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EzyLearn enrolment vouchers: perfect for on-selling to your clients who would benefit from MYOB training.
As Australia’s largest provider of online MYOB training courses, we work with people who are looking to start their own bookkeeping business, find a bookkeeping job and even people who just want to learn how to manage the books for their own business. But did you know we also offer enrolment vouchers?
Who’s A Perfect Candidate for our Enrolment Vouchers?
We sell enrolment vouchers to training organisations and accountants who want to be able to provide their customers and clients with the option of taking an MYOB training course. Our enrolment vouchers are offered at a discounted price when purchased in bulk.
Other Training Organisations
A typical scenario might be a training organisation which buys enrolment vouchers because they don’t offer a MYOB course but think it would be of benefit to some of their students. In this instance, they can purchase vouchers from us, which they can then on-sell to any interested students.
Accountants
For accountants with clients who want to be able to do their own bookkeeping, they can also purchase enrolment vouchers from us and on-sell them to their clients.
Each voucher is valid for 12 months from the date that the training organisation or accountant purchases them, giving you 12 months to sell them to your clients and customers, who also get a further twelve months to use the voucher.
For more information, including pricing, please feel free to contact the EzyLearn team, who’ll be able to answer any of your questions.
Check out the numerous Zoho apps for small business.
It’s fair to say the MYOB is the undisputed market leader in accounting software. Even despite the number of new cloud-based software packages that have sprung up in recent years, MYOB is still the software of choice for most accounts and it’s why we offer MYOB training courses. But for someone starting a new business, MYOB might not actually be the must-have accounting software; there’s a new player in town, offering turnkey solutions for small businesses: Zoho Office Suite.
Cloud-Based Zoho for Small Business
Gone are the days of needing several different, rather expensive, software packages installed on your PC; with Zoho Office Suite you don’t even need one. Entirely cloud-based, the Zoho offering is broken down into three app packages: Zoho Business Apps, Zoho Collaboration Apps and Zoho Productivity Apps.
The Many Zoho Apps
Zoho Business Apps includes CRM, books, invoicing software and a website builder, along with other more ingenious tools such as, the support app for managing your customer service, a custom app-builder tool and a recruitment app that allows you to collect resumes and schedule interviews with candidates.
Zoho Collaboration Apps includes a project management app, a social network app called, Pulse, along with chat, mail and docs apps.
Zoho Productivity Apps features a number of word processing apps, including Writer, Sheet (like Excel), Show (like PowerPoint), Notebook, and a Calendar app.
Select a package and a plan that suits your business needs, pay a small monthly fee, and your business has access to each of the apps within that package whenever and wherever they’re needed. The downside: there’s no pricing plan for all three packages, bundled together.
Zoho Books
But say you don’t want all that anyway; you just want some decent invoicing or bookkeeping software. No worries — each Zoho app is available separately. Zoho Books, which is the closest thing to MYOB and offers unlimited invoicing, expense tracking, reconciliation, time tracking, multi currency support, and the newly added automatic bank feeds and credit card feeds feature, costs only $USD24 per month and includes access for two users.
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For new businesses, Zoho is certainly an affordable option, whether you only sign up for Zoho books, or whether you take on an entire business, collaboration or productivity apps package. For bookkeepers, however, MYOB is still the preferred accounting package. That means training in MYOB is still as necessary and vital a skill as ever.
When you choose to study an online MYOB training course with EzyLearn, you learn every aspect of the MYOB software and how it applies to real-life business and accounting situations. Then, at the end of each module, you complete a test to prove to yourself (and your future employer, even) your knowledge of each module of MYOB, such as payroll, for instance.
There are many people who will argue that tests aren’t necessary; that they’re just an exercise in testing how well you can store lots of information in your short-term memory, then forget it afterwards. They advocate, instead, that you’re marked on how well you performed on your overall coursework, and do away with exams altogether.
[quote]But the thing about an exam is that the better you know your coursework, the better you’ll perform.[/quote]
An exam is designed to taken be taken under pressure. They’re testing your knowledge of things that you are likely to encounter in your day-to-day, and may require you to act immediately. They’re not testing you on something that should be considered at length.
Even though EzyLearn offers lifetime access to our MYOB and Excel training courses, we still expect—in fact, we require it—that our students will pass each test at the end of each of the course modules.
There are a couple of reasons for this:
The first, and this is probably the main reason, is that if you decide to, you can pay an additional fee to receive a certificate that shows you’ve completed and passed our online training courses. This can then be used to show potential employers that you actually know what you’re doing in MYOB—which for many accountants and bookkeepers is either a deal breaker or a deal maker.
But an exam also forces you to study the coursework, whether it’s arbitrarily just to pass the test or thoroughly to make sure you understand and perform well in the test—and this largely depends on your own personal code of ethics. Even if you haven’t done a scrap of coursework before you go to complete a test, the mere fact that you have to complete and pass a test to progress through the course forces you to review the coursework.
It’s easy to cheat in any course by plagiarising someone else’s work. In the academic world, the ramifications involve being awarded an instant fail; in business, it usually involves legal action. But a person’s inclination to cheat and plagiarise someone else’s work raises other ethical questions that those respective punishments don’t address.
I recently attended a networking event and spoke with someone who had completed a Cert IV in Small Business Management at a local BEC (Business Enterprise Centre)- they had completed a Government funded course and used the excuse of having to do the course as quick as they could so they could start their own business. The problem was that this person “encouraged” many of the students to work together (which is a good thing), but they ended up handing in the same assignment and in some situations forgot to change the name on their assignment!
Working together in a group is a fantastic way to learn because everyone has their own strengths and the really smart students can often be good teachers for the slow learners, but to simply replicate another persons work and not even use your own writing style and interpretation is very sad. It’s particularly sad when the Small Business Management course is designed to help you create an individual business plan for your own specific business.
[quote]Our assessors mark every assignment and provide individual feedback to ensure you properly examine your new startup business.[/quote]
This brings us to whether or not you would feel comfortable employing someone who had willfully cheated in a training course. Personally, we wouldn’t. Aside from that person displaying very little work ethic (they couldn’t be bothered to do the work themselves, so cheated instead), it also makes us wonder whether they would behave unethically in other ways—would they take our client base and start-up a rival business?
This is why we test our students at the end of each module, and only those students who receive a passing grade do, in fact, pass the course. It’s not because we think our students will cheat; it’s because we want our students to really learn and understand the coursework, so they can excel and succeed in business.
A common question we are asked about our MYOB courses is if you need to have the software on your computer to do the course. The good news is that MYOB offer a free version of their software for students and trials, it’s called the MYOB Test Drive.
You could do most of the MYOB courses without using the software because we have over 170 MYOB training videos (covering BOTH MYOB version 19 and earlier AND MYOB version 11 and newer – all for the one price). You can also test your skills using our MYOB course knowledge reviews, but there is no substitute for actually using the software as you learn. The biggest thing it will give you is the confidence to say “I’ve done that using the software”.
Our MYOB training workbooks include step-by-step exercises that enable you to perform most of the tasks that are performed at a business so you’ll definitely need to have the software for that. But many students like to replicate what they see in the training videos.
[quote]You can pause the MYOB videos and have a go at replicating it using the free student MYOB software.[/quote]
If you are looking for bookkeeping or accounting jobs you will almost always be asked about your MYOB skills and nothing gives you more confidence than actually using the software.
Perhaps you’re a mum who’s available during school hours and want to start your own business? We might have the opportunity for you. Due to the success of our MYOB training courses and with requests from our students we are developing the Digital Business Course in conjunction with the Australian Small Business Centre.
[quote]We’re looking for talented mumpreneurs who want to learn some new skills while working with a live online training business.[/quote]
With the Small Business Management Course on our Learning System we’re keen to help mums create a business plan for their own business from our office right here in Chatswood. If you’re a reader from another part of Australia (or the world for that matter) you can still learn about our developments at this blog and at the Small Business Centre blog.
Michelle provides support for our MYOB training course students
Michelle recently started on our training support team and we are looking for mums to help us with the development of the Digital Business Course and we are looking for mums who have excellent skills or motivation in:
You’ll be interested to know that our Digital Business Course is designed around helping a printing business in Artarmon get a professional website using WordPress, but more importantly students will learn about:
Integrating social media,
Creating and optimising a blog (just like this one!),
Using YouTube
Using Google Analytics to measure your results
Getting the most from Google Adwords
Learn about Google authorship
Google Local Marketing
Students will also learn about a host of other Google services available to help businesses become more visible to their potential customers and step into the new age of online marketing. Students will learn about how to make a business “relevant” in Google searches.
The other aspect of our Digital Business Course is we want to educate mums how to perform the tasks that many businesses need to become visible online. In the same way that learning MYOB enables mums to work flexible hours from their own home, the Digital Business Course will provide an excellent structure to enable mums to work flexible hours while helping businesses get into the digital age.
[quote]I’m not stressing too much how bad our Seek experience was am I?[/quote]
Moving on, I want to share with you what we discovered are the reasons that students join a study community and more specifically a Study group for specialised programs like MYOB. The reasons are very similar to why some people prefer to do an trainer-led (or class-based) course at places like TAFE.
It’s important to remember the goal for the course and joining a study group and that is to find an MYOB job.
Here are the reasons:
Tips and Tricks using MYOB
You may be studying the same course content as other students, but you will interpret some things differently to others just based on your life and work experiences.
Help with your MYOB course
Just because you’re studying online and there is not a teacher standing at the front of the classroom, help and support is available.
Request more MYOB training
We understand that it can be hard to stay up-to-date with market demands—and costly, too. Software vendors are always changing their products, technologies are changing, and then there is the advent of new ones. But as an employee the more you know about changes to software and new technologies, the more valuable you are to an employer.
Get Inspiration from other MYOB students and our Tutors
At some point in our careers, we’ve all needed some form of mentorship or guidance to inspire us to keep going, to reach our goals and our dreams.
Get Recognition in front of their peers
An award ceremony—where you’re presented with your MYOB certificate is a significant and important part of the learning experience.
Find a Study Buddy
Don’t go it alone, get a study buddy. It make the learning experience much more social and human.
Compare yourself
We all do it at some point or another: we size each other up to see how we’re fairing by comparison.
Michelle provides support for our MYOB training course students
Did you remember receiving that blog post about us looking for a person to work with us doing office admin in Chatswood? Michelle, one of our MYOB course students, completed her Business Service Provider profile and fit the bill so we brought her in for interviewing.
Michelle is a hard working mother of two teenage children and she has worked hard to learn new skills, while managing her fathers business, building it’s website and lots of other great things.
Michelle is now part of our team and she’s learning a lot of new things about how we operate our business, how we promote ourselves online and also how we use online marketing tools like Google. Most importantly I’m introducing her because she’s available to help current students get through their course as part of our Student Community and Tutor Support program to helps them in their journey to find MYOB jobs.
But more than MYOB, Michelle is currently completing her Cert IV in Small Business Management with the aim of being able to help people start their own business or manage their existing business better.
Welcome aboard Michelle 🙂
We’re revamping our Student Community and Tutor Support service to specifically focus on skills to help students find MYOB jobs and learn small business management skills and Michelle will be available to help students.
MYOB jobs in Chatswood and Gold Coast.
I was so impressed with the result of our search that I’m reaching out again. We are looking for another admin assistant at our Chatswood office and also in the Gold Coast area so if you live in these areas make sure you complete the Business Service Provider and tell us a bit about yourself. We prefer to work with students who have completed our course and understand how we operate our business so you get the first chance!
Just as we do with our MYOB training courses, we also offer Lifetime access to our MS Excel and Word training courses, which means each time Microsoft releases a new version of MS Office, we update our course content so you’re always totally up to date with the latest versions of Word and Excel.
Keeping Excel in Your Memory
Let’s be straight up here; once you get the hang of Word you probably won’t need to refer back to our course content all that much. Excel, on the other hand, is a different ball game.
In many ways Excel is a lot like algebra or a foreign language: if you don’t use it often, you’ll forget it. Sure, you’ll remember bits — J’adore Dior! E = mc2! — but you’re likely to struggle through your day-to-day if it’s something you rely on heavily at work.
Because many people use accounting software like MYOB, their use of Excel is fairly infrequent. For instance, suddenly trying to create a PivotTable will probably leave most of us stumped! And let’s not forget that by the time most users have mastered how to create macros in their worksheets, Microsoft will have released a new version of MS Office and we’ll be back to square one again. This, in large part, is a key reason why we offer Lifetime access to our training courses— because we, just like you, also forget stuff.
New Features in New MS Word and Excel (in a Nutshell)
Now that Microsoft has released their highly anticipated MS Office 2013, it’s likely you won’t be able to find the ‘Paste Special’ button again, so we’re updating our course content to reflect the new changes.
Here’s a low-down on some of the new features in the new MS Word and Excel:
Word:
Open and edit PDF files in Word – finally! Gone are the days of having an additional piece of software installed on your PC to enable this.
Threaded review comments
Read mode with page turning
Alignment guides – hallelujah! Why have they never had this before!
Placeholder
Excel:
Quick analysis
Flash fill – we’ve always had this to an extent, but flash fill just got a whole lot more intelligent!
PowerView – for the real Excel pro, but still a welcome addition.
New PivotTable tools
Improved functionality when opening new Excel windows
Recommended PivotTables and charts
New chart controls
Get a link
Publish Excel data to social media – we don’t recommend using this often, because snore. But it’s still great if you want to quickly share your yoy sales results with your Twitter followers or Facebook friends.
So whether you’re using MS Office 2013, 2010 or prior, if you’ve forgotten how to do a VLOOKUP, it’s time you educated yourself in the mystery that is Excel — enrol in one of our Microsoft training courses today!
Having access to more information about their business helped Cheryl and Jim climb from just breaking even to owning two stores.
We recommend MYOB Account Right Live in all of our MYOB training courses — not because it’s the latest version of the hugely popular MYOB software — but because it gives business owners the kind of data they need to run their business efficiently and securely.
We have previously blogged about how cloud accounting software now makes it so much easier for you to start a bookkeeping business from home; but it can also help existing business owners operate and grow their businesses.
Perhaps the biggest bonus with cloud accounting software is that you have access to information about your profits and expenses in real-time. This is enormously useful for small businesses to constantly track how they’re going and make any necessary changes.
From a Break-Even Bakery — to Owning 2 Successful Stores
We decided to take a look at how one business owner grew a moderately successful business into a totally thriving one by using cloud accounting software to track their expenses.
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Cheryl and her husband, Jim, operated a small neighbourhood bakery in a busy block of local shops. Jim was the baker and pastry chef in residence, while Cheryl, who had previously worked as an account executive at an advertising firm, managed the office side of the business.
“I was used to budgets and targets, so it made sense that I would handle the admin side of the business,” Cheryl tells us. “But, coming from a large-scale ad agency, I had been spoilt for choice in the way of CRM and other software that tracked my sales in real-time,” she says. “I didn’t have any of that with the bakery. Just an outdated version of MYOB!”
Cheryl and Jim estimated that it would take them about a year before they would start to see any real traction with the bakery, but a year had come and gone, and they were still just breaking even.
“Jim would come in and go ‘we had a great day today, heaps of customers’ but at the end of the month we were still struggling with all the expenses, paying our staff and trying to pay ourselves a wage too,” Cheryl says. “Finally I asked my accountant what was going on and he just said ‘update your MYOB,’” she says.
Cheryl says that having access to data they had previously only received once it was too late was a game-changer. “This sounds funny, but I could see we were spending all this money on flour, but our sales didn’t reflect a need for it,” Cheryl laughs.
“Finally I asked my accountant what was going on and he just said ‘update your MYOB,’” Cheryl says.
“I asked Jim if he was over-ordering because that seemed like the logical answer, but he said he only ordered what was needed,” she says. “This led me to do some investigating.”
What the Data Revealed
Jim would bake an average of 75 loaves of bread a day, but sales records in MYOB showed they old sold an average of 40 loaves a day; Jim was baking twice as much bread as he needed and all left-over stock was thrown out at the end of the day.
“We were literally throwing our money away,” Cheryl says. “But it was a learning curve.”
Before long Cheryl and Jim implemented various other systems to track their stock, so they could better manage their expenses. Within a year, Cheryl and Jim had completely turned their business around.
“Now we have two shops,” Cheryl says. “Where before we struggled keeping just the one going. Being able to see what we were spending as we were spending it — that changed everything.”
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Don’t run your business blind; use cloud accounting software, like MYOB Account Right Live, which allows you to see your accounts in real-time, safely and securely. Our MYOB training courses will get you up-to-speed with everything MYOB. Enrol today.
Lodge your tax return early and you’re bound to get a quick refund.
We’re always updating our course content to ensure our MYOB course reflect the market demands of bookkeepers in an ever-changing industry, and if you’re one of our MYOB lifetime students you have access to this content any time, every time.
And we use this blog to keep you up-to-date with industry news — like this news just in from the ATO:
A total of 1.7 million returns were received by the ATO between 1 July and 23 July 2013, and already refunds have been issued for some 40 percent of those returns—a whopping $1.68 billion refunded in less than 30 days.Continue reading ATO Tax Refunds – Get Your Tax Return in Early
If you’re a registered BAS agent you just became a whole lot more valuable to your clients!
BAS agents can further specialise in the construction industry
WE LIKE TO KEEP our online cloud accounting course graduates up to date with changes to the bookkeeping industry and today is no exception!
If you’re a registered BAS agent working in the building and construction industry, then we’ve got some major news for you: the Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) announced in July that BAS agents can now lodge Taxable Payments Annual Reports (TPAR).
Making more money as a bookkeeper
In an earlier blog, we talked about how you can improve the rate you earn by specialising. Carving out a niche for yourself — for instance, honing your skills in a particular sector, like the building industry, with all its complexities — will also see you able to earn top dollar (this is exactly what the professionals at Buildon Bookkeeping do).
Taxable Payments Annual Reports (TPAR’s)
Before you can register with the TPB as a Tax/BAS agent, you’ll first need to work under the supervision of another Tax/BAS agent. If you are planning to work in the building and construction industry, you might consider working under the supervision of a Tax/BAS agent providing bookkeeping services within the industry already — so you can get a handle on lodging TPARs.
TPARs are an annual report outlining every payment made to suppliers and contractors for that financial year. Every entity or business within the building and construction industry must now prepare one.
When TPARs first came into effect in July last year, only tax agents were able to prepare the report, but on 15 July 2013, the TPB announced that BAS agents could now provide this service, which must be lodged by the 21July every year.
But wait, there’s more! The TPB has also amended the Tax Agents Services Act (2009) to allow BAS agents to provide the following services:
Superannuation Guarantee Contribution and Superannuation Guarantee Charge work
Superannuation Contribution payment and reporting services
As the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers understands it, BAS agents will not have to become registered with the TPB to provide these services, even though they were typically services carried out by a Tax agent.
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If you’re a registered BAS agent, you just become a whole lot more valuable to your clients, particularly if you work within the building and construction industry.
A recent article in the Journal of Accountancy discussed the many benefits of making a bricks-and-mortar business a virtual one. Of course saving money on the monthly rent cheque factored quite high on the ‘pros’ list — but when is the right time to go virtual?
Steps to Becoming Virtual
As human beings we’re creatures of habit, so the decision to turn your business into an entirely virtual one shouldn’t be taken lightly, particularly if you have clients who visit your premises regularly. But even once you get your clients onboard, you’ve still got a way to go before you can close your doors for good.
The first step is determining whether your team can work remotely. Self-starters and highly motivated individuals thrive in the virtual environment, whereas, those who need a lot of supervision, direction and even daily interaction with colleagues, generally aren’t suited to working remotely.
Virtual offices do not have the space to store paper and hardcopy files. While your own business may use online storage software like Dropbox, you also need to consider your clients. If they’re not using cloud accounting software and you’re still required to store their client files, a virtual office may not be the way to go yet.
In order to function effectively and efficiently as a virtual business, you must ensure you have the systems in place first. This means making sure your employees have the devices they need to do their job from home and, in turn, that your business has the necessary infrastructure and software to facilitate that as well.
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So before you pack up your goods and chattels and close your office doors for good, make sure you’re business is truly ready to take the plunge. Be sure to read our next post; we discuss what steps you should take in readying your business to go virtual.
It is unfortunate, but many people aren’t aware of the important function a bookkeeper can play in a business. Bookkeepers are often relegated to being “the accountant’s poor cousin” (not dissimilar to the way nurses are seen in comparison to doctors); while for some people the only bookkeeper they’ve heard of hangs out at the dog track!
Don’t Fear Your Accountant!
But the word ‘accountant’ really doesn’t need to put the fear of God in you. The fact is a bookkeeper provides valuable services that many accountants simply can’t; and nearly all accountants are more than grateful for the work bookkeepers do.
To work as a professional bookkeeper, you must show you are amply qualified in areas of Australian tax, payroll and sometimes, basic accounting. As it happens, there are many qualified accountants that work as bookkeepers — as is the case with bookkeeping firm, Build on Bookkeeping.
Since most business owners will find themselves an accountant first and a bookkeeper second, if you have a good working relationship with all of the accountants you deal with, they will more than likely refer clients on to you.
So if you can work well with your client’s accountants — by getting your EOFY analysis done in time and the relevant reports to them quickly — you may find yourself a personal advocate for your business.
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So don’t live in fear of the accountant — embrace them. Read our tips on keeping the accountant happy come EOFY and you’re well on your way to a prosperous working relationship with the accountants of all of your clients.
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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…