Computer Software Training Archives - Page 30 of 33

Posted on March 16, 2012March 13, 2012 by Steve Slisar

New Training Material: Advanced Microsoft Excel 2010 videos

Sometimes we use the EzyLearn blog to provide some free tips from new training material that we create, like manipulating Pivot Tables we mentioned earlier in the week. Today we are announcing that 14 new training videos are now available for our advanced Microsoft Excel course (number 308).

This is the list of videos that are now available:

Video for 3.1.1 – Using AutoFilter

Video for 4.1.1 part 1 – Cleaning up data using AutoFilter

Video for 4.1.1 part 2 – Cleaning up data using AutoFilter

Video for 5.1.1 – Perform an Advanced Filter

Video for 5.1.2 – Advanced Filter using Wildcards (search text within cells)

Video for 5.1.3 – Advanced Filter for multiple search criteria

Video for 5.1.3 – Narrowing search results using Advanced Filter

Video for 6.1.1 – Inserting a Pivot Table

Video for 6.1.2 – Filtering data in a Pivot table

Video for 6.1.3 – Sort dates by month in a pivot table

Video for 6.1.5 – Changing the value field settings in a pivot table

Video for 7 – Creating pivot table charts

Video for 8.1.1 – Get months values using the Choose function

Video for 8.1.2 – Show grades for student results data using CHOOSE function

Our new video references match the many exercise tasks you can complete to master the skills taught in the videos. Everything you watch in the videos you can re-produce using the exercise files that come with the course. The training workbooks contain step by step instructions so you can print them out and practice where-ever you are.

If you are an existing EzyLearn student with LIFETIME access you’ll have access to these new videos and all new content that we create. Stay tuned for more updates soon as we create new videos for the other advanced Excel topics covered in courses 308 and 309. Plus we’ll show you how to create your own macros.

If you like what you read and want to enrol to take advantage of lifetime student access as well as access to all levels of Microsoft Excel for just one price, use our enrolment form. Enrol into the Excel course today and start by 5pm tomorrow (next business day).

Posted on March 15, 2012March 13, 2012 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

Live Excel Pivot-Table Stats: self-paced learning versus class-based training

Want to see some live data from when we operated our Sydney-based training centre? We conducted courses for Absolute Beginners (we call it Computer Learners now), Microsoft Word and Excel, MYOB Accounting software for bookkeeping and others. We also offered different start times and different methods of delivery including self-paced (which has evolved into online) as well as class-based training courses.

The data in this free Microsoft Excel training video is taken from our student enrolment database the same year we created our first training videos. We created these videos to make them available to students who couldn’t fit into a schedule or wanted a more personalised training experience. Want to learn more about my fond journey in computer training? Feel free to also subscribe to my small business blog while you are at that site.

If you are reading this as an email, click on the heading to get to our blog site and enjoy the free training video about Pivot Tables using Microsoft Excel (the exercise file is provided in our Excel Training Course) and shows live data of enrolments for that year. We used a pivot table to find out:

The popular courses,
The popular training methods
The popular start times for courses.

Can you see in the video which year the data is from? Back then we had experienced trainer like Maria Landrelli and Marie Diblasio to deliver our popular MYOB Day-to-Day courses to find work as a bookkeeper.

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Posted on March 15, 2012May 17, 2019 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

Do you need more customers, more people, or more time?

I was going through our EzyLearn blog library of articles today. In doing so, I was reminded that we started blogging back in 2007.

This was one year after we closed our three Sydney-based computer training centres to focus solely on online training courses.

After reading some of the old posts, I again realised just how much work is involved in maintaining a blog!

The Necessity of Blogging

When I analyse the workload of the EzyLearn team members and the hours we spend creating step-by-step training workbooks, training videos, knowledge reviews and assessment tasks, I realise that it is all very necessary.

Back in 2007, blogging wasn’t new. In fact, many people had heard of it but most small businesses (or large ones) weren’t really doing it much.

We at EzyLearn wrote a workbook to teach people how to use WordPress and it highlights one of the most important parts of being a training organisation. This being, to study what is new and understand how it will affect businesses and employees that use technology into the future.

This blog you are reading right now is read by a lot of other people and it highlights:

Our commitment to keeping you informed
The range of skills our team has
The number of customers who come to us as a result of reading this blog

Why Blog?

Why am I talking about this? One of our most popular online courses is the MYOB Bookkeeping Course and a lot of people who complete this course want to start their own business.

These same people are keen to build their customer base enabling them to work their own hours, use their brains and earn a good living.

Having a website with built-in blogging functionality based on the WordPress Content Management System is a fantastic way to tell people what you know and drum up new customers. It enables you to keep in contact with people, keep giving them information with no strings attached, and remain top of mind.

Blogging and “content marketing” just takes a bit of time to learn and then keep up to date, but you’ll end up with more customers and won’t have to pay for Google Adwords! 🙂

Posted on March 14, 2012March 13, 2012 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

New Macros in Excel Course to handle prepayments

We are please to announce that our most advanced Microsoft Excel course (course 309) now includes a training exercise on Macros!

You may recall we asked the question as to whether it is better to give a discount and accept prepayments or to charge your normal price and chase invoices and statements? Well, we got our Microsoft Excel expert to create a simple table that enables us to keep track of prepayments as well as incremental reductions from this prepayment.

This file is a great tool to keep track of how much credit a customer has if you decide to invoice them in advance. There is a way of accepting prepayments in MYOB and our MYOB expert and resident BAS Agent is currently putting a guide together on how to handle prepayments using MYOB. Using Excel can be a handy replacement for using MYOB in this one aspect of your business.

Best of all, Karen created a short guide that we have added to the 309 course training manual which explains how to replicate what she created. Both the Workbook and the demonstration file that Karen created are now at the learning site.

Posted on March 3, 2012June 4, 2012 by Steve Slisar — 2 Comments

Want to operate your own online training business?

Every business owner makes decisions about how they want to grow the business and the different “channels to market” are discussed in strategic management textbooks regularly. In 2010 EzyLearn made an executive decision to build a Partner program so that other companies can benefit by working with us and our training courses and content.

We explored many options including affiliate marketing and in 2012 our line up of available partner plans has evolved completely. You can start with

some code which can go onto a page on your website and receive a commission for each sale,
you can have a new website commissioned with all the information about our online courses and an enrolment form where you receive the payments, or
you can plug right into the EzyLearn enrolment process and receive payments from the general public.

If you are interested to learn more complete our online training business opportunities application form and begin your journey.

Posted on March 2, 2012February 28, 2012 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

Can MYOB repay it’s debts with its head in the clouds?

We wrote back in early 2010 about what appeared to be a revolutionary move at the time about MYOB founder Craig Winkler jumping ship and moving to Xero. In the recent bad press about the bug-ridden upgrade of MYOB AccountRight 2011 there is an interesting mention about Cloud Based accounting and MYOB’s goals to get into that space.

In the past 12 months we have worked with as well as provided training for many virtual assistants (remote contractors) and we’ve come into contact with other cloud-based accounting/bookkeeping services you might like to know about. Our pick of the bunch would have to be SAASU at this stage because they have a product that is perfect for remote contractors or micro businesses.

It appears that Xero and SAASU own the online accounting market space but it will be interesting to see how MYOB go as they diversify into cloud accounting as well as their many other products like website hosting, which we’ve never really understood when there are market leaders like MelbourneIT and NetRegistry as well as thousands of small providers.

While we’re on the topic of cloud, here’s a little plug for virion business grade voip. Our trainers have compiled an Excel spreadsheet to demonstrate the cost savings of VoIP over traditional telephony and this year we will have some training for IT Consultants about the Siemens Gigaset office phones.

Posted on March 1, 2012February 28, 2012 by Steve Slisar

Is it better to repay your debts or prepay with discounts?

The recent bad news about MYOB AccountRight 2011 demonstrates the risks involved when you borrow money for any venture (MYOB have a $575M loan that they need to repay). The money needs to be paid back and luckily you can use MYOB software to keep track of what is owed to you. It also brings up the question of rather than having a debt to repay can you pre sell what you do (at a large discount)?

We are asked many questions in our MYOB online training course support service we call “EzyLearn ANSWERS” and one of the recent questions was “what is the best way of keeping track of Prepayments”. We took the question to our Registered BAS Agent and MYOB Tutor as well as our Microsoft Excel Expert and we’ve come up with two scenarios, one using MYOB and one using Microsoft Excel.

What is the best solution?

You could use MYOB to handle pre-payments, or you could use it as a simple track of the lump sum payment you’ve received into your bank account and use Excel to enter the day to day information about how and when that prepayment is used.

We’ve created an Excel “Handy file” for you and we’ve putting the finishing touches on the workbook that explains how to do it using both Excel and MYOB so stay tuned to this blog or subscribe to receive these blog posts via email as they are published.

Need something created in Excel? Enrol into the online Microsoft Excel course and use EzyLearn ANSWERS to put it to our Excel guru.

Posted on February 29, 2012February 28, 2012 by Steve Slisar — 3 Comments

Accountants now refusing to recommend MYOB

As part of our commitment to create new training content every quarter for our online MYOB training course we’ve added some addendums to the bank reconciliation and payroll courses in line with the latest version of MYOB AccountRight Plus available. Many Accountants however are not recommending that their clients make the upgrade.

We received some complaints from students about issues they experienced with the MYOB Bank Reconciliation and Payroll Intro courses and as a result our Registered BAS Agent and MYOB Tutor, Jacci, went through the course and wrote some notes to help students come up with the correct results.

Just as we suspected after speaking with bookkeepers and accountants it appears there are major flaws with the current version of the software and it’s affecting the revenue of MYOB Professional Partners and Consultants (who are being encouraged not to share the information).

It’s times like these that we are all tested as trainers, installation consultants, bookkeepers etc to be confident that we are doing our best to use the software to provide the information that we need. It’s also a good time to understand the benefits of having alternative ways of working with your data (ie. using a spreadsheet like Microsoft Excel) to perform calculations for PAYG and Superannuation.

Posted on February 23, 2012February 21, 2012 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

Are you a mum returning to work? Receive an instant discount coupon!

Our online training courses help people gain new skills and keep job seekers up-to-date with software so they are confident in job interviews. They also provide skills to create their own resumes.

Our training includes

website design and blogging using WordPress,
office administration using Microsoft Office and
bookkeeping using MYOB

We believe we have the best solution for online training in Australia but we always want to be certain by understanding what students want in an online training course.

Features like training videos, knowledge reviews, LIFETIME course access, Tutor Support and Student Community enable students to immerse themselves in the training and make it less stressful. After all, who does a course because they enjoy it? We all know that structured learning is something we do because we have to if we want to get ahead!

Complete the Training Course Needs Assessment and receive an instant discount for one of our online training courses. Tell us what you are looking for and be rewarded. You can forward the reward to someone else if you don’t need it now.

Posted on February 21, 2012February 21, 2012 by Steve Slisar

Do you pay yourself but don’t use the Payroll feature of MYOB?

Sometimes we use the EzyLearn Blog to inform readers about general course information. Today we’re announcing a new exercise file that is included in our Microsoft Excel Course 308 (which covers Macros) as well as the MYOB Payroll Course.

If you are a small business owner and you only have yourself or a handful of employees you might come across the dilemma about how to keep a record of payments you’ve made to yourself so that you can pay the correct amount of PAYG, Super etc. If your business is only small you may decide not to purchase and use the full MYOB AccountRight Plus version of MYOB accounting software and opt to keep Payroll records separately or in an Excel spreadsheet.

In a previous post we mentioned that one of our course content creators was working on a spreadsheet to help with PAYG and Super calculations for BAS reporting. Well it’s now ready (AND there’s more to come).

The Excel spreadsheet we have created enables you to enter the total amount that you have paid to an employee (or yourself) and calculates the PAYG and Superannuation that is payable for that amount (you can adjust the superannuation rate). All you have to do now is enter the payment into MYOB and your compliance is assured.

This file is handy if you pay yourself irregularly or differing amounts as you need it. Using this PAYG spreadsheet you simply enter the total amount you’ve paid yourself (or an employee) over the quarter and it finds how much you need to pay in PAYG and Super.

This excel file uses the VLOOKUP command in Microsoft Excel and the tax tables for weekly pay at the ATO website. If you are an existing student you’ll find the exercise file in the Excel 308 course (under the heading Handy Files). This course covers 3D formulas, CHOOSE, VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP, MATCH and INDEX, nested functions and how to protect worksheets.

Did you know that when you enrol into the EzyLearn online Microsoft Excel course that all levels are included for the one price? This also includes access to new content as it is created and you have lifetime access.

Posted on February 16, 2012February 16, 2012 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

What do you want in a training course?

Sometimes we use the EzyLearn blog to learn more about what you are looking for in a training course, particularly if you have not done a course with us before. As a thank you for sharing your opinions with us you’ll receive a discount coupon for one of our courses and updates about special offers.

We’ve assembled a simple Course Needs Assessment to understand what you are looking for. With online training courses and support for MYOB bookkeeping software, WordPress website design and blogging software and Microsoft Office, we cover a wide range of topics.

Our courses are for:

Job seekers,
Those already in a job and
People seeking skills to operate their own business

Each category of student has slightly different needs and we want to make sure we are catering for your training needs.

Complete this brief questionnaire to join the “specials” list and receive a discount coupon code for one of our online courses.

Posted on February 15, 2012February 15, 2012 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

Is your WordPress website secure?

This is a general announcement to anyone with a WordPress website. We have a WordPress Webmasters course to help small business owners setup their own website or blog and also to help individuals learn about WordPress so that they can earn a living creating websites, blogging and participating in social media.

You may recall that this EzyLearn Blog was actually affected by a WordPress Malware attack back in mid November 2011. It’s a known fact that there are occasional vulnerabilities in all sorts of software and that includes online software (they call them scripts rather than programs), like WordPress.

The recent issue with WordPress was caused by the TimThumb.php script for inserting, cropping, editing images etc and rather than go into the details here are some links that you’ll find interesting.

Trend Micro wrote a blog about it
The WordPress Plugin Market now has Vulnerability Scanner that you can install onto your website to identify the risk and provides a resolution.
There is a website that you can use to scan any website to see if it contains malware or other risks.

Why are we writing this post? Because it highlights the importance of using a theme club or theme maker that constantly updates the themes they create.

We recommend ElegantThemes and Woothemes and they both wrote articles about the vulnerability when it was discovered and provided updated themes with the risk removed.

See the articles from ElegantThemes and WooThemes.

If you want to learn more about our WordPress online Training Course contents, pricing etc please visit our WordPress Course website: www.wordpresscourse.com.au.

Posted on February 13, 2012February 10, 2012 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

Statement of formulas for calculating PAYG amounts to be withheld

The MYOB Payroll Training Course is in stage two of development. The contents of our existing Payroll course give students an introduction to how to navigate around and get fundamental information about the payroll environment in the sample company file. As part of our constant improvement process we are developing payroll scenarios as exercises for our students. This new content when published will be available for all existing Payroll Students and all those who have enrolled with the LIFETIME training course Access option.

Which table to use?

The ATO release papers that provide you with the information you need to perform your calculations regarding PAYG, super etc. In this blog post we look at Schedule 1 Pay as you go (PAYG) withholding NAT 1004. If you take a look at table 7 on page (see diagram on this page) you’ll see the variables or what the Australian Tax Office call coefficients.

New Spreadsheet for Excel and MYOB students

One of our content creators is in the process of creating an Excel spreadsheet as a simple tool to help you work out how much PAYG tax and super you owe at the end of quarterly BAS reporting period. It’s a tool that we will offer both Microsoft Excel and MYOB Training Course students when it’s ready. And no, before you think of asking, it won’t cost you any extra money to receive it. It’s available as part of our LIFETIME student access.

Posted on February 9, 2012February 7, 2012 by Steve Slisar

Hello to New Zealanders

Sometimes we use the EzyLearn Blog to inform readers about who uses our online MYOB training courses. We received an email from a New Zealand student and we have had many New Zealanders enrol into our MYOB Training Courses.

MYOB is an international business that started humbly many years ago in Australia but sold recently to a private equity firm, valuing the business at over $1 Billion dollars. You can see from a recent Bloomberg article that the value of MYOB has grown significantly in recent years.

MYOB, Craig Winkler, Xero and Online Accounting

While we are on the topic of big business and who’s buying what, you might be very interested to know that MYOB founder Craig Winkler closed his account with the company he started in back in 1987, to become a major shareholder in New Zealand publicly listed online accounting company and rival called Xero.

Online accounting appears to be the domain of online workers like website developers and we have had very little demand for MYOB Live Accounts (online accounting competitor to Xero) so as yet we don’t cover MYOB Live Accounts. We wrote an article about cloud based software and it’s importance in the rise of remote contractors (Virtual Assistants) back in August 2010 so feel free to learn a bit more about cloud based software services.

We can help New Zealanders

Until then, we just wanted to say that if you are from New Zealand and you want to learn about MYOB accounting software, we can help you. I also want to add that if you are an existing EzyLearn student and you want to highlight some of the difference between the Australian training videos and the New Zealand version of the software, send us an email to sales@ezylearn.com.au, we’ll get Jacci (our resident BAS Agent) to write something up and include it in our course.

To see the full list of topics included in our online MYOB training course visit our website and REMEMBER, we offer all our MYOB Courses (including updated and new content) for one price AND you receive LIFETIME access.

Posted on February 7, 2012April 3, 2012 by Steve Slisar — 2 Comments

Having problems with bank reconciliations using MYOB AccountRight Plus version 2011?

Sometimes we use the EzyLearn Blog to inform readers about modifications to our MYOB online training course. We’ve received feedback in the MYOB Support area from students that elements of our MYOB Bank Reconciliation course are coming up with errors when they use the most recent version of the MYOB software.

One of the great aspects about coming across problems in a course is that it replicates the type of problems you’ll experience in the workplace or while managing your own business. Jacci, our resident BAS Agent has gone through the steps in the course and identified potential issues. She has written up a concise guide that is now included in the bank reconciliation course (#503) to help you balance the books using MYOB.

If you come across problems or issues please feel free to use the EzyLearn ANSWERS service we launched in May 2011. It is part of our growing support options for students. If you operate a small business and want to know something or if you come across an issue that is not covered by the training in our existing course let us know because EzyLearn courses are LIVE courses, they are growing every month with new content that you don’t have to pay extra to use.

Oh, before I leave you on this blog post I want to highlight our new student support option we launched last month – Tutor Support and Student Community – it’s a way to connect with other students and have direct contact with our professional tutors who have real life experience using the software in their daily business life.

Posted on February 6, 2012February 7, 2012 by Steve Slisar

How long will an online training course take?

Sometimes we use the EzyLearn Blog to inform readers about general course information. Our online courses are completely self-paced so you can complete the online MYOB course in 7 days, 2 to 3 weeks or just use it as a resource.

It’s that time of the year when traditional training centres start their class-based training courses. When EzyLearn operated three physical training centres in Sydney we spent a lot of time scheduling which courses. We asked ourselves questions like

What day should the course start
Which course should be held on a Tuesday/Wednesday etc
Should we schedule it for the morning, all day, evening or Saturday
How many weeks should the course last
Which training room and centres should we hold the course,
Who will the trainer be
Is the trainer available

Office administration (Microsoft Word and Excel etc), MYOB (Bookkeeping software), Website Design (using WordPress) and Absolute Beginners courses have always been scheduled this way so people are used to talking about courses this way. One of the most common questions we get asked is “how long will it take?” and our first temptation is to say “How long do you want it to take”.

Our online MYOB training course includes 5 courses for the price you’d expect to pay for one course (It includes MYOB Setup, Day-to-Day Transactions, Reporting & BAS and MYOB Payroll Intro) and the contents of the course is what we used to cover in approximately 4 full time days of training.

Another great aspect about an online training course is you can use it for the rest of your working life without paying any extra (if you choose that enrolment option). So you can complete just the MYOB Day-to-Day Transactions course (# 502) and when you need it you can complete the Bank Reconciliation and BAS courses.

To enrol into our online MYOB training course click here.

In the forthcoming weeks we are going to write about

Using Microsoft Excel to enter Payroll information and then enter that information into MYOB
Differences between MYOB AccountRight version 2011 and previous versions
New content for the MYOB Payroll Course

We’ll also introduce you to Jerry Lame. He’s the new Ordinary Man. Follow Jerry’s journey of starting a business, writing business plans, creating a budget and forecasts and then implementing it. You’ll learn how to use software for practical purposes along the way.

If you don’t want to miss out on this information, make sure you subscribe to our blog using the form below:

Category: Computer Software Training