18% of MYOB course students want to start their own bookkeeping business
We use this blog to explore what is happening in the world of small business, including the technology they use and what they plan to use in the future. I’ve recently been speaking with a start up entrepreneur who has built a website that helps people like you and I find a place to park our car in our congested cities, by linking car space owners with car owners.
In the time we’ve known each other Daniel started with an idea and a passion to build his website and now has a live website for the world to use. Now that’s a start up business isn’t it? But what about your business?
A survey of students who have recently graduated from our Bookkeeping Academy after completing their MYOB training courses revealed that 18% of them want to start their own bookkeeping business. Is that a startup business? It is in my mind. It’s about having an idea and determination and the drive to start a brand new business and we are committed to helping startup bookkeepers build and grow their business.
The career and business building professionals at our Training Partners, Workface, write a blog about things that you can do to get that dream job or build that bookkeeping business you have thought about for years.
We are also in the production phase of some more great training videos about bookkeeping software that will come out shortly as part of our bookkeeping academy CPD program.
If you are aware of internet marketing coupon and discount voucher sites then you have probably heard about Groupon and Living Social. These are massive companies in the United States that make an offer available to their subscribers from local companies that are willing to heavily discount to find new customers.
EzyLearn has a Professional Partner network of companies that provide specialist services around our online training courses (including rehabilitation companies, bookkeepers, accountants, recruitment companies and more) and we have decided not to use group buying sites because of the conditions they impose. If we offer a discount coupon we prefer to offer it directly to you or through our partner network.
Today you can use the Discount voucher code in this post to receive an instant discount for enrolment into the MYOB Training Courses. Remember, that we already offer 5 courses for the usual price of one course and LIFETIME student access as well as student community support and career support so you can find work using your new skills.
This discount voucher is available for a limited time and can end at any moment, but the great news is that you have access to the course for the rest of your working life once you enrol. It also comes with a 7-day money back guarantee if you are not completely satisfied.
I was speaking with a business owner this morning and he mentioned that he was going to try a new accounting software SERVICE after a recommendation from his web guy? It made me ask the question: “Is your web or IT guy the source of recommendation about your bookkeeping software or is it your bookkeeper or accountant?”
In my previous blog post where we included a free training video about performing a bank reconciliation using MYOB, I mentioned some other bookkeeping software programs that compete with MYOB but the program that my business owner friend talked about was from a Canadian company called Kashoo…It then dawned on me that of all the bookkeeping programs only one of them is Australian owned anyway, SAASU. MYOB is now owned by US Private Equity, Xero is a New Zealand public company, Freshbooks is US based and Kashoo is a Canadian company.
This adds to the impetus behind local Australian bookkeepers having to compete with international remote workers for bookkeeping work… but more about that another time.
The good news right now is the MYOB is a clear market leader for use in most small businesses and if you are looking to earn a living as an accounting employee or independent contractor the chances are you will need to know how to use MYOB Accounting software. We try to make it easier by providing LIFETIME student access and all five MYOB Training Courses for one low price!
We will be reviewing the online accounting software mentioned in this blog post so make sure you subscribe to receive the reviews as they arrive.
We use this blog to provide some free samples of our training materials as well as inform readers about the features of our online MYOB and Microsoft Excel Training Courses. Today I am going to demonstrate the key features about performing a bank reconciliation using MYOB and how our EzyLearn ANSWER student support service helps bookkeeping students.
A bank reconciliation in MYOB is what brings your MYOB datafile back to reality. Your bank statement shows the truth about what money has gone into and out of your bank account and provides you with the blueprint you need to reconcile your MYOB accounting system. The video below demonstrates that once you have performed all your Day-to-Day Transactions a bank reconciliation makes sure that you have entered all the information you need to. At the end of a bank reconciliation your MYOB data is correct and you can start to run reports and get some great up-to-date information about your business.
MYOB releases new versions of their software most years and usually at the beginning of each new tax year to coincide with new PAYG tax tables and they are currently going through a race to the cloud to compete with many new startups like Xero, SAASU, Reach Accounting and FreshBooks. Some times these upgrades haven’t gone smoothly and students ask us how to perform actions in our training workbooks using MYOB. To help students in these scenarios we launch EzyLearn ANSWERS in May 2011 and this is one of the results we release via our blog. There are many other support blogs we’ve written so feel free to search our blog for answers.
If you have subscribed to our blog and are reading this via email, click on the heading to get to our website to see the free training video.
We use this blog post to introduce new content for our online MYOB training courses as well as our Excel, Word and WordPress courses. This new content has been created after a MYOB Course Q&A Support request from Andrea in New Zealand.
We wrote a blog post in September 2011 about data file formats that are used in our MYOB Bank Reconciliation Training Course. In that blog post we wrote about exporting the accounts list that MYOB uses as the foundation for the company file and that all transactions are then based on. This accounts list is known in the accounting world as your Chart of Accounts.
Today we announce some new training videos for our MYOB Reporting and GST Course (code 504). It covers the exporting of Payroll information from MYOB of employee card files and Payroll information using both the Report Centre in MYOB AccountRight version 12 as well as the Import/Export wizard.
As an EzyLearn student you receive LIFETIME access to the MYOB Training Courses so feel free to login to the training site and go to the GST and Reporting Course to view videos 504301 and 504302. If you are not a student learn about what’s included in our training courses and see why hundreds of students enrol with us every year.
This is a tool that I use all the time when I am surfing and searching the Internet and I thought you’d be interested to learn about it.
My last post was about the new WordPress search field we implemented on our WordPress Employment Training Blog site but it occurred to me that you might like to use a great search tool you are already using – Google.
If you want to search for PAYG and Microsoft Excel information in our blog site, you simply need to type the following information into the Google search box:
payg excel site:ezylearn.com.au/wordpress
You will end up seeing results very similar to the image in this blog post. Notice that you:
Type the word site: before the domain name of the website you want to search
Don’t need to type www
Can search within sections of a website (ie. the /wordpress)
We’ve written over 200 blog posts since 2008 and we’ve found them to be very popular but some readers have mentioned that it is hard to go back and find ones that they were very interested in reading again so we’ve done something simple. Added a search box. I know, it seems simple but it took a reader to ask for us to implement it. Thank YOU 🙂
While we are on this topic, did you know that we use WordPress to manage our blog site? It’s a great blogging platform but even fantastic for just creating a normal website that you can edit and make changes to as you please. The best part is that it’s open source so effectively it’s free! All you have to do is learn how to use it and we have a course just for it, our WordPress Website Design Course and just like our MYOB Training Courses it comes with LIFETIME student access.
So, if you want to find out the blog post where we wrote about PAYG tax tables and how you can workout the taxes that you owe for employees doing a search for “payg excel” and you’ll come up with these results. See what else you can discover.
Today we announce the official launch of our Student Career Support services. We have a new team member on board and her role is to help us provide extra support to help students find, apply for and get their next bookkeeping job.
When you enrol into our MYOB Bookkeeping Training Courses with the lifetime membership and certificate option you will now receive access to our Career Support Services for free. We’ll help you find bookkeeping jobs, prepare your resume and cover letters as well as follow-up letters and letters of recommendation for students who join our Bookkeeping Academy CPD program.
Not only will you learn new skills using Australia’s leading accounting software program, lifetime access to use the training material as your own personal resource and a Certificate, but we’ll help you refine your job seeking skills and tools to help you get your next bookkeeping job.
As part of the research into our Continuing Professional Development (CPD) program for MYOB training course students we are exploring different webinar platforms and we thought you’d be interested to learn about it. For existing EzyLearn students it will mean free MYOB Bookkeeping webinars in the coming months.
We’re proud of our online MYOB training courses and thousands of students are too, but we’ve found that students are interested in lots of other skills relating to earning money for themselves as either an employee or a contractor. Things like using Word to write a resume, using WordPress to manage their own website, how to use online CRM (Customer Relationship Management) programs to keep track of all their contacts etc. We mentioned in a early blog post about our plans to provide more training resources for working mums and we’re getting closer to our final goal.
The purpose of a webinar is to deliver educational content similar to what you would experience with a seminar except that you save on time, travel, money, petrol and you can even watch the presentation at a later date. Our team has been in contact with accountants, career professionals, online service providers and a host of other industry professionals who will be providing information, training and tips and tricks at our webinars and I hope you can join us in this journey.
If you are an existing student and have some idea or suggestions of topics that you would like us to cover, this is your chance. Send your suggestions to sales@ezylearn.com.au and we’ll discover the most popular and work on a schedule for the rest of the year. If you are not a student yet, this is the time to enrol. Stay tuned for more updates shortly.
As part of our CPD program for bookkeepers we are discovering, compiling and happily sharing the results of our research. In this blog post we reveal a valuable link of essential tools for bookkeepers.
As a bookkeeper you help you clients with ABN information, Business Activity Statements, Payroll and PAYG Informtion and a host of other activities. It is also common for you to be more accessable than a business’s own accountant so you are often asked for official information relating to communications with the Australian Tax Office.
This link is an essential tool for bookkeepers because it contains a table of links and instructions about topics you may be asked about as a bookkeeper.
I’ve written a series of blog posts about various aspects of resume writing and other tips you can use to help secure the next great job and it’s fitting that we explore why Linkedin is a serious place for you to promote your MYOB Bookkeeping skills.
I was fortunate enough to attend a social media club (Sydney) education event that was presented by the managing director of Linkedin and he went to great lengths to explain just how deep the company wants to go into the recruitment and talent market. Upon visiting various parts of the LinkedIn website I found some links that might further encourage you to recognise the importance of Linkedin in your employment or business building journey.
Linkedin has a page for talent departments and case studies for companies that have used their services and employers can even place recruitment ads within the site to clearly target the right job applicants.
We found a great article written by Susan Heathfield about how Linkedin is being used as a recruitment tool for the HR team at many businesses. Do you need help in your job searching strategy? Stay tuned.
There have been some big tax changes this year and as part of our Bookkeepers Continuing Professional Development Program and our MYOB Training Courses we’re writing some short articles about key information that you can pass onto your customers or employers regarding their bookkeeping.
In conjunction with the recent announcements regarding the carbon tax, the ATO has made significant changes with regard to the Tax Free Threshold and Write-off for capital purchases.
Businesses with less than $2M turnover previously had to depreciate any assets which cost more than $1,000 over several years. From 1 July 2012 this has changed to a whopping $6,500. If you buy an asset valued at say, $5000, it can be “expensed” straight away, no need to include it in your depreciation schedule. It’s like an instant expense which reduces your taxable income .
The benefits are aimed towards smaller business owners as it affects their cash flow almost immediately, rather than being depreciated and split over a number of years. Want to receive these tips and tricks in your email inbox? Subscribe now and remain continually updated.
We’ve added new training content to our MYOB Reporting course about how to handle these tasks at the end of each financial year as part of our constant content updates. Make sure you subscribe to this blog to be abreast of all new training content as well as some free tips and tricks.
We help people earn money as independent contractors as well as employees with our WordPress Website Design and Blogging Course and as a result we learn about internet issues that face our students and customers. We recently heard about something that would interest most people with their own website.
A customer was waiting to receive an order and was shocked to hear that emails being sent to their email address were being blocked. This began a long journey of discovery and if you have a heart for technical mumbo jumbo read on. If you know someone with their own website and domain name pass this onto them because they may experience the same problem.
What’s your IP address?
It all comes down to IP Addresses. An IP address identifies you via your connection to the Internet it also helps browsers locate a website that they’re looking for. Did you ever wonder how police are able to confirm that a criminal was looking at a specific websites? Remember the Collar Bomb Hoax in Sydney?
The modem in your home or office that connects you to your ISP has an IP address. Sometimes this IP address is fixed and sometimes it is temporary (also called dynamic) and it’s very easy to find out what your IP address is, just go to http://whatismyipaddress.com/ and your IP Address will be displayed on the website. Yep, that’s right, every website you visit can keep track of your IP address, even the training site for our online MYOB, Excel and WordPress courses keeps a record of the IP address you log into from!
What’s the IP Address of your website?
Every website you visit is really just a number of website files stored on a “host” computer somewhere in the world and most host computers also host other websites (unless you spend a couple hundred dollars per month for a dedicated server). This means that if another website is sending a lot of spam or even if their hosting has been hacked and spam is being sent illegally then the reputation of your website may also be affected. The good news is that these issues are often identified quickly and can be rectified quickly as well, but they are still a pain in the #$&web!
What can cause the problem?
Click on the image to see a larger version
The problem that we recently experienced was caused by a blacklisting at Barracuda Central, but rather than telling us exactly what the problem was, we were given a list of potential causes. See if one of these has ever happened to you? What you might notice as very strange is that the problem could even have been caused by a local PC that is infected with a virus!
As you might imagine there are services available that claim to “protect” you from this type of thing happening again, but they charge a fee. We like the comment made at the WhatisMyIPAddress.com website:
WhatIsMyIPAddress.com does not run, manage, or have any direct relationship with any blacklist. We provide a single location to check the status of an IP address on 3rd party blacklists. WhatIsMyIPAddress.com does not recommend the usage of any specific blacklist and does not condone blacklists that require payment for removal. Our inclusion of such blacklists are for the purposes of completeness and should not be consider to be in support of that blacklist’s usage.
Do you want to read some more?
This is a great explanation of what a blacklist is and how they work, and if you want to read more about a company that wants to help you not get blacklisted read the about us at EmailReg.org.
You’ll be thrilled to hear that the problem was resolved. We asked to have the blacklisting removed, we signed up to EmailReg.org and did some tests, but we never found out exactly what caused the blacklisting and what we did to get of that blacklist….
Are you still receiving your Business Activity Statements via mail? We receive our notification that the BAS is ready at the ATO’s Business Portal but the Business Portal is much more useful than just a way to deliver your BAS.
There are some great features of online tax lodgement:
You can lodge your BAS immediately online
You can see historical lodgements
You can change your contact details
The most complicated part of dealing direct with the ATO is the setting up of a digital certificate, but once that is sorted out you have all the convenience that you have come to expect from your internet banking and any other online service. All the information is there, you don’t have to rely on the mail to send or receive your BAS and you know exactly where you stand. If you have missed a lodgement you’ll also find that information at the portal.
The website address for the portal is https://bp.ato.gov.au/ so check it out and get through your compliance issues faster.
Our MYOB Reporting, GST and BAS course (which includes bank reconciliation) shows you how to get to the BASlink to produce a BAS using the data that you have already entered into MYOB. If you have entered everything correctly you will just need to complete your contact name and number and how long it took to complete. Then you can print that form out and keep it in your records. The information you see in the totals can then simply be entered in the Business Portal and submitted to lodge your BAS and get your compliance tasks out of the way so you can focus on running your business.
I’ve recently attended some business building and networking events and have been fascinated at the number of people who speak about the importance good first impressions and having a professional website. What’s most amazing is that many of these people have a website that hasn’t changed in 2 years!
The most important thing about a website though is that it is often the first time potential customers get to know something about you and how you operate your business. Your warehouse and office are things that they may never see, plus, you can use your website to give them some important information that makes them buy from you straight away.
Our WordPress course contains all the training you need to setup a professional website and start adding and modifying the images and words when and as you please. Plus, we have cheap student hosting through 123ezy online services. If you are an MYOB student that wants to start their own business, this is the next course you should take.
We’ve made a simple online MYOB quiz available for anyone who wants to test their MYOB bookkeeping skills. It’s a very simple test designed to show people how online knowledge tests work and also have some fun and see how much they know. We did an export of all the results (minus the students details of course) and you can see them in our Microsoft Excel Training Course.
These test results show how long it took students to complete the test, their results, overall score and more and the datafile is available in our Microsoft Excel Course 308 which includes:
Understand 3D formulas between worksheets, cleaning up data using advanced filter, create a pivot table and change the value field settings, create a pivot chart to visually show the stats, using advanced functions like CHOOSE, VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP, MATCH and INDEX, look at advanced functions within functions (Nested Functions) and how to protect the worksheet and workbooks
The knowledge reviews in our online training courses are much bigger and more complicated and they provide us with a great tool to identify areas of difficulty for students and help us constantly update and improve our MYOB training courses.
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Xero is a great bookkeeping program for tradies who are on the go and using their phones (or a tablet) all the time. From receipts scanning to creating quotes and invoices, receiving payments and keeping track of project costs.
bookkeepercourse.com.au/produ…
