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Working For Free: Why You Should Give With No Expectations

There are benefits in working for free, on occasion, in small business.
There are benefits in working for free, on occasion, in small business.

In a recent post we talked about the times when businesses should work for free, which we referred to as ‘added value’. We cover value-related exercises, such as determining and setting your prices in the module of the same name in our Small Business Management Course.

Sometimes working for no charge at all and outlining where this so (that’s important — people need to be informed that you’re doing something for nothing otherwise they mightn’t know!)  discourages hagglers and nuisance clients always looking for a discount at every opportunity. Continue reading Working For Free: Why You Should Give With No Expectations

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MYOB Training Courses: Lifetime Access Guaranteed

With EzyLearn courses, you can get Lifetime access.
With EzyLearn courses, you can get Lifetime access – high five to that!

We mentioned in a previous post about how our MYOB Training Courses are like an induction to the role of bookkeeper and how we provide all our students with workbooks and training resources to compliment our training video content and other online learning tools. Continue reading MYOB Training Courses: Lifetime Access Guaranteed

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You Can Still Be a Valuable Bookkeeper Without a Cert IV

Cert IV Bookkeeper
You don’t need a Cert IV to be a valuable bookkeeper for small businesses.

In our last post about getting bookkeeping clients for free, we mentioned how the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers (the ICB) only adds bookkeepers to its Practice Directory who are Cert IV-qualified. Having a Cert IV qualification in bookkeeping enables you to apply to the Tax Practitioners Board to become certified to provide BAS services to your clients.

Only Needed for Lodgement of BAS

However, most of the work carried out by a BAS agent is work that can be completed by a bookkeeper without a Cert IV; it’s just that only registered BAS agents can lodge a BAS return for their client.

So while it may be useful for some contract bookkeepers to get their Cert IV qualification so they can lodge their client’s BAS returns among other things, it’s not necessary if you only want to manage the data entry for your clients.

Bookkeepers Needed for Data Entry

In fact, bookkeepers carrying out data entry is one of the core functions required by a lot of small businesses and sole traders because they have become too busy to look after it themselves and because it takes them away from their core work.

An experienced bookkeeper that can look after a business’ books is still an incredibly valuable asset to any business, and as more and more Australians go into business for themselves, the demand for bookkeepers is going to increase.

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So if you’ve completed our LIFETIME access MYOB Training Course with the certificate option, contact us today to arrange to have your profile placed on the MYOB Bookkeeper Directory.

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Are You a Bookkeeper? Find Clients Online FOR FREE!

It can be daunting knowing where to get your first clients when you start your own business.
It can be daunting knowing where to get your first clients when you start your own business.

The hardest part about starting your own business is finding the first few clients.

At EzyLearn, we love helping our MYOB training course students start their own bookkeeping business, but we’re even more passionate about helping you make that business a success Continue reading Are You a Bookkeeper? Find Clients Online FOR FREE!

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The EzyLearn MYOB Course Community

At EzyLearn we offer a handful of online training courses: Microsoft Office (Excel, Word, PowerPoint and Outlook), MYOB Accounting, and WordPress website design and blogging. There are many companies who promote courses online and that’s just what they do — promote courses online — but we try to be a little different.

Here’s why:

  • We offer only a handful of courses and we do them very well
  • Our courses come with LIFETIME Membership
  • As a student you receive fresh, new content without paying extra
  • Where possible, we provide real life exercise files so you can work with the software.

Our Online Community

Our experience with thousands of students has taught us that some students need more interaction than just the videos. They also like to bounce off other people to better understand the software they are learning.

That’s why we provide our Student Community and Tutor Support — to provide our students with the ability to communicate with fellow students, as well as ask questions of our experienced community moderators. It’s like having your own tutor that you can ask questions to who can provide quality answers based on their own experience in their relative industries.

Our students range from job seekers to small business owners and existing bookkeepers wanting to learn more, to accountants who may be thinking of leaving the corporate world and setting up a small business for themselves (or even seeking greater work-life balance).

Qualified Moderators

Our student support community is moderated by our MYOB Bookkeeper and Registered BAS agent, giving students the benefit of both communication with other course attendees (to socialise and to learn) as well as obtain answers to specific questions.

Annual Membership

Our Student Community and Tutor Support is provided on a yearly membership basis and you can continue or opt-out as you please each year. The service is available to existing EzyLearn students or new students enrolling into any one of our courses.

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Become a MYOB Training Affiliate Marketer

We prefer our affiliate partners to have done our online MYOB course so they can truthfully recommend it to their friends.
Earn money working from home on the Internet.

At EzyLearn, we’re passionate about helping people follow their dreams and start their own businesses.

We have a number of opportunities available to people who would like to partner with EzyLearn and start their own home-based business.

Start Your Own Bookkeeping or Digital Business Continue reading Become a MYOB Training Affiliate Marketer

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Bumper Content: 10 Training Workbooks Included in our MYOB Courses!

With EzyLearn, in addition to the videos, you get over 200 pages of training information in our workbook.
With EzyLearn, in addition to the videos, you get over 200 pages of training information in our workbook.

When you’re selecting a training course provider, it’s important to consider the training material and resources you will need in order to complete the course.

There are many online institutions that don’t provide any training material beyond the information available in their training videos or learning management system. Continue reading Bumper Content: 10 Training Workbooks Included in our MYOB Courses!

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Your Business Accounting Software: Is it Working Best for You?

Is your business accounting software - and your business bank account - saving you time? It should be!
Is your business accounting software – and your business bank account – saving you time? It should be!

In a previous post we wrote about business bank accounts. Some banks, even though they offer business accounts, aren’t actually all that business friendly, and this can sometimes add hours to your bookkeeping and reconciliation processes.

Not all Business Accounts are Created Equal

If you’re starting a new business and going to open a business account, we recommend you do your research and shop around, because not all accounts are the same.

Some business accounts integrate nicely with your accounting software, while others, like a Bank of Queensland account, for example, does not because they transferred their credit card service to Citibank, preventing integration with the Banklink feature of MYOB.

Other business accounts don’t allow businesses to have a Visa or MasterCard debit card attached to their business account and only allow businesses to make online purchases using their own money.

Business owners can only use a linked credit card to make online purchases or a separate debit card. Either option still results in additional journal entries in your accounting software.

End of Financial Year – Best Time to Get Business Friendly

If you’ve been battling with your current bank, now that we’re approaching the end of the 2013/14 financial year, it might be the time to consider moving your accounts elsewhere so you can start afresh come July 1.

Or perhaps it’s not your bank that’s playing havoc with your bookkeeping – perhaps it’s your bookkeeping software. As we approach a new financial year, it might be a good time to consider switching your account keeping software to MYOB, or something simpler, like Xero (we have written in the past comparing the two).

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At EzyLearn, we provide a range of training courses for a number of different accounting programs from the basic Reach Accounting to the more sophisticated MYOB. For more information on our training courses, visit our website.

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Become a MYOB Training Course Affiliate Marketer

Get paid for promoting our proven course to your friends by becoming an affiliate partner.
Get paid for promoting our courses

Earn Income by Simply Recommending Our Courses

We are looking for anyone who has completed our MYOB training course to become an affiliate marketer and earn money by recommending our training courses to people you know.

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work? Continue reading Become a MYOB Training Course Affiliate Marketer

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MYOB Training Courses and Small Business Bookkeeping Inductions

Our online MYOB training course is like an induction into the world of bookkeeping.
Our online MYOB training course is like an induction into the world of bookkeeping.

Our MYOB training courses are more than just training course in software. They also function as a quasi induction to the life of a bookkeeper, in that they train you in the day-to-day processes and procedures of a bookkeeper as well.

Even though you still need to have completed a Certificate IV in bookkeeping to become a registered BAS agent, you can still provide clients with basic bookkeeping services if you’ve done our MYOB training course.

Quizzes and Knowledge Reviews

The MYOB workbooks provided in the training courses contain practical exercises that students can complete to familiarise themselves with the software, which they are then later tested on to through a series of quizzes and knowledge reviews.

By the time you’ve completed our MYOB training course, you’ll be proficient not just in the MYOB software, but also in the day-to-day of a professional bookkeeper.

Some of our previous students are already business owners themselves and our MYOB courses provide them with the necessary skills to take care of the data entry and bookkeeping for their own business.

An Entry Point to Your Home-Based Business

But a good many more of our students also use our MYOB courses as an entry point to starting their own home-based bookkeeping business, providing other businesses with data entry while they’re completing a Cert IV in bookkeeping.

This is a great way to familiarise yourself with the bookkeeping process while you’re still learning, and even help you to network with accountants who could later help you become certified with the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers and supervise your work.

We also offer a Small Business Management Course to help those people thinking of starting a home-based bookkeeping business develop a business plan, carry out marketing activities report on financial activity, and so forth. Currently we’re offering this course for just $897 (for a short time only!).

For information on our courses, visit our website or contact our team.

 

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Will vs Skill: How Desirable are Your Employees in the Workplace?

Employees possessing both will and skill are the most desirable in the workplace.
Employees possessing both will and skill are the most desirable in the workplace.

At EzyLearn, our flagship training course is the MYOB training course, which is sort of like an induction into the role of a bookkeeper in that it provides students with an overview of the duties typically carried out by a bookkeeper. Most of our students take our MYOB training course because they both want and need to know how to use the software in order to find work as a bookkeeper.

In the world of business training and coaching, this is called the Will vs. Skill Matrix. Employees who have both the will to succeed and the skill to succeed are highly desirable in the workplace.

Transparency, Will and Skill

Employees who have only one of those attributes, however, are less desirable. Helping staff maintain both the will and the skill to succeed in their jobs has a lot to do with how transparent you are as an organisation.

We’ve mentioned transparency in business before, notably in relation to induction training programs. Induction training programs are a highly efficient way to communicate easily and efficiently with your staff, while also testing their will and skill to succeed at their jobs.

While most induction training programs are used to merely address the requirements of the Work Health and Safety Act, or to induct contractors and consultants to a business’ premises, induction training programs can also be used to further your employees’ professional development.

Furthering your employees’ professional development can be done by providing your staff with online training courses that are relevant and useful to their jobs, such as a Word or Excel training course. By delivering this content online, it allows your staff to complete the course at their own pace, in an informal environment – at home or at their desk at work, rather than in a dedicated training centre on a dedicated day – and it also allows you to monitor their progress.

As the business owner, by being able to see how your employees are getting on with the training courses can illuminate areas where your staff could benefit from further training; it can also highlight those staff member who possess the will and the skill to succeed.

Those staff members who are have both the will and the skill to succeed in their jobs also happen to be highly engaged, and as we mentioned in a previous post, more productive.

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If you’re looking for ways to keep your staff highly engaged with your business, we can help you tailor and deliver highly engaging induction training courses to your staff. Visit our website for more information, or contact us today for a quote.

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Feedback from Students About Our Online Training Courses

We value - and need - your feedback about our online training courses.
We value – and need – your feedback about our online training courses.

Over the years, we’ve provided online training to numerous Australian – and international – students, whether via our flagship MYOB training course or one of our Excel or WordPress courses, or our more recent Small Business Management Course. Over the years these students have provided us with valuable feedback.

The feedback we receive from our students helps us to understand what’s working and what isn’t, which is why it’s invaluable to us that you get in touch and let us know what you think.

It was based on the feedback we received from our students that we decided to develop our Reach Accounting and Xero training courses. It is also based on the feedback we received that we changed the way we issued our certificates so that students received them faster and could use them to find work.

Recent Feedback

Here’s just some of the feedback we’ve received from our students recently:

“I found the workbooks the most helpful for giving practical experience.” — Karen Dimitri, Glengowrie SA 5044

“The best part is that you can do it on your own time and pace.” — Juliana van Wyk, Hilton WA 6163

“Short, easily digestable videos. Can fit in easily with a busy lifestyle.” — Korina Power, North Shore, Auckland 0630

“I could learn at my own pace.” — Jackie Smith, Sheidow Park, SA 5158

“Doing the workbooks and watching the videos at my own pace has helped me a lot in pursing the current workforce requirements.” — Merritt Ray, Loganholme QLD 4129

“I was able to finish the whole course in just a couple of weeks.” — YoonOck Lee, Atwell, WA 6164

“By watching videos on one particular topic and doing a test straight after relating to those videos, you don’t become too overwhelmed with too much information.” — Michelle Bankstown, NSW 2200

“I am happy as I could completely the course at my own pace. It was easy n simple to understand. As a mother I felt the course was very time efficient. Looking forward to putting my knowledge into action.” — Kimberline Francis, St James, WA 6102

“This course is best for me because I can access any time from home, I can replay any video provided when I didn’t understand.” — Mika Humphreys, Innisfail, QLD 4860

“Everything within the course itself was great. I liked the most how easy it was to understand and navigate through.” — Katie Davis, Whyalla, SA 5608

“Being able to actually move around the sample company file to get a feeling of how the software is structured, made me have more confident.” — Joy Khoo, Mudgee, NSW 2850

“The best parts of this course is that we get freedom to learn and complete this course in your own suitable time. There is not so much pressure that you have to complete in certain time limit. I would advise and recommend this course from EzyLearn to international students who want to further their career in bookkeeping and accounting. It was a great privilege to be part of your institute.” — Prabin Gurung, Auburn, NSW 2144

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We’d love to hear from you too. Get in touch via our course evaluation page.

 

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MYOB: What is an Induction?

Our MYOB course will help induct you into the role of bookkeeper.
Our MYOB course will help induct you into the role of bookkeeper.

The word ‘induction’ has many uses, which can make it rather subjective. It can refer to the time interval between the cause and the first measurable effect in an experiment; it can refer to stimulating the process of childbirth; it can refer to a rite of passage or ritual event, like a Bar of Bat Mitzvah; even our MYOB training courses act as a kind of quasi induction into the world of bookkeeping.

Exposure to Real-World Scenarios

Even though our MYOB courses are primarily teaching you how to use an accounting software package, we deliberately created training courses that would expose our students to real-world bookkeeping scenarios, so they would properly understand the software.

When you complete the day-to-day transactions module of our MYOB course you’re taught how to receive money and pay bills, record a cash-sale, settle credits and returns, and analyse payable, among other things.

Each module within our MYOB training courses teaches you a fundamental aspect within the whole bookkeeping process, and in that way our courses act like an induction into the role of a bookkeeper.

Inducting You as a Bookkeeper

An induction helps to give a person a basic understanding of what to expect of a particular situation or circumstance. In the instance of our MYOB courses, we’re helping you to understand what is expected of you as a bookkeeper, and what you should expect in turn.

Many organisations provide new employees with induction training to help them understand how the business operates, and to keep their existing staff up-to-date with changing policies and procedures – such as work, health and safety.

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As Australia’s leading provider of online training courses, EzyLearn has recently ventured into providing companies and organisations with the facilities to provide their staff with online induction training.

If you’d like to learn more about the kinds of induction programs you can offer your staff, visit our website or request a quote.

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Discussion Post: How Do You File Your Invoices and Receipts?

How do you file invoices and receipts? Tell us, we want to hear!
How do you file invoices and receipts? We’d very much like to hear!

Whether you’re a bookkeeper or business owner, if there’s one thing we probably all have a shared hatred of — it’s filing. Filing is the little task we always put off, until eventually we can’t find anything through the sea of paper and receipts cluttering our offices.

This wouldn’t be so bad if filing wasn’t such an important part of a business.

People File Differently Now

But as cloud computing, internet banking and email have changed the way businesses operate, the way people file their expenses and important business documents has changed as well. Continue reading Discussion Post: How Do You File Your Invoices and Receipts?

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Web Analytics: Everything You Thought You Knew About the Web is WRONG!

It's all about the clicks on the web - or is it?
It’s all about the clicks on the web – or is it?

If you’re an average reader, I’ve got your attention for about 15 seconds, so here goes: many things we’ve been taught about the web are wrong. One of the biggest mistakes – thinking that clicking is the same as reading.

Not your average reader? Perhaps I’ve got you a while longer… We’ve mentioned on this blog before that every business owner should be monitoring their web analytics – we’re even developing a Google Training Course for business owners who want to learn more about the Google products.

What Does Web Analytics Help You With?

Web analytics allows you to determine things like where your visitors originated from, your click rate and your bounce rate.

Google considers any visitor who spends less than 30 seconds on your web page before clicking elsewhere to have “bounced” – and the number of people who bounce from your website is your bounce rate.

Clicks and Conversions

Your click rate is the number of people who have clicked through to your website from a search engine, banner ad, or third party link. The goal is to keep your click rate high and your bounce rate low – this is supposed to demonstrate high engagement with your website, your business or your brand; it’s also supposes to guarantee conversions.

Except that it doesn’t – a fact that’s becoming clear to organisations with large web presences, as web users become more sophisticated as the way we use the web has evolved.

According to Tony Haile, of US company Chartbeat, which provides real-time analytics for companies like Time Inc, Forbes and NBC Universal, businesses should be looking towards something he calls Attention Web and away from clicks and bounce rates.

Time and Attention

Attention Web is not just valuing the number of clicks, but valuing the time and attention visitors give your site. “Time is a rare scarce resource on the web and we spend more of our time with good content than with bad,” Haile says.

For business owners this means you need to give your customers and clients, good, valuable content and start valuing the time they spend reading and engaging with it. Do this and your conversion rate will soar – and in turn, your bounce rate plummet.

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If you’d like to learn more about web analytics and other Google products, you can subscribe to our blog. Alternatively, if you’d like to learn more about building an effective website, you can enrol in our WordPress Training Course.

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It Doesn’t Matter if You’re Mac or PC – We’re Cross-Platform

You can access us using any browser and a PC or Mac.
You can access us using any browser and a PC or Mac.

At EzyLearn we are commonly asked the question, “Can I still take the MYOB training course if I used a Mac computer?”  We’re only too pleased to report that, unlike the Australian Taxation Office — which ignored Mac users for the better part of a decade — at EzyLearn you can use a Mac with all of our training courses.

Accessible to Any Browser

Our training courses are all delivered using our online learning management system, which is accessed by any web browser. Whether you use Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, Google Chrome and so on, you can access our training courses at anytime, from any computer.

Once you’re enrolled in one of our online training courses, you can then access our course content using a username and password to login to our online learning management system — unlike other training courses, you do not need to download any software to access our coursework.

Workbooks in PDF

The workbooks for each course are created in a PDF format that can be downloaded to any computer — and printed off if you so wish; all of our online training videos are compatible with any web browser; and any tests or exams can also be completed online.

If you’re taking our MYOB training course, we do recommend that you download a free trial of the MYOB software, which you can use to test your knowledge as your progress through the course; the MYOB free trial software can be downloaded from the MYOB website.

Why Online?

Part of the reason we offer our training courses online is because we wanted to offer students the flexibility of completing our courses when and where it suited them; offering training courses in a cross-platform format, accessible from any computer, regardless of operating system, makes the learning process even more flexible for you.

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So whether you’re using an IBM or a Mac — EzyLearn does not discriminate! If you’d like to enrol in our MYOB training course, you can do so here; for a comprehensive list of all  our other training courses, click here.