Posted on April 20, 2024April 17, 2024 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

Do You Need a Bookkeeper or an Accountant? Or Someone Else?

There are many finance professionals — who does your business need?

WE’VE MENTIONED PREVIOUSLY THAT finding a bookkeeper, when you may not know much about bookkeeping, can be a difficult task.

In fact, a lot of new business owners assume their accountant will take care of everything for them, which may be costly if their accountant has to perform a year’s worth of bookkeeping in order to file the business’s tax return. But bookkeepers and accountants can work harmoniously in your business.

As a general rule, every business needs at least two finance professionals working on their business accounts, but which two professionals you’ll need to hire depends on your business needs. If you’re not sure who you need to hire for your business, here’s a cheat sheet to help you out.

Bookkeepers (not registered with the TPB)

An independent bookkeeper not employed by an accountant and not registered with the Tax Practitioner’s Board (TPB) may only perform basic bookkeeping services, such as the

entering of receipts,
coding financial transactions,
generating invoices and purchase orders
accounts receivable and accounts payable

If you hire this type of bookkeeper, you’ll still need an accountant.

BAS agents

BAS agents must, by law, register with the Tax Practitioner’s Board (TPB), which certifies that they are qualified and have completed the necessary continuing education requirements to perform the tasks of a BAS agent, which involves carrying out most of the bookkeeping tasks mentioned above, in addition to preparing and lodging business activity statements on a business’s behalf.

If your business is registered for GST, you will need to file regular activity statements. If you hire a BAS agent, you’ll also need an accountant. In some instances, you may find a BAS agent who’s also a registered tax agent and vice versa, who may be able to take care of all your taxation needs.

Tax agents

Although tax agents, like BAS agents, must also register with the Tax Practitioner’s Board (TPB), a tax agent is focused on income tax — how much income you have to declare, how much you can claim back, etc.

This is distinct from a BAS agent who is concerned with the day-to-day financial tasks of your business (bookkeeping and BAS lodgements). That said, some tax agents will also perform some the basic bookkeeping tasks on a regular basis, though they primarily specialise in lodging tax returns.

If you’re not registered for GST, and your tax agent will also perform regular bookkeeping tasks (or you can do it yourself), you may not need to hire an accountant. In some instances, you may find a tax agent who’s also a registered BAS agent and vice versa, who may be able to take care of all your taxation needs.

Accountants

An accountant is mostly concerned with planning and strategy. Unlike bookkeepers and BAS or tax agents, an accountant will assess and advise you on what actions you should take to maximise your income. Great accountants will get involved with planning the direction of your business and ensure it’s been structured properly and that you’re meeting any additional tax obligations.

They’ll also help you to make strategic purchases for equipment and machinery, and work with your BAS agent or bookkeeper to ensure these decisions are reflected in your daily financial records. An accountant is also able to prepare and lodge tax returns on your behalf.

How much should I pay a bookkeeper?

Check out the National Bookkeeping Directory, which features the details of bookkeepers, capable of doing data entry and clerical tasks, through to high-level accounting work as undertaken by BAS agents, accountants and CFOs.

You can also see the National Bookkeeping rates page to find out what level bookkeeper your business needs.

Our Xero online training courses include EVERYTHING for ONE LOW PRICE. Furthermore, if you select our Lifetime Membership option, you’ll have LIFETIME access to our ongoing course updates. All EzyLearn courses are accredited by the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers (ICB) and can be counted towards Continuing Professional Development (CPD) points. Find out more about our Xero online training courses.

Posted on February 28, 2024March 9, 2024 by Steve Slisar

Is Xero Getting TOO Aggressive?

MYOB and Xero training courses. Advanced Certificate in MYOB and Xero

The constant need for some companies to continue to grow revenue or subscriber numbers can make the employees do things too aggressively.

Xero has always done a great marketing job against MYOB because it was easy – all they had to do was have good software that was easier to use and in the cloud – now they’re ALL in the Cloud!

Xero focused on a cloud only model and the integrations between it and other online software programs. This was a marketing strategy that may have stretched the truth a little!

Xero boasted about how good their software is for Real Estate Agents but it was one of their ReLeased integration that users loved.

Why Xero is better than MYOB now?

MYOB’s problem was that is WAS a Windows based software program. This made using the software harder because you had the constraints of running only on a Windows computer and had to upgrade that software regularly. It also caused issues with their Mac version and they ended up having to discontinue that software and push their Mac users straight to their Cloud version, MYOB Essentials.

Posted on March 26, 2023March 27, 2023 by Steve Slisar

Seen the new cheap accounting software on Facebook? FREE for 6 months, is it okke?

OKKE FREE accounting software for 6 months no online training required vs Xero - Website Image - EzyLearn

Am I a bookkeeping nerd or is everyone else also seeing these “financial” advertisements for tax lodgement, easy bookkeeping and 6 month FREE access to accounting software?

It’s interesting to see a new accounting software company appear in Australia despite the fact that many have come and gone in the past – particularly during this market downturn for technology shares! Their offer is pretty compelling though..

Posted on March 18, 2023July 23, 2023 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

FREE Courses for Job Seekers who enrol into MYOB, Xero and Excel Complete

If you have enrolled into a course with EzyLearn be sure to check out these FREE student inclusions.

We’re creating and updating our online courses every month and we’re listening to feedback from students to understand what they need. We’re even paying EzyLearn graduates for their expertise in the work they do. If you want to see how you can earn money using your expertise check out the LIFELONG Learning Hub in the Learning Site or reach out to our support team.

Posted on November 26, 2022August 23, 2023 by Steve Slisar

You Don’t Need a Cert IV in Bookkeeping & Accounting to be a Contract Bookkeeper

Christina from Glenmore in Sydney graduated from the Xero Complete Training Course & Certificate and runs several businesses

Starting a bookkeeping business has been a go to option for many mums returning to the workforce, particularly if they did accounting and office administration work before having children.

I’ve been writing about starting a bookkeeping business at this website since we started our bookkeeping blog and as you can see it doesn’t have to cost a lot of money.

Since the GST, however and the creation of the Registered BAS Agent some things have changed.

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

R U Spending Too Much Time Alone?

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

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

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

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

Posted on October 27, 2022October 27, 2022 by Steve Slisar

Xero Boast Top Innovator in “AFR BOSS Most Innovative list”, Just Behind Telstra!

Xero wrote about their AI achievements using machine learning to predict the name and account code for your transactions when performing a bank reconciliation. Bank feeds have been a constant and regular theme in Xero’s marketing and this reinforces how they are using technology to reduce the time it takes to reconcile.

It makes sense that a bank like NAB or CBA buys MYOB because if you could automatically make sure that your finances in your MYOB or Xero software reflected exactly what your bank statements say you’d eliminate half the work that junior bookkeepers do.

Posted on October 18, 2022October 18, 2022 by Steve Slisar

Bills to Pay, Past or Future, Xero or CBA

I was reading about some of the accounting features that Xero are building on in their software while also testing out Commonwealth Banks “Upcoming bills and payments”. What really struck me is how quickly the major banks are updating their software and systems to help small business owners manage their cashflow better.

When you use the Commbank App to access your account you can quickly setup the Upcoming bills and payments because the banks software sees that you have recurring payments that seem to happen every month, quarter, year etc. The great thing about this is that it helps you understand your liabilities in the short term and you don’t need to pay anything extra to have it or use it.

Xero on the other hand are constantly finding ways to increase their revenue and new features is naturally one BIG way they can do that. But it’s not all bad, of course.

Posted on October 5, 2022October 5, 2022 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

Achieve Your Financial Goals: Microsoft Excel Graphs & Charts Course Show Costs of Food and Petrol – Your Personal Budget

mybudget excel training course files to achieve your financial goals - online Excel Training Courses

If you are feeling the pinch financially right now it would be good to find out why. It’s easy to make a statement like “petrol and food prices are through the roof” but the truth might be a bit different when you get all your expenses into a spreadsheet.

Interest rates have gone up a LOT in the last few months so your mortgage payments might be chewing up most of your disposable income. If you have a car loan, personal loan or other debts where the interest rates are much higher you might find that you need to “consolidate” your debts to make ends meet.

A household budget exercise file is included in the Excel Intermediate Training Course 306 and a similar exercise file is available in the Excel Intermediate Training Course 305. The goal is to help you visualise the changes in your costs and expenses.

Posted on September 21, 2022September 21, 2022 by Steve Slisar

Microsoft Excel & Xero Bookkeeping COMPLETE Training Course Package is Now Here

Training Course ad in Manly Daily for Microsoft Excel, Website Design, MYOB - Ezylearn

You may be asking WHY it has taken us so long to create this training course COMBINATION package considering that Xero and Excel go hand in hand for all things financial and accounting?!

Xero is fantastic for keeping track of all of your financial transactions for a business and Microsoft Excel is still the preferred choice by most bookkeepers and accountants for producing reports and working with the data that comes out of Xero.

The versatility of Excel as a spreadsheet means that you can do so much more with it than just make sense of the financial information from your Accounting software. One case study in our Microsoft Excel Courses comes from our own experience about scheduling courses, trainers and training rooms for enrolments when we had a training centre in Dee Why NSW.

Posted on September 4, 2022June 5, 2023 by Steve Slisar

Payroll Training Course: Employee changes are being tracked

1-Learn-Beginner-Level-Payroll-skills-with-Trim-and-Styles-Hairdressing-salon-Payroll-training-course-and-Certificate-using-QuickBooks-Xero-and-MYOB-1024x684

Xero led the way in online cloud accounting software that enables anyone to access their accounting software from anywhere. This means that small business owners, staff and their bookkeeping advisors can all access different parts of the software at anytime to perform their work. A far cry from the clunky way that MYOB AccountRight managed multiple users in an office environment a decade ago.

This amazing flexibility enables contract bookkeepers to perform credit control and end of month bank reconciliation tasks working from home, will office support staff are working on quotes, invoices and payments to suppliers. All of these transactions can add up very quickly and soon you can have hundreds of transactions. What if you had to find something, fix something that was entered incorrectly? That’s when you need an audit trail.

Xero just announced Payroll History and it’s designed to keep track of what happens with your payroll records.

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on May 23, 2022June 5, 2023 by Xero Training

Payroll Training Course Integrations: Square Payroll versus Xero?

Now that paying by card is the norm, retailers have needed to adapt to the cashless customer. If you’ve been to some local markets recently, maybe a sporting club canteen or even your regular café, you may have noticed that you’re tapping your card on a little white square instead of an EFTPOS machine.

Block Inc. – previously known as Square Inc – is a point-of-sale (POS) system winning over retailers and enterprises across the world. And it’s not just little white payment terminals, Square offers a range of technology and services that range from POS to payroll to inventory to marketing, AND, they recently purchased AfterPay!

Square integrates with Xero, and considering its popularity, let’s break down what Square is and how it compares to other Xero integrations like Planday.

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

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

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

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

Posted on March 22, 2022March 22, 2022 by Xero Training

CommBank and Xero Integration to Help Small Businesses Get Paid Faster

It’s not a secret that in order to stay afloat businesses need to be making money. Access to funds is essential for businesses to not only pay off debts, but also to finance everyday operations and pay their staff and suppliers.

It can become problematic, however, when a business’ cash flow is tied up in unpaid invoices. If a business sells on credit – as many do – they might be in the unfortunate position of waiting to get paid by their customer and struggling to make ends meet in the meantime.

There are a few solutions: one is to use credit management apps like ChaserHQ or Debtor Daddy to help automate the process. Things like chasing up unpaid invoices and escalating debts can be made easier by using these apps that integrate with your accounting software.

The other is to get a loan. Commonwealth Bank’s (CBA) Stream Working Capital is a digital solution for businesses to access the money tied up in their invoices. Here’s what you need to know about it:

Posted on March 16, 2022March 16, 2022 by Xero Training

ATO’s SUPER GUARANTEE CHARGE Could Slug Employers Extra for Late Super Payments (SG vs SGC)?

For small businesses, getting the administrative aspects of payroll and super in order can be stressful and confusing. Things need to be paid by certain dates at certain amounts, and failure to comply can have some serious consequences, PARTICULARY when it comes to employees pay and entitlements.

So what does it mean for a small business or employer if they don’t pay super on time? Here’s what you need to know about the super guarantee charge, and how you can avoid it.

Category: Small Business Finance Training Courses