Xero Training

How are Small Businesses Changing in 2022?

It’s not a stretch to say the last few years have been tough…especially for businesses. Through lockdowns and restrictions we’ve seen businesses struggle, falter, adapt, and survive.

Now that we’re in to 2022, and things are (fingers crossed) almost looking normal again, it’s exciting to see how businesses will recover and thrive.

Xero has released a guide to small business trends for 2022, based on surveys they conducted in 2021 of their subscribers in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Singapore, Canada, and the US.

Here’s are 10 trends on the rise for small business this year:

Posted on March 7, 2022March 7, 2022 by Xero Training

Pandemic Digitalised Small Businesses more than NBN, Xero Report Reveals Numbers?

The pandemic has seen huge changes to the way businesses run, with Zoom meetings and remote working becoming the new normal and working parents are loving it (if they have the space for it).

The common factor here, of course, is the move to digital solutions for businesses. Whilst ICT expenditure has always formed part of a business’ expenses, the pandemic has contributed to an increase in this area of spending.

Businesses are becoming increasingly digital, and it’s actually improving their performance. One of the areas I’ve noticed is the use of website chat has increased and customer service work can be performed by anyone running a micro business from their own home.

Posted on April 21, 2021April 21, 2021 by Steve Slisar

Can you lose your job because of Microsoft’s productivity police?

Microsoft Office 365 Productivity Score for office support and administration tasks job description - online training courses Office Certificate Course (EzyLearn - recognised by employers)

Are you only using 10% of Microsoft Office? Are you taking 2 hours to do something that can actually be done in 30 minutes? Microsoft Office software had a feature that could identify your productivity score in reports to managers.

The technology was designed as a sales tool for Microsoft to help identify software that could be utilised better at Microsoft corporate clients but it unveiled a whole privacy issue.

Continue reading Can you lose your job because of Microsoft’s productivity police?

Posted on November 30, 2020December 10, 2020 by Steve Slisar — 2 Comments

Is Xero Certification Valuable for Job Seekers or Contract Bookkeepers?

Xero Certified Partner Program exceeds 100,000 members - Xero Central Announcement - EzyLearn's Xero COMPLETE training Courses

Xero Certification is designed for contract bookkeepers to increase the number of customers who use and support the software.

Like all “partner” programs offered by software vendors including MYOB and Intuit QuickBooks the purpose of these programs is to increase their “channel to market” but it may not always suit every student.

Posted on October 12, 2020October 12, 2020 by Steve Slisar

ATTN: Ongoing Course Access for $39 per year

Have you enrolled into more than 1 EzyLearn course since January 1st 2013? If so you’ll be thrilled with our newest learning service that will give you access to the newest versions of those courses once more!

EzyLearn Career Courses Membership is new in 2020 and enables you to have ongoing access and support for every course you have enrolled into.

Posted on October 6, 2020September 21, 2021 by Steve Slisar

Office Academy gives Microsoft skills to all staff, online, remotely – NOW $200 OFF

paid on time reports for credit management accounting software

Do you know how to use Microsoft Word? Oh, yes.

Can you show me how to change the alignment of these paragraphs, put bullet points here and make the image aligned to the right side of the text? Um, I’ll give it a go.

This is a common scenario in conversations I’ve had with students looking for office admin and support jobs. Some people think that just because you can type they can use Microsoft Word but that’s not the case and when I look at the high number of office jobs that require good data entry skills it makes these skills very important! Here’s our offer for October. Continue reading Office Academy gives Microsoft skills to all staff, online, remotely – NOW $200 OFF

Category: Small Business Productivity