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Should You Take Out a Loan to Avoid Delaying Payroll Payments?

Repayments on a business loan may be less than super and PAYG combined

Small business loan to finance PAYG and super
It’s not uncommon for small businesses to take out a business loan to meet their super and PAYG obligations – but this should never be a knee-jerk reaction to lean times.

IN A PREVIOUS POST we talked about taking out a business loan to cover payroll if you anticipate that you won’t have enough funds to do so otherwise.

Naturally, it’s always better to use your business’ own funds to meet your obligations, whether it’s paying staff or suppliers. This said, getting a business loan to cover payroll can be a good idea for small and growing businesses in certain circumstances. We look at these now.

Loan repayments are usually small

Depending on how many employees work for you, the repayments on a business loan are typically smaller than all of your payroll obligations — this includes superannuation and PAYG — combined. If you get a loan to fund 12 months of your business, payable over a 24 or 26 month period, the repayments will be far easier to manage each month.

Interest is usually a tax deduction

Businesses are able to claim the interest from any business loan as a tax deduction, so even if the annual percentage rate (APR) adds a few additional thousands of dollars to your capital amount over the period it takes to pay the loan back, the interest will still go towards reducing your taxable income.

This is a more favourable option to delaying payment to your employees (illegal) and delaying payment of PAYG and superannuation withholdings, which could incur a Failure To Lodge (FTL) penalty, plus a general interest charge (GIC). Note: Fines and penalties cannot be claimed as a tax deduction and are therefore dead money.

Do your sums first

taking out a small business loanDon’t forget that, while a business loan to cover payroll for 12 months will be easy to repay initially, your business’s profits will need to improve substantially over the next year so that you can continue to meet your loan repayments AND your payroll obligations for that year.

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You can easily work this out using Microsoft Excel. Our Intermediate Microsoft Excel training courses show you how to determine if you can afford to take out a mortgage, but because all of our fields remain “unlocked”, you can easily modify them to suit a business loan scenario. Visit our website for more information on all of our Excel training courses.


 

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Our online training courses feature real-life case studies to make our learning more relevant and true to life.
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Turn Your Wage Payments into a Business Loan

Only Managing Payroll on an Ad Hoc Basis? We Show You How

managing ad hoc payroll
If you know that you can’t quite make payroll, a short-term business loan may see you through and avoid penalties.

WE’VE RECENTLY UPDATED THE course content in our Intermediate Microsoft Excel training courses to include a workbook and spreadsheet (that you can use in your own business) showing you how to manage ad hoc payroll using Microsoft Excel. This will enable you to calculate your PAYG and superannuation obligations in Excel.

Using Excel to work out your PAYG and super obligations is a great way for small businesses, with a small number of employees, to save money. It saves you having to purchase this extra module in MYOB or Xero, for instance, when you may rarely use it. Saving money for small business is crucial as often it’s these same small businesses that have trouble making payroll payments each week, fortnight or month — and then wind up incurring further fees from the ATO when they’re late with their reporting and payments. It’s a vicious cycle.

When you can’t make payroll

If you’re finding it a stretch to make payroll payments, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Lots of business owners have trouble making payroll. But there are things you can do about it. We find that it frequently comes down to poor credit management processes or perhaps a downward trend in a business’ cycle that’s been missed due to poor or inefficient accounting processes. All of these can be rectified.

If the reason your business can’t make payroll is due to one or more shortcomings in your business’ operations, remedy the problems now. Similarly, if credit management is the issue, and late-paying clients are partially to blame, then tighten up or implement a credit management process. If it’s the result of bookkeeping that’s not up-to-date, find a bookkeeper to manage this for you.

How you can make payroll when cash is tight

Get financing. There are lots of ways to do this, but a common method, particularly if you need access to funds quickly, is to get a short-term business loan. Many short-term business loans don’t require businesses to have a great credit score, and will offer funding of as little as $5,000 right up to $500,000.

You’d have between 3 and 36 months to pay back the loan, but you need to be aware — the annual percentage rates (APR) are usually high. Most lenders require the business to have been active for a minimum of 9 months, and have revenue of more than $75,000 per annum. However, if paid off quickly, these can be an alternative to incurring penalties — it will obviously depend on your business’ individual circumstances.

Keep on top of bookkeeping

If you stay on top of your bookkeeping, you’ll either reduce the likelihood that you won’t make payroll, or as a worst case scenario, be able to foresee the periods when you won’t be able to, and be able to arrange finance in time to cover it.

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Use the Ad Hoc Payroll Guide included in our Intermediate Microsoft Excel training courses to determine the rate of PAYG tax to withhold — and the required super contribution amounts in Excel. Visit our website for more information on our entire suite of Excel training courses.


Xero online training course

At EzyLearn we offer online training courses to help you up-skill and find employment. Choose from our range of cloud-based online accounting software courses, to business start up and management courses, to marketing and sales courses, or update and further your skills in a range of Microsoft Office programs (ExcelPowerPointWord) or social media and WordPress web design). 

All of our online training courses can also be counted towards Continuing Professional Development points.


 

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We Don’t Lock Our Microsoft Excel Course Content

You Can Use the Calculation Fields in our Excel Exercises as Often as You Like!

learn Excel online training course unlocked calculations and formulas
We keep all the calculation fields in our Excel course exercises unlocked so you can play around with different figures of your own as often as you like.

DESPITE THE POPULARITY OF cloud-based accounting software applications like Xero and MYOB, Excel still remains one of the most indispensable software programs for businesses and individuals alike. That is why we always make it a priority to constantly update our Microsoft Excel Training Course.

You can apply Excel to so much

Accounting software, even robust packages like MYOB, only allow you to perform a finite number of functions that relate to business accounting. However, Excel can be used for a multitude of different purposes — both business and personal, merely one of which is to develop a financial forecast for an investment.

EzyLearn courses provide real-life case studies

learn excel online training course

Our Intermediate Excel Training Course uses the construction of a granny flat for investment purposes as a case study example. We chose a granny flat for the case study because most people construct them as an investment, whether they’re in business or not, so it’s a good real-world example.

It also deals with depreciation, which you can claim in your tax, regardless of whether you’re in business or not.

Our calculation fields remain “unlocked”

But even though, with the current property booms in our major cities, granny flat construction has become more common, it is not so common that every person taking our Excel courses is planning to build a granny flat for their next investment. That’s why we decided not to lock our course content.

What does this mean? It means that all the calculation fields in the exercise files of our Excel training courses are unlocked, so that your education remains unlocked too. You’re free to play around and replicate them as you need, so you can get a proper handle of how to use Excel in business or for work.

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Visit our website for more information on our Microsoft Excel Training Course, with its new granny flats case study. We provide a range of online Excel training courses for beginners’, intermediate and advanced students.


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.


 

 

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Making PowerPoint “Speak” with Audio

When Should I Use PowerPoint Audio?

using audio in powerpoint
You can get beyond the birds cheeping and insert your choice of quality audio into PowerPoint.

BEING THAT MOST PowerPoint presentations are created as a visual aid to accompany a speech — although there is just so much more you can do with PowerPoint — you may find yourself wondering when it’s ever appropriate to use audio in your PowerPoint presentation, and if it is appropriate, what kind of audio?  

First off, there are two kinds of audio you can use in a PowerPoint presentation: pre-recorded audio and audio you record yourself. You’ll learn how to record and insert your own audio files into PowerPoint in our PowerPoint Training Course.

When you might use pre-recorded audio

using audio in powerpointIf you’ve ever fiddled around with PowerPoint, you’d notice there are a few audio sounds you can use insert into your slides. They’re mostly generic sound effects, like the sound of waves or a bird chirping. To be honest with you, none of these are ever appropriate in a PowerPoint presentation, except in some really obscure instances. Or less obscure ones, like a training course teaching you how to insert pre-recorded audio into PowerPoint!

You can also add pre-recorded audio that you have on your computer, like a song from your music library. Again, there are few instances when this is necessary, but it’s another option nonetheless.

Adding audio you record yourself

And here is where the answer to using audio in PowerPoint really lies. You can record your own audio, using QuickTime if you’re an Apple user, or Sounds Recorder if you’re using an older version of Windows; otherwise you can also record it on your mobile or digital recorder and import it onto your computer.

You would use this audio if you were going to upload your presentation to your website for a webinar, or for people to watch online afterwards. EzyLearn uses it in some of of online training courses. You could use audio in your induction training courses, too.

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Brush up on your PowerPoint skills, or learn how you can use PowerPoint to create your own online induction training courses with our PowerPoint training courses.


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What Happens if You Have Backlog of PAYG and Super Payments?

Don’t get lumped with penalties when you don’t need to!

failure to lodge penalties how to manage payroll in Excel online training course
It’s not only frustrating and disheartening, but a waste of business funds to be penalised for lodging your financials too late.

A LOT OF SMALL BUSINESSES have trouble managing their payroll, especially when they only have a few employees and paying to access a payroll system in their accounting package is an unnecessary expense. You’ll learn how to use Excel to manage your PAYG and super contributions in our Intermediate Microsoft Excel Training Courses. However, sometimes you may have a backlog of PAYG and super payments. Let’s take a look at how to manage these.

Rescue bookkeeping

A backlog of PAYG and super payments that date back more than three months is known as rescue bookkeeping, although it can often include other bookkeeping issues, like bank accounts that don’t reconcile with statements.

PAYG payments

For businesses that only withhold up to $25,000 each year, you’re supposed to make PAYG payments and file a withholding report each quarter. You have 28 days from the end of the quarter to do so, after which time, you may incur a Failure To Lodge (FTL) penalty.

Superannuation payments

As with PAYG payments and reporting, you can also incur a FTL penalty for not lodging or paying your employees’ superannuation contributions in time. All businesses, regardless of size, have to make superannuation payments each quarter — the ATO sets out the due dates for each period on their website.

Lodging late PAYG and super payments

The ATO only applies penalties for failure to lodge reports or make payments for each period of 28 days (or part thereof) that a document or payment is overdue. Each period incurs one penalty unit for each document, up to a maximum of five penalty units.

From 2015 onwards, the value of a penalty unit is $180 (previously it was $170) for small businesses, which are defined as entities with an assessable income or GST turnover of no more than $1 million a year.

The maximum penalty a small business will pay is $900 for each document or payment that is overdue. Note too that FTL penalties will also incur a general interest charge (GIC), applied on top of the penalty.

Managing late PAYG and super payments

Use the Ad Hoc Payroll Guide, a new case study that is included in our Intermediate Microsoft Excel Training Courses to determine the rate of PAYG tax to withhold and the required super contribution amounts in Excel. Once you’ve worked out the required amounts (visit the ATO website for tax tables prior to 2017), lodge the necessary PAYG payments and reports to the ATO; pay super contributions using the SuperStream super clearing house.

The ATO will write to you if you are required to pay a penalty — sometimes they are waived for first-time offences, or if the amounts are small.

Our courses now include real-life case studies

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Our Intermediate Microsoft Excel training courses will also teach you how to create a payroll spreadsheet from scratch to suit your own business, so you can easily work out your PAYG and super obligations. Visit our website for more information on all of our Excel training courses.


learn PowerPoint online training course

Create brilliant presentations and graphics for all kinds of business purposes.

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 induction. Find out more about our 2016 version PowerPoint courses.


online bookkeeping courses to earn cpd pointsEzyLearn 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.


 

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Hiring Someone New? Why You Need to Personally Check their References

Why It Pays to Call the Switchboard When Doing a Reference Check

reference checking
How do you really know the mobile numbers provided for references truly belong to who they say they are?

I recently had a conversation with a colleague who said she’d never once been asked to produce a copy of her university degree or her transcripts, despite stating on her resume that she’d graduated with a high distinction average.

Gee, I thought, not once? Not a single recruiter or employer had ever requested a copy of her degree? I found this fact astonishing, particularly since more professions require, by law, certain qualifications — as BAS agents are, for example. So how people know my friend wasn’t fibbing in her credentials? Fact is, they didn’t.

Check, even if you use a recruiter

I wrote a blog some time ago about recruiting on LinkedIn and why it’s so important to check references for yourself. People often underestimate the importance of checking a person’s credentials, so long as they get a reference from their last employer. Often, though, most people only provide a mobile number for their references, so whether you’re speaking to the candidate’s former employer, a co-worker, or their mum is sometimes anyone’s guess.

I was reminded of how important reference-checking is again, when I was reading a couple of articles on Longreads, and I found myself utterly fascinated by two of the biggest cases of journalistic fraud ever committed (though I admit to having never heard of them before the weekend, despite one occurring more than 30 years ago).

Sometimes people don’t just lie on their resume

In the first instance, a journalist named Janet Cooke fabricated a story for The Washington Post about an 8-year-old heroin addict. She won a Pulitzer Prize for it in 1981, and then had to give it back when it came out that there was no such 8-year-old. In the second case, Jayson Blair, a journalist for The New York Times, was found to have fabricated or plagiarised 36 out of 73 stories written over a 6-month period, in what turned out to be the biggest scandal in the newspaper’s hundred-plus year history.

What I found most intriguing, though, was that neither Cooke nor Blair had been properly vetted before their employers hired them. In fact, it was Cooke’s falsified resume that was ultimately her undoing when, after receiving the highest honour in the field of writing, a former employer noticed something was amiss with her Pulitzer biography — her education and professional achievements had been grossly overstated. (Rather ironically it was Bob Woodward, of Woodward and Bernstein — the journalists who uncovered the Watergate Scandal — who signed off on hiring Cooke.)

The same would prove true for Blair, who, it turned out, never graduated from university, and had a murky work history with the Times’ sister publication, The Boston Globe, where his superiors had been less than impressed with his less-than-high standard of work.

(Of course, the equally interesting case of Australian author, Helen Demidenko, who won the Miles Franklin Award in the early 1990s, only to later be dubbed by the Sydney Morning Herald as a ‘literary hoax’ also springs to mind.)

Benders-of-truth almost always get caught

Plenty of people lie or embellish on their resumes, and while a good majority of them go unnoticed, others are caught out — sometimes very publicly, and often only after the organisation has been very publicly embarrassed, as in the case of Cooke and Blair.

My advice, then, is to always check the references of new hires meticulously. Rather than calling the mobile numbers or direct lines of the candidate’s references, call the main switchboard and ask to speak to that person’s manager or superior.

And always ensure to ask for a copy of any credentials, like university degrees. If you’re employing someone where, by law, they’re required to hold a certain qualification — as is the case for BAS agents, for instance — it’s imperative you can verify the person’s credentials.

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Xero online training course

At EzyLearn we offer online training courses to help you up-skill and find employment. Choose from our range of cloud-based online accounting software courses, to business start up and management courses, to marketing and sales courses, or update and further your skills in a range of Microsoft Office programs (Excel, PowerPoint, Word) or social media and WordPress web design). 


 

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Excel Can Prove that Granny Flats Don’t Always Add Value

Using Excel to Financially Forecast the Viability of Your Investment

financial forecasts excel online training course
Excel is the tool you need for developing a feasibility study so you can assess the viability of any kind of investment.

When you are planning to invest in a project, you naturally have to weigh up the risks. One of the chief ways of doing this is to complete a financial forecast to determine the viability of your investment. One type of investment that has been exceedingly common and popular with the current property boom has been the investment in a granny flat.

Many homeowners and investors who own a property with adequate room and the right conditions, have chosen to build a granny flat on their existing property as a means of earning extra income.

In our Microsoft Excel Intermediate Training Course, we feature a brand new case study, using a granny flat as a way of demonstrating how you determine the viability of an investment.

Granny flats earn income, not add value

Of course, you need to consider whether you’re legally allowed to rent out a granny flat, which in some Australian states — Victoria, South Australia and Queensland — you aren’t. If you’re found renting a granny flat in any of those states, your local council can ask you to remove the granny flat from your property.

You may determine that a granny flat will earn around $12,000 a year in rental income, but it could take up to 10 years to break even on construction costs. Although some of those costs can be deducted as expenses and the dwelling depreciated over time, depending on where the property is located, property values may not increase by that much. This is amplified if you’ve just purchased the property, compared to a person who’s owned their property for 5 or 10 years.

Granny flats can reduce your rental return

Depending on how the granny flat has been constructed, its proximity to the main dwelling, and whether there are any shared or common areas, there’s also the potential to reduce the rental income on the principal dwelling. If the property has been previously tenanted, the shift from single to dual occupancy will reduce the rent of the principal dwelling. This could be offset by the existence of the granny flat, however, it moves the goalposts for your break even date. You may also experience more tenant churn, which will see more of your rental income going to real estate agents in letting fees, and greater wear and tear on the dwellings. You may also experience longer than average vacancy rates.


How to develop a financial forecast that can be used to determine the viability of a granny flat as an investment is covered in our Microsoft Excel Training Course, with its new Investing in a Granny Flat Case Study. Visit our website for more information on our full suite of online training courses. And don’t forget — EzyLearn online training courses can be counted towards your Continuing Professional Development Points

learn excel online training courseAt EzyLearn we are constantly refreshing the content of our online training courses. Where possible, we draw on real-life case studies as examples, to help you learn, and apply your skills, in a relevant way that makes sense. Visit our Micro Courses page to learn more.


 

 

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Linking a Financial Forecast with Xero and Excel

Excel Will Help You Work Out the HOW of Depreciation

learn excel online training courseWe recently updated our advanced Microsoft Excel Training Course content. It now contains a case study, by way of an extra exercise workbook, using a granny flat building project to create a financial forecast.

We chose a granny flat building project for our case study because it’s an investment decision quite a lot of people with or without a business have made. It’s also a capital asset that can be depreciated over time. Therefore it has the potential to affect your taxes in lots of different ways.

Our Excel Training Course, with its granny flat financial-forecast case study, will teach you how to use Excel to create a financial forecast, which you can then replicate for your own investment — whatever that may be.

Your bookkeeper uses Excel to calculate depreciation

When you build a new structure, such as a granny flat, which you intend to rent out or use for businesses purposes — i.e., it’s an investment and not for your own personal use — the building can be depreciated along with some of the fittings and finishes (floorings, curtains, paint, etc). That’s despite the value of the land upon which the granny flat is constructed increasing in value over time.

Once you’ve set up your financial forecasting file in Excel using the correct formulas that will update as the investment progresses, you’ll be able to track all of the future costs, income and depreciation in that spreadsheet.

Input depreciation into Xero

Excel will calculate the depreciation amounts for you, which you should then enter into Xero. We cover how to deal with depreciation in our Xero Bank Reconciliation Course, because lots of businesses own, or will own, a capital asset at some point.

However, this doesn’t tell you how to determine the depreciation amounts, which most business owners have to get their bookkeeper to work out for them. Most bookkeepers work this out in Excel based on the depreciation rates provided by the ATO. However, if you have already created a financial forecast in Excel, you won’t need to get your bookkeeper to do this for you.

Individuals can claim depreciation too

Even if you’re not a business owner, but you’ve still built a granny flat that you intend to rent out, you can claim depreciation in your tax returns. Instead of entering the depreciation into Xero, you’d include it on your annual tax return, so it’s really important that you work this out in Excel first and regularly update it.

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Once you know how to use Excel for financial forecasting, you can use the same formulas and modelling for any financial forecast — be it for a granny flat project, business investment, anything that requires you to make a financial decision. Visit our website for more information on our advanced Microsoft Excel Training Course, with its new granny flats case study.

Do you want to brush up your Xero skills? Or perhaps you use MYOB but want to get a handle on Xero? Check out our suite of Xero training courses — all available for one low price. 


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.


 

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Which Granny Flat is a Better Investment?

A Real-Life Granny Flat Construction Scenario

learn excel online training courseChoosing between a one-bedroom and two-bedroom granny flat is a decision you’ll need to make early on in the project, and it’s largely a financial one.

EzyLearn’s Microsoft Excel Training Course includes a new case study, “Investing in a Granny Flat”, which uses the construction of a granny flat as a real life example to help you to better understand how to develop a financial forecast for an investment.

Determine construction and ancillary costs

How much it will cost to construct both a one-bedroom and two-bedroom granny flat is the first step. You need to work out how much it will cost to get each granny flat constructed to the point that someone can move in, as well as any ancillary costs, like council fees and levies, real estate management fees interest rates and so forth.

Determine rental income

Some granny flat companies will give you rental income estimates, but you’re encouraged to investigate this yourself. Rental incomes are heavily dependent on your local area and the demand for that type of property. In Sydney, the demand for rental property far outweighs the demand in regional NSW. Take into consideration vacancy rates in the area and the types of property that are in demand. Areas with high vacancy rates and low demand for one-bedroom units could indicate there’s little demand for a permanently rented one-bedroom granny flat, which will put the rent down.

Determine depreciation amounts

Both granny flats will be subject to the same depreciation rate, however the amounts will differ due to the differing value of each dwelling. In addition to an annual depreciation rate on the dwelling, consider other elements of the granny flat that will also be subject to depreciation. Floor coverings, for example, can be depreciated over time. Carpeting is typically depreciated at a rate of 20 percent, where tiles are depreciated at 2.5 percent because the latter has a longer lifespan.

Determine the best investment

Add all of these costs into Excel to determine the average annual rental yield, expressed as a percentage of the property value. Rental yields are used to show the return on an investment. The higher the rental yield, the better the return is. Taken in combination with your own personal circumstances and plans for the future should help you to determine which option represents the better investment.

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Our Microsoft Excel training courses, featuring the new granny flat case study, go into much greater detail. Or view our full suite of training courses. 

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At EzyLearn, we’re committed to helping students of all our courses find better employment opportunities, become their own boss and upskill. To this end, we constantly update our courses with new, highly relevant content — it’s why we provide you with the option of Lifetime access you can always refer back to our courses as you progress in your skills’ development. 

We’re thrilled to announce our new Micro Courses which are be added to our existing courses, or can be purchased alone. These are based on real-life case studies and relate to real people in genuine, real-life scenarios. Subscribe to our blog and be alerted of updates.


 

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Calculating PAYG Obligations Without a Payroll System

Third Quarter is Looming; Are You Up to Date with Payroll?

ad hoc payroll payments ExcelMost businesses using an accounting program like MYOB or Xero will use the included payroll package to manage their employees’ payroll. For businesses with only a few employees, however, the additional payroll function is an unnecessary expense.

In our recently updated Advanced Microsoft Excel training courses, we have included a micro course on ‘Ad Hoc Payroll’, featuring a detailed spreadsheet for calculating PAYG and superannuation obligations. In this instance, our micro course is a detailed spreadsheet based on a case study, so it’s relevant and applicable to real life.

PAYG and the businesses it applies to

Every Australian business with employees who are each paid more than the tax-free threshold has a legal obligation to withhold tax on their employees’ behalf. This is known as the PAYG System (or Pay As You Go), where amounts of tax are withheld from each employee’s wage payments.

Businesses that withhold up to $25,000 each year only need to make payments to the ATO each quarter; businesses withholding amounts greater than $25,001 may have to make payments to the ATO each month or as regularly as each week.

At the time of writing, the tax-free threshold is currently $18,200, which is equivalent to:

  • $350 a week
  • $700 a fortnight
  • $1,517 a month

Superannuation contributions

Again, any business that pays its employees more than $450 each month must also make regular superannuation contributions on their employees’ behalf. We’ve written in the past about the government’s clearing house called SuperStream, which allows you to easily make super contributions — for free.

But first, you need to work out how much super you need to contribute for your employees. The superannuation guarantee is currently 9.5 percent of your employees’ gross wages, which is payable on top of their wages — not deducted out of.

Using tax tables to calculate wages

Each year, the ATO produces a range of tax tables to help you work out how much to withhold from payments you make to your employees. In our Ad Hoc Payroll Micro Course, we’ve already added the most current tax tables to the accompanying payroll spreadsheet, as well as the superannuation guarantee tables.

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We feature a number of real-life case studies, which we have turned into micro courses. You can use the Ad Hoc Payroll Micro Course to determine the rate of PAYG tax to withhold and the required super contribution amounts in Excel, rather than paying to access the payroll functions of MYOB or Xero. Our Intermediate Microsoft Excel training courses will also teach you how to create a payroll spreadsheet from scratch to suit your own business. Visit our website for more information on all of our Excel training courses.

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online bookkeeping courses to earn 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.

 

 

 

 

 

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The Wonders of Microsoft Excel’s 3D Formulas

Excel’s 3D Formulas Work Across Worksheets

Excel formulas online training courseWe’ve recently updated our Microsoft Excel Training Course content, because it remains one of the most indispensable tools for small businesses — and we’ve included a new exercise workbook which takes you through all the steps involved in developing a financial forecast for an investment.

We used a granny flat project as the case study in our financial forecasting workbook, but the beauty of Excel is that, once you get the formulas right, they can be replicated for any kind of investment, not just one for building a granny flat.

The wonderful 3D formula

3D formulas are one of the other many wonders of Excel. A 3D formula is basically a reference to the same cell or a range of cells within multiple Excel sheets. They’re a convenient way to reference several worksheets that follow the same pattern, with cells that contain the same type of data.

All functions work with 3D formulas

3D formulas can be used with all Excel functions — SUM, AVERAGE, PRODUCT, etc — which means that, using a 3D formula, you can easily create a financial forecasting sheet for any stage of an investment, and easily reference that data in another financial forecasting sheet. This is invaluable because there are very few projects or investments that can be contained in just one Excel worksheet.

A project like the granny flat case study in our online Excel Training Course, contains many moving parts — there’s the initial construction, then there’s the ongoing maintenance, and the rental income to manage. It would be impractical to keep all of this information contained within the one Excel worksheet.

3D formulas can be modified with time

The best part about using 3D formulas is that you only need to specify the start and end sheets (which for ease-of-use, you could just label ‘start’ and ‘end’) and the formula will reference all the worksheets between the start and end sheets, including those two sheets.

This means that, as your investment or project grows, once you’ve got the 3D formulas set up correctly, you can just add and subtract worksheets as necessary, and the calculations will update automatically.

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Once you understand how to create and work with 3D formulas, you can use them for any project or investment that you create a financial forecast for — be it for a granny flat project, business investment or anything else that requires you to make a financial decision.

Visit our website for more information on our Microsoft Excel Training Course, which covers 3D formulas.

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online bookkeeping courses to earn 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.

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Depreciation and Tax Deductions Associated with Granny Flats

Working Out Your Depreciations with Excel

excel online training course financial forecasting
Ok, so you may or may not have the room for a granny flat, but either way, Excel is the foremost tool for forecasting financial investments.

If you have the room, building a granny flat on your property can prove to be very lucrative. EzyLearn has recently created a new Microsoft Excel exercise, using the construction of a granny flat as a case study, which forms part of our online Excel Training Course.

It was created to help students understand how to use Excel for financial forecasting, but it’s also useful to those interested in constructing a granny flat on their property.

Costs that will be depreciated

In a recent post, we mentioned claiming depreciation on the property’s existing dwelling. If the existing dwelling on your property is rather old, it may not be able to be depreciated. Depreciation rates are determined by the ATO, while an quantity surveyor will be able to determine the value of your dwelling. The cost of the new granny flat will be depreciated over time. Keep in mind that individual elements of the granny flat, such as the floorings, can also be depreciated in addition to the capital structure.

Most expenses can be deducted

The ATO has a long list of expenses relating to rental properties that can be deducted. If you visit their website, you’ll find that most expenses relating to a rental property can be claimed as a tax deduction, depending on the type of rental property. If your granny flat is intended as a long term rental, as the granny flat in our case study is, then nearly all expenses, including the demolition of the old garage and other capital works can be deducted right away.

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How you treat these expenses and depreciable assets is covered in the granny flats case study of our Microsoft Excel Training Course. Visit our website for more information on our full suite of training courses.

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EzyLearn online training courses count towards 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.

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Use Excel to Manage ALL Your Investments

Once You Master Excel You Can Do Anything!

using excel for financial forecast granny flat2
Excel is one powerful tool. Its formulas can be extrapolated to most any accounting software program.

In our Excel training Course there’s an exercise workbook on granny flat investments, which takes you through all the steps involved in developing a financial forecast for a granny flat. It can also be used to determine the financial forecast of any investment, not just granny flats.

Even though lots of cloud-based software applications have come along in recent years — Xero and MYOB and CRMs like Zoho — which have made it possible for lots of business owners to keep track of their financials and customer sales history without ever needing to open an Excel spreadsheet, Microsoft Excel is still the software used by accountants and analysts in nearly every profession.

Excel is flexible

Microsoft Excel may be difficult to master — indeed, it’s probably one of the most difficult in the entire suite of Microsoft programs — but it’s also the most flexible. The formulas sitting behind nearly every cloud-based accounting software can all be replicated and modified in Excel, where in MYOB or Xero, they can’t.

You can’t enter the details of your granny flat project or other investment into Xero and MYOB and create a financial forecast, even though near similar formulas are being used each time you run a profit and loss statement.

Cloud software is Excel plus PLUS

Before computers and Microsoft Excel came along, accountants used a pen and paper to keep track of their clients’ business financials. And before that, before the numeral system was invented, the abacus was the main accounting tool used by merchants and traders to keep track of their finances.

You probably have no use for an abacus anymore — although in some parts of Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia people still do — because, as an accounting tool, it’s too basic. But the same cannot be said about Excel, which is capable of handling complex formulas and rendering an answer.

Export accounting data into Excel

Because cloud-accounting software is essentially a very user friendly version of an elaborate, however inflexible, spreadsheet, it means you’re able to export your accounting data into Excel. Financial analysts and accountants do this when they need to carry out further analysis on a client’s financial data, and you can too.

Once you know how to use Excel for financial forecasting, you can use the same formulas and modelling for any financial forecast — be it for a granny flat project, business investment, anything that requires you to make a financial decision.

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Visit our website for more information on our Microsoft Excel Training Course, with its new intermediate-level ‘Granny Flat Case Study’.

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online bookkeeping courses to earn cpd pointsEzyLearn 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.

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When Building a Granny Flat, Here’s What You Need to Consider

Excel Can Help You with Financial Forecasting

using excel for financial forecast granny flat
Excel is a great tool if planning a big ticket project like developing a granny flat on a property.

If you have the room, building a granny flat on your property can prove to be very lucrative. EzyLearn has recently created a new Microsoft Excel exercise, using the construction of a granny flat as a case study, as part of our Excel Training Course. It was created to help students understand how to use Excel for financial forecasting, but it’s also useful to those interested in constructing a granny flat on their property.

The first thing to consider is whether it’s viable to borrow money to fund your entire granny flat project. Most people add a granny flat to their property to earn an additional income by renting it out. If this is your intention, then you need to determine whether the granny flat will become a positive cash flow investment or a negative one.

The existing property

To begin, you must determine the value of the dwelling or existing property on the land you own. Is it brand new, relatively new, older style, or very old? You should have a quantity surveyor determine the value of the existing dwelling, to determine how much of the entire property’s value — that is, the house and land — is based on land value. In most cases, land value will far exceed the value of the dwelling, however many people are surprised to learn by how much, especially if the dwelling isn’t very old. Once you know the value of the dwelling, you may be able to claim depreciation as a tax deduction.

Development costs

You should now start to factor in the development costs associated with the project. This includes the cost of demolishing any existing structures — a garage or shed, for example — and remediation of the site in the event asbestos is present. You should also have a fairly good idea of what it will cost to construct the granny flat up to the stage where you can move in. Not all granny flat construction companies take you up to this stage, often exiting at lock-up stage instead. Don’t forget to include any council fees or levies associated with constructing your granny flat.

Expected income

In the Microsoft Excel case study, both the existing dwelling and the new granny flat will be rented out as investment properties. However, you may not do the same. You need to determine how much rental income you can reasonably expect to earn from your granny flat. You should also determine whether you’re located in a region with low rental vacancy rates and high demand for long term rentals. This will determine not just the net weekly income you can expect to receive, but also the frequency at which it will be occupied, which will also factor into your bottom line.

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Considering each of these areas is just the first step in developing a comprehensive financial forecast of your granny flat project. Our Microsoft Excel Training Course, with its new granny flats case study, goes into much greater detail. Bookkeepers can also keep up their certification and earn CPD points with our Excel, MYOB and Xero courses. Visit our website for more information on our full suite of training courses. 

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Video: Receive an Automatically Discounted Price for Online Course Enrolments!

Specials and Summer Training

2016-12-20 How to use the EzyLearn website to get discounts and special pricingIt’s Christmas time and we’ll be open every day (except the public holidays) which means you can make contact with questions or support during your course.

But best of all, we’re offering a fabulous special offer with a saving of over $300. Check out the quick video below which shows you how to get $663 dollars worth of training for just $296a saving of $337!

All you have to do is choose your courses at our Online Course Enrolment page and the discounts will be applied automatically.

Get New Skills for A New Year!

discounted Myob QuickBooks online courseWith the New Year coming fast we find most of our students are looking to change careers and/or up-skill so as to feel confident with their computer skills in job interviews and the like, so our current special offers will train you up to be your best, cheaply. Here’s all you need to do:

  1. Choose Microsoft Excel course (12 month’s access, all 9 courses and Certificate).
  2. Scroll down to the discounted courses section to see the Xero Training Course available for $30 less.
  3. Scroll down further to see the Microsoft Word Course (12 month’s access, all 9 courses and Certificate), which is normally $267 is now FREE
  4. Tick the box next to “Yes, I have a discount voucher code” and enter 8881818 to receive a further $70 discount off the Microsoft Excel course!

If you don’t have the time right now, don’t worry, you’ve got 12 months to complete all these courses at your own pace — so just enrol now to get the current special offers.

Watch this video to see how to get the discounts

New Online Courses for the New Year

It’s been a very busy year for new course creation and we’ve just launched two new courses that are all based on new online cloud-based services in bookkeeping and marketing/advertising. Read about them here:

QuickBooks Online

Provide quotes on your tablet computer, convert them to invoices when you get the order and take photographs of your receipts for expenses — works on your smartphone too. These are the features of America’s most popular accounting software program that is now aggressively promoting itself to Australian small businesses.

And what do we think? We believe QuickBooks is good software — find out more about our Intuit QuickBooks Daily Transactions Course.

Our New Digital & Social Media Marketing Course

Facebook and social media online training course
Tired of struggling to post consistently on Facebook and other social media sites? We’ve had a WordPress course for several years to teach you how to create your own website and blog, edit images, and optimise it for search engines (like Google). But if you’ve ever struggled with fleshing out a Facebook Page, or want to start promoting yourself or your business in social media, try our Digital Business and Social Media Marketing Courses.

We show you what you should include on a modern day website as well as including Facebook Page, Content Marketing and Facebook Advertising training (which we used to help Derek Farmer show up on Page 1 in Google for the competitive Cammeray Real Estate Agent search query).

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Most of all, from all of us here at EzyLearn, HAVE a FANTASTIC and SAFE Christmas — doing things you love!

Online computer training Christmas specials_comp

 

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Announcement: New Bundle Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook Courses

Critical Office Skills and Job Seeker Confidence with Microsoft Office Essentials

EzyLearn Microsoft Office Beginners Essentials logo croppedA HUGE PERCENTAGE of EzyLearn students complete an online course with us because they are looking for a new job. However, many people lack confidence because they are not competent using Microsoft Office software programs.

At EzyLearn, we have always included Beginners to Advanced-level training content for our software courses; we don’t want students wasting their time worrying about whether they should do Beginners, Intermediate or Advanced. That said, we’ve consistently had requests for a combination course.

Introducing our Microsoft Office Beginners Essentials software courses — One low price and free student inclusions.

Dropbox included

dropbox-logo-online training courseOne of the most powerful internet based applications that we use everyday is Dropbox. It’s powerful because it enables you to automatically backup any files you save into your Dropbox folder AND it enables you to access your files from any computer. When you delve deeper into Dropbox and start using it on your Smartphone you’ll also discover that every photo you take on your phone (and screen shot) can be automatically saved into your “Camera Uploads” folder within Dropbox so no matter how much phone storage space you have you’ll always have a copy of images in Dropbox.

The Dropbox Course is a Free Student Inclusion and compliments the Microsoft Office Beginners Essentials courses beautifully.

Microsoft Outlook Courses included

Microsoft Outlook product box software training courses 188wideI personally use Google Apps for emailing, contacts, calendar etc because many years ago when I made the switch it was free and Google’s email program (gmail) had the best SPAM filtering on the market so I was guaranteed to only receive the emails I wanted and not all the rubbish — before then I used Microsoft Outlook for many years. Our Microsoft Outlook courses will teach you how to:

  1. Manage your emails
  2. Manage your calendar and meeting appointments
  3. Manage contacts and use Outlook as a CRM
  4. Manage tasks and checklists

Our Microsoft Outlook training course is not available separately but is included as part of our Microsoft Office Beginners Essentials training courses. With a confident knowledge of all of these Microsoft Office Productivity programs you’ll perform better in any job interview and who knows maybe even be able to help other people in the organisation!

Would you like to be an EzyLearn Trainer?

earn money working from home using and teaching how to use MS Office, MYOB, WordPress, Facebook, Xero and moreWe’ve beefed up our EzyLearn Partner program — if you want to earn a couple hundred dollars a week OR make a living out of using and teaching people how to use computer software, Internet services, accounting software and online marketing, then take a look at our EzyLearn Partner page.