MYOB courses for jobseekers and business owners from Setup, Daily Transactions, Bank Recs, GST BAS and Reporting and Payroll. Students from Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart and Darwin do these courses at their own pace. Includes LIFETIME course access.
Conversations amongst business colleagues and business owners appear to suggest that many people are in a rush to spend before June 30. I spoke with someone who feverishly exclaimed that everyone should get private medical insurance! It’s all good and well to get in a panic before the end of the financial year but if you didn’t have the correct information before now and the decisions you make are not based on known facts then why make them?
It’s the time of year where all the data entry from Day-to-Day Transactions should be up to date, you should know the value of depreciation for your fixed assets and have a good idea of the value of your tax and GST liabilities. A profit and loss report and balance sheet will provide you with the information you need and if these figures are ready then spending decisions can be made. This is the time for reporting and reconciliation.
If you simply find yourself with money in the bank but don’t want it to go to the tax man think again, you might need it to pay your liabilities next month. For now, enjoy the bulging bank balance.
Remember. Compliance is the measure of success of your business plans so be compliant as soon as possible every month.
Image from Sydney Morning Herald article about difficult payers on September 14th 2011
I was reading an article about difficult payers and the steps that some companies need to take to chase money that is owing to them and thought that this is something that every MYOB Bookkeeper needs to be aware of.
There seems to be perception (and most of the bad news seems to come from the building and construction industry) that payment of debts is something that should be stretched out as far as possible. I was discussing this concept with a colleague and was interested to find that this person believes that payments should be stretched out as long as practical. The interesting part of this conversation is that this person is a very reasonable man. He believes in long term investments and dealing with every person in a fair and reasonable manner, so it was strange for me to hear this mentality.
If you commission someone to do some work for you, shouldn’t they be entitled to be paid on the same terms that an employee is entitled to? I think so and you’ll find some skills to find out who owes you money in our MYOB Day-to-Day training course.
Here are the steps that are recommended:
Charge in Advance if you can
Chase money owing early
Provide multiple payment options
Be as up-to-date as possible
Enforce your trading terms
Be honest about non-paying clients
Give customers an opportunity to complain
Be polite
Get heavy on time
A leading author of MYOB and Small Business “How to” books, Veechi Curtis says that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. So, chase money as soon as an account falls behind. Perhaps a more relevant saying is “work with the willing”. There are many people who value the work you do enough to pay you before the due date. There are customers who can afford what you do and want you to think positively of them so they pay as early as practical.
Find customers who want to be good to you!
This blog post is an introduction to articles that will be coming shortly for the continuing professional development of the bookkeeping academy so make sure you subscribe to receive updates via email.
References taken from an article in the Sydney Morning Herald on September 14th 2011.
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.
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.
At a recent business owners breakfast I heard someone speak about blue ocean and red ocean strategies. I’m going to write some blog posts about how to build your business as part of our project to help our MYOB students start, maintain and build their own bookkeeping businesses and this article is a fitting way to start.
The Blue Ocean strategy involves finding new demand in an uncontested market which essentially means to innovate. This essentially means create something new, but I think for many small business it could means package your services so that you can demonstrate a difference between your bookkeeping business and others. The Red Ocean strategy is all about competing head to head with your competitors to try to get existing customers to move away from someone else to use your services. You can get a better idea of what Blue Ocean strategy is at their website.
We try to innovate in our services by offering lifetime access to all courses, provide all skill levels in one course (ie. beginners to advanced) so you don’t have to waste time trying to figure out which level you are at and provide different versions of training for Microsoft Word and Excel (ie. 2000, 2003, 2007 and 2010.
This table shows the key differences between the strategies. See which strategy you are pursuing.
Are you looking at starting or growing your business?
Do you want to start a business? Do you want to create a business plan? Does it all seem a bit daunting?
[quote]We are working with Maggie Richardson, author of “Starting a business in Australia” to get her Cert IV in Small Business Management online.[/quote]
This course not only gives you a well rounded education of the requirements to start and build a small business, but you will end up with one-to-one help in creating a business plan as part of the course! Read more..
We’ve been approached by many different Groupon type companies. There seems to be hundreds of these sites popping up every day and they are famous for offering you almost unbelievable discount coupons for almost anything but most commonly services like pedicures, restaurant and cafe meals etc. We’ve always ensured our prices are competitive and bookkeeping students receive good value for money, but our Training Partners have tried them and we’ll share their opinions with you.
For business owners (or merchants as we are called) group buying sites promote the possibility of receiving hundreds of sales of your product (so you better make sure you can service the demand) but what do they want in return. Here’s a classic scenario:
Normal Price: $200
Group Buying Price: $100
Saving to you: $100
Margin that goes to the Group Buying Site is typically 50% of the discounted price, ie. $50
This means that a merchant that would normally receive $200 for something, will now receive $50! Is it worth it? Then why not just sell it on special for $100 and spend some money advertising it? As you can see, we are pessimistic about the future of group buying sites. Our training partners workface.com.au offered a discount on their Microsoft Excel training courses only to receive a handful of sales.
And there are hundreds of these group buying sites. See if you can recognise some of these names: Cudo, Groupon, AlltheDeals, Spreets, Living Social, Grabone, BizzBuzz etc. At the beginning of 2011 a local Australian startup in the space was sold for $40M! If you have time read a review by Choice Magazine.
The main reason we don’t like the big group buying sites is because of some of the conditions imposed.
When you buy the discount voucher the group buying site earns the money. Some of the more selfish sites will then only pass this money to the merchant when the customer uses the voucher. In other words, if the customer doesn’t use the voucher within the “valid period” the merchant earns nothing and the customer loses the benefit!
By the way, I was at a software training function last week and a birdy told me that consumer protection laws might come into affect that provides protection for buyers of these discount vouchers – if you buy a $50 product then you can receive $50 off after the offer period has expired. Watch this space…
We recently wrote about why more and more mums are looking to work from home as a virtual assistant and perform bookkeeping tasks using MYOB. Mums are also becoming website designers using the free website building software called WordPress.
We just wanted to remind you that if you are a mother or a stay at home dad and you want to learn these programs so you can work from home while bringing up your children, we want to offer you a discount.
Just tell us what you are looking for in an online training course and instantly receive your discount to one of our online training courses.
A short time after we opened our first training centre in Dee Why in 1999 we offered MYOB training courses and our trainers included some very talented ladies Maria Landrelli and Marie Di Blasio. We quickly discovered that business owners and job seekers alike wanted and needed to learn some key Day-to-Day skills so we set about creating the ideal MYOB training course for Day-to-Day Transactions.
Most of our training workbooks are based around case study examples of a practice company. This gives you a real world example of the types of processes that many businesses go through as you learn to perform the transactions using MYOB. We’ve written a detailed description of the journey we take you through in our Day-to-Day MYOB Training Course so check it out and see if it covers some skills you’d like to master.
The MYOB Day-to-Day Course uses a case study of a small business telephone system supplier as they go through the process of purchasing products, providing customer quotes, ordering and supplying products and services, accounts receivable, receiving payments and banking. It’s the perfect course for someone looking for a job where the use of MYOB is required for data entry, or a small business owner that wants to take the next step towards a computerised bookkeeping system.
Employment is one of those huge questions in the mind of many mums and dads. How to ensure that the family can maintain an income from both parents while still giving your new infant the time they need.
When we operated our MYOB training courses in Parramatta, Chatswood, Burwood, Gordon and Dee Why we noticed that a lot of mums were looking for a way to work during school hours while still being able to earn good money. They were coming to our MYOB courses because they knew that they could earn good money performing bookkeeping for local customers. The same still applies today.
It is now easier for working mums to earn good money and still remain at home! With VoIP Phone Systems, accounting services in the cloud and broadband internet mums can perform bookkeeping tasks for clients anywhere in Australia.
There are some excellent phrases and some simple, but important lessons in the Richest man in Babylon book which dates back to 1926! The one which we found interesting (and it stood out to us because we are an education and training provider) was the heading “Increase thy ability to earn“.
This concept applies to many industries and we’ve found there are two types of workers (whether you are a business owner or employee), those that seek new information and education so that they can be innovative and productive or those who do it because of necessity. When we say necessity there are two types:
If I don’t learn I will be out of work, OR
I need to learn to keep my job, licence etc
The Bookkeeping industry has been undergoing massive changes since 2010 and will continue to do so because bookkeepers responsible for lodging BAS’s on behalf of their clients will need to be registered BAS agents and as a result will need to always be abreast of changes in legislation. This webcast transcript from the tax practitioners board will give you some insight into how much the bookkeeping industry is changing.
You can be assured that our online MYOB training courses will be regularly updated to ensure that your knowledge on MYOB is up-to-date.
We were reviewing the course outline for the MYOB Day-to-Day Transactions course because it covers most of the topics that someone would need if they are performing daily bookkeeping data entry tasks for a small to medium business.
The course provides the foundation skills that most of the other courses are built on. Once you have the day-to-day data entry skills you will be able to more confidently perform a bank reconciliation, generate reports and prepare BAS returns as well as enter the data and prepare reports for payroll.
The MYOB Day-to-Day course uses a very common case study of a company that provides products and services. We use an IT consultant that sells small business VoIP telephone systems and supports their customers with the initial setup as well as ongoing support.
Course features
Since January 2011 our full suit of 5 MYOB training courses comes with lifetime access so you can revisit the training videos, workbooks with step-by-step exercises and knowledge reviews as often as you want for the rest of your working life. Many students use the course as a resource for when they are using
Our MYOB training courses also come with EzyLearn ANSWERS, a service that we provide to create new course content based on questions from our students. It’s a way that we increase what is covered in our courses while providing students with an level of customisation and support.
MYOB courses created by certified bookkeepers and BAS agents
Another great aspect of this course is that we go into the Inventory module of MYOB Accounting software to see how a company can sell products as well as services using the Inventory module of MYOB AccountRight Plus.
Our MYOB training courses are created using consultation with business owners and certified bookkeepers and registered BAS agents who perform bookkeeping tasks for their own customers.
Free MYOB Training Course
We want to give free MYOB training away so you get a chance to learn more about us and see if we are the company you turn to for your MYOB training courses. Follow the link below and you will automatically receive our free MYOB training resources.
The free MYOB Training Course material is now available at our new MYOB Short Courses catalogue site. Access the FREE MYOB Training Now
Tips and Tricks
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Taken from Monash University Whitepaper on loyalty
We wrote about the amazing success that Woolworths is having in the increased sale of products through their online shopping portal. Today we explore the concept of loyalty considering the loyalty war that is going on between the shopping majors Woolworths and Coles as well as ways of increasing your customers loyalty.
Imagine this scenario:
Jane is 53 years old and lives with her cat in a northern suburb of Melbourne. She works full time on the other side of town, so she prefers to drive rather than catch public transport. On the weekend Jane likes to do some gardening, and she is also fond of red wine. In fact, she drinks so much that it makes financial sense for her to buy her wine by the carton. Jane’s daughter lives a few kilometers away and has an 18-month-old girl. Jane likes to buy clothes and toys for her granddaughter, even though she has more than enough already.
There are some great discounts available for members of these loyalty programs but do you expose yourself and your complete spending profile to these huge companies. It becomes even more interesting as these companies enter more and more markets. From simple grocery shopping the retail majors are now into petrol and liquor and next it could most likely be pharmacy. With all this data about your shopping habits these companies will have an eerie amount of information about you.
This report reveals some very interesting information about how you can be profiled.
If there is one thing smaller businesses can take from this, it’s the value of having a database of your customers and the easiest database to use is your MYOB customer datafile or your email newsletter subscriber list. You can learn about these concepts in our online MYOB Training Courses and our WordPress course.
We recently wrote about the yearly returns that APRA (the governing body for the financial services industry) announces to showcase the rate of return of the top 200 superannuation funds. This information forms part of our new Bookkeeping Academy for continuing professional development (CPD).
It prompted a question in our think tank about the purpose of superannuation and whether it should be used as a tool for investing in equity?
The problem with equity is that there is no guarantee of return and its value is completely dependent on the performance of the company. Even things like dividends are only paid at managements discretion. Interest on the other hand must be paid and the capital returned to the investor at the end of the term. In the event of a liquidation, debt is repaid first and it is usually secured by something.
It all really depends upon your personal circumstances but we found a product on the market that seemed to fit very well with the thinking of the concept of super. It is the Commonwealth Banks Superannuation Savings Account. It earns interest which might not be as impressive as equity, but this is only 10% of your income and it goes along with the adage from the Richest Man in Babylon… Make thy gold multiply.
In the end, as Financial Planners will attest, the decision you make depends upon your risk appetite and your investment time horizon, but one thing is certain – you must have super as an employee and pay it as an employer. Stay tuned for the news about our MYOB Payroll Level 2 course where we go into more detail about how to manage the paying of staff. All new content generated for our online MYOB training courses is available to existing students as part of their lifetime access.
As part of our continuous improvement for our online MYOB training courses and the development of our Payroll Level 2 course we explored the superannuation market. Superannuation was established as a way for ordinary working families (sorry to steal this catch phrase from Julia’s government) to contribute to their own retirement income and as a result gain tax benefits.
There was horrendous news and publicity about bad returns for many superannuation funds in the global financial crisis and we thought we’d explore these results a little closer. If you are reading this as an MYOB student, a bookkeeper, small business owner or employee you would be aware that superannuation is compulsory for most employees and you now have the choice of where you want this money to go. APRA is the government organisation which overseas the banks and banking regulation in Australia and they announce the rate of return for the top 200 superannuation companies each year.
If you want to take a closer look yourself, check out the figures from page 5 onward in the latest superannuation report from APRA. You can download the report as Excel or PDF format.
This brings up some interesting questions. Can a superannuation funds manager outperform the Index and how do you guarantee a positive return for your super every year? We’ll explore these questions soon…
We recently had an inquiry from one of our MYOB Training students about accessing the free MYOB test drive software. We mention to students that we provide a link to the software in our course, but we happily also hand the link out to anyone who wants to get to know about the software.
Although EzyLearn is an MYOB reseller and we have sold MYOB software in the past, we know that there are much better online retailers who focus on selling MYOB software online. There are comparison sites that even allow you to compare the cost of MYOB software from different retailers of the software you are looking for.
We also assume that you can install software on your computer or have a friend or colleague or IT consultant that can help you install software.
I was having a chat with a rehab consultant the other day and we discussed the benefits of online services like our online MYOB Training Courses and he reminded me about online shopping and having your weekly groceries delivered to your home.
We dug a little deeper and discovered that Woolworths announced a 118% increase in online sales for the December 2011 half year (July to June). When we went to the Woolworths Online Shopping site we saw all their branding for their Click and Collect service, but entered our postcode in the top right hand corner to discover that they would deliver to your door for $11 or less if you spent more than $100 with them. Do you think that is high?
I remember speaking to an Amway seller back around 1999 when the first online shopping “craze” began as part of the dotcom revolution where he mentioned that they sell all the products that are traditionally in the centre of the shop, the products that aren’t fresh and have long expiry dates. He pointed out that most people buy the same products every time they shop, that if you wrote up a list of things you need you could simply tick boxes and re-order all those products very quickly. Compare that to taking a trip to the supermarket!
A trip to the supermarket could involve the following steps and cost a lot more than $11 delivery:
Bringing children with you
Driving to the supermarket and looking for a parking space
Walking around the supermarket to get all the products you need
Waiting in a queue to pay and have your products bagged
Taking the shopping bags to your car to load up
Unloading the shopping from your car at home
It was at this stage that we realised also, why online computer training courses offer so many benefits over traditional courses held in training centres in Sydney or Melbourne. We recall that we needed to pay rent, wages, advertising and find good quality trainers. We had to schedule the courses 3-6 months in advance and try to guess the best date, day and time for students and THEN if we didn’t have at least 4 students attend a course we had to cancel it because it we wouldn’t cover our costs!
We realised we could give students more training (our current 5 MYOB training courses for example would take the equivalent of 4 full days of face to face training) if we delivered it online, and like a new student said to us just this week, the training is delivered consistently to every student. Every student learns exactly the same information the same way every time so it is great for franchise operators.
The best part is that we divert all our earnings into generating new and updated training content, and ensuring that our online training servers are operational and secure 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This means we can also focus on our LIFETIME student access offer and ensure that students can get on with the bookkeeping and administration tasks they need to do rather than having to do MYOB courses again and again to get the parts they missed.
We believe 100% in online services and look forward to helping your learn MYOB and other programs like Microsoft Excel and WordPress (website builder and blogging platform) online.
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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…
Conversations amongst business colleagues and business owners appear to suggest that many people are in a rush to spend before June 30. I spoke with someone who feverishly exclaimed that everyone should get private medical insurance! It’s all good and well to get in a panic before the end of the financial year but if you didn’t have the correct information before now and the decisions you make are not based on known facts then why make them?
