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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.
Sometimes the importance of payroll is underestimated.
When the national minimum wage increased this month, it got us thinking about the role the payroll professional plays in a business. Payroll is an important and often complex aspect of every business — and a topic we cover in our MYOB training course — but it’s often the most underestimated. So we decided to take a deeper look at the role of the payroll professional.
Payroll: There’s Quite a Lot to It
Even though payroll sounds easy enough — you just pay people their wages, right? — it’s actually not as simple as it sounds. As a payroll professional, you’re entirely responsible for understanding and interpreting the ever-changing regulations and legislation relating to payroll; as well as managing the demands of both the employer and employee.
And as such, payroll is not a simple task for the uninitiated; it requires a person with solid knowledge of PAYG and superannuation, as well as an understanding of Australian tax.
For instance, how do you ensure you’re making the correct contributions to an employee’s HECS or HELP debt? Or make sure super contributions are made correctly (and to the correct fund)? Are you certain your employees are being paid according to the correct modern award? Getting these things wrong is not just time-consuming to rectify, but can also incur fines to your company!
In a recent new book by Tracey Angwin called The Payroll Revolution (which has gone on to become an Australian best seller) Angwin discusses the responsibility of the payroll professional and offers practical and guided tips on Australian payroll.
Just some of the skills that Angwin suggests the payroll professional should possess are:
Strong people skills
AIS/payroll software experience (such as MYOB)
General email, word and excel skills
Strong understanding of superannuation and PAYG
Good knowledge of the Fairwork Act
Ability to work under pressure and to tight deadlines
With the new financial year, there’s a new minimum wage.
While you were busy with EOFY analysis — see our tips and checklists to ensure you haven’t missed anything important — you may have missed the Fair Work Commission announcing that the minimum living wage has increased by 2.6% from 1 July this year.
The New Minimum Wage
The new minimum wage for every Australian worker is $622.20 per week or $16.37 per hour and this affects all employees; even if they’re not covered by a modern award.
You’ll need to update your payroll records in MYOB to reflect this new change (we cover changes to payroll in our MYOB course if you’re not sure) so that you don’t get caught out paying your staff at the old pay rate.
If your staff are covered by a modern award and you’re not sure what their new rate of pay will be, you can check the Fair Work Award Finder on the Fair Work Commission’s website to ensure you’re paying your employees the correct rate of pay.
Effective from 1 July
As with the increase to the superannuation guarantee, the increases to the minimum wage is effective from 1 July. However, unlike the superannuation guarantee, an employee cannot receive two separate pay rates in one pay period.
This means that for businesses that pay their employees on a fortnightly or monthly basis, where part of their employees’ pay covers a week or few weeks in June and another part of their employees’ pay covers July, the employer needs to pay the old rate for that entire period and apply the new pay rate from the next full pay period commencing after 1 July.
It’s also important to keep in mind that most allowances (such as, leading-hand and industry allowances) are based on a percentage of the base rate and since this has increased, those allowances will increase, too.
If you’re unsure what these allowances will increase to, check the modern award on the Department of Fairwork’s Award Finder or register for email updates from Fairwork about how the changes apply to each particular award.
Bookkeepers Who Want to Provide BAS Services Need TPB Certification
Don’t stress: The TPB certification requirements may actually kick-start some people’s bookkeeping businesses.
Whether you are a bookkeeper who uses Xero or MYOB or one of the other accounting software packages that we offer training on, you are probably aware that Australian tax legislation has changed recently. As a result, providing BAS services to clients is not as simple as it once was.
All bookkeepers who wish to provide a BAS service for a fee, must now hold a Certificate IV in Financial Services (Bookkeeping or Accounting) or higher to be eligible for registration.
Becoming certified with the TPB is a lot like getting your drivers license: you need to be able to demonstrate the relevant experience of at least 1400 hours, or 1000 hours if you’re already a member of a professional organisation — like the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers — which you can become a member of for free when you complete an applicable EzyLearn Training Course.
If you’re working under the supervision of another registered Tax or BAS agent, you cannot provide any Tax or BAS services to any clients you may pick up of your own. In other words, you must only provide tax or BAS services to clients known to your supervising Tax/BAS agent.
For some newcomers to the industry, this may seem daunting. But that’s just because conventional wisdom suggests that you must take on some form of permanent employment, working for a bookkeeper or accountant who is registered with the TPB and can supervise you while you gain the necessary skills to go out on your own.
But that’s not actually the case. While this is an option — and a good one if you’ve never worked as a bookkeeper before — it’s not the only one. You can still work with another registered Tax/BAS agent as a contractor, providing these services to the registered Tax/BAS agent’s clients until you’re eligible to go out on your own.
Kick start your own business
This is a great way to get a start on your own business — perhaps just offering non BAS services to start with — while you gain the skills to become registered to offer GST and BAS services. Contract bookkeeping jobs of this nature are actually easier to find that it may seem — often by striking up a working relationship with an accountant or another certified bookkeeper.
Everyone’s smiling: Your clients will benefit if you opt to go virtual.
In our last post we discussed why we updated our MYOB training material to include MYOB’s cloud accounting software Account Right Live and how you could benefit from operating a completely remote or virtual bookkeeping business, which is great; but how do your clients benefit from your working remotely?
Convincing the Clients
Winning new clients is always difficult, but it can be especially difficult to convince the old school business owner that hiring a virtual bookkeeper is the way to go: “But I like having someone come in and sit down with me” is not an uncommon counter remark; while for many the idea of a remote bookkeeper conjures notions of unqualified cowboys.
If you’re thinking about starting a virtual bookkeeping business or turning your existing business into a virtual one, then you need to get used to overcoming these obstacles if you’re going to have any success.
It’s worth stating upfront to any potential clients, or existing clients you’re trying to convert, the benefits of retaining a remote bookkeeper over your bookkeeper that makes house calls, or office calls, rather.
Just some benefits:
By retaining a virtual bookkeeper, your clients only pay for time worked; that means their hourly rate is not inflated with hidden travel costs, which usually includes the time they spend commuting to your office
Virtual bookkeepers don’t have the costly overheads of renting office space, paying for utilities, equipment, storage space, and so forth — all of which decreases their hourly rate
For those businesses that may usually employ a bookkeeper as a full-time or part-time member of staff, using a remote bookkeeper means they’re no longer paying sick leave, annual leave and other entitlements
All bookkeepers, whether they work remotely or otherwise, have to be accredited by the Tax Practitioners Board to offer BAS services.
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If you’re thinking of starting a virtual bookkeeping business, our online MYOB course covers MYOB Account Right Live — a necessary piece of software to make any virtual bookkeeping business not only successful, but also feasible.
Virtual bookkeepers can dictate their hours and place of work.
WHEN MYOB FINALLY ENTERED the cloud accounting fray in 2012, we were pretty excited and we quickly updated our course material to reflect this new era of MYOB.
Moving MYOB online gave contract and home-based bookkeepers new career opportunities: the ability to go virtual.
A virtual or remote bookkeeping business is much the same as any other home-based or contract bookkeeping business; you still offer the same services — BAS and GST, for instance — except for one notable difference: you work entirely remotely from your home office.
Run Your Bookkeeping Business Anywhere, 24/7
Running your bookkeeping business from any location, any time of any day means you are never required to visit a client’s office to collect documents — or even work from their office. With MYOB in the cloud, all of your clients’ accounts are accessible from any computer, anywhere, any time you choose.
Rather than being confined to a client base in your immediate local area or city, working as a virtual bookkeeper opens you up to the possibility of working with people all over the country.
For bookkeepers operating in small communities where business opportunities may have previously been limited, becoming a remote or virtual bookkeeper will increase your business exponentially.
But virtual bookkeeping businesses have their benefits to city folk, as well. Because you don’t have to spend hours commuting to and from your clients’ offices, you can use that time to either pick up additional clients — or spend it with your family.
A remote or virtual bookkeeping business allows you the flexibility of working when you want, where you want, without having to compromise on your earning potential.
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And it’s why we were so excited when MYOB created MYOB Account Right Live: now the graduates from our online MYOB courses can compete with the big-name bookkeeping firms from their own homes; wherever they might be.
We often talk about the benefits of studying an MYOB course online or how using cloud-based accounting software to telework benefits employees and employers, but we don’t often discuss the benefits of cloud computing to the environment.
A recent study commissioned by internet giant Google and carried out by Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory in the US, found that if the entire US workforce moved into cloud computing — where employees would now work from their home offices — it could save up to 87 percent of the energy used to power IT systems. That’s enough energy to power the entire city of Los Angeles for a year.
Using the Cloud Means Going Green
For Google, this showed just how great the energy saving potential of the internet is — something we’ve often discussed in posts about operating a home-based or virtual bookkeeping business.
In fact, the Green Factor is another reason why we moved all of our training materials and content online in 2007; it meant we would no longer have the costly overheads of powering physical training centres (and adding to our carbon footprint), allowing us to deliver the same high quality training courses at a lower price.
Of course, being an internet company, Google only looked at the IT energy savings to be had if every worker in the US began working from their home offices. They didn’t look at the potential knock-on effect this would have when two or more people in a household were both working from home.
The Communal Office
So while saving some 23 billion kilowatt-hours in energy is a massive feat, we wonder how much of that energy would be reinvested in individuals’ upsizing their homes or renting office spaces once working at home with the whole family became more distracting than it did productive? Perhaps, then, a chain of communal office spaces might become the next McDonalds of the digital world?
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Regardless of whether it’s a saving of 23 billion kilowatt-hours of just 23 kilowatt-hours, increasing our energy efficiency and reducing our carbon footprint is always a good thing; cloud-based software and studying online goes along way to doing just that.
Where do you live? If you live on the east coast of Australia, there’s a good chance the National Broadband Network (NBN) is already available in your area, and if you’re not already connected, you should be. With high-speed internet piped straight into your home, completing one of our online MYOB courses or operating an home-based business that uses cloud accounting software like MYOB Account Right Live is a cinch.
The NBN will make it possible to share and upload files to online storage software like Dropbox and it will become commonplace to video conference with people locally and internationally. Further, slow download and upload times, or choppy video that stalls and jams will become a thing of the past.
The NBN is currently available in these Australian cities.
The Growth of the NBN
However, according to the NBN Co, in December 2012 it was estimated that there was already some 34,500 homes connected to the NBN — out of the 758,000 homes and businesses where the NBN was already available, mind you. This is means there’s a great deal of Australians not connected to the NBN when they could be. The map on the right shows the areas of Australia where the NBN service is currently available. (You can find out more information on whether the NBN is available in your area by click on the map of visiting the NBN website.)
The advances in the education, business and even health industries, created by the NBN will be limitless. In the education space, particularly in the area of e-learning, online videos will become the delivery method of choice — and later, even live conferences between students and teacher. Though online video is being used more regularly than it was just five years ago, it’s not being used to its full capacity. But the NBN will change all of that; so you can say goodbye to reading an endless scroll of text on a webpage or printed learning materials.
Opening up the Use of the Cloud
The NBN also gives small businesses the ability to streamline their processes and procedures — previously reserved for large organisations that could afford the cost to implement them — with cloud-based softwares that make working with people from different sites, sharing data and even storing data, quick, easy and (importantly) viable — which accounting software like MYOB is already doing.
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So if you haven’t done so already, find out if the NBN is available in your area (click on the map above to find out if your home can be connected to the NBN). If it turns out the NBN is available to your home the next step is simple: contact one of the NBN’s preferred service providers (a list is available on their website) who can help you make the switch; from there, it’s all systems go — you’ll be connected to a world of possibilities.
In the dark ages when technology was primitive, the fear of losing data left people in a constant state of printing. Archive-box-after-archive-box was filled with printouts and photocopies so that, in the event of a system crash, records could be easily re-entered — after first wading through archive-box-after-archive-box filled with printouts and photocopies to retrieve the lost data, of course. Now, thanks to cloud accounting software, that’s all changed.
Cloud Accounting Stops the Fear of Crashing
We’ve recently blogged about some of the benefits of cloud accounting software (namely avoiding the commute on cold, winter mornings!) — but two of the other great benefits are no longer having to live your life in fear of a system crash and those dreaded three little words: did you back up? Nor do you have to house a labyrinth of archive boxes filled with enough paper to blanket a small country.
Cloud accounting software backs up all of your data and stores it on an online server, so if you change computers or (heaven forbid) your computer crashes, it won’t require a computer genius to retrieve your important information — just a username and password. Plus, most cloud accounting software — like Reach, Xero, FreshBooks and Zoho — is accessed through a web browser, which means you can access your accounts from any device, anywhere.
MYOB Account Right Live and the Cloud
The only exception is MYOB Account Right Live (which, by the way, we also teach online). With MYOB Account Right Live, before you can access any data stored in the MYOB cloud, the software must first be installed on a main device. However, by having the MYOB software installed on your computer you can safely “check out” a client file to work on offline. By checking out a file, other users are then only able to view a “read only” file, so you don’t have to worry about whether another user will update the same file you’re working on.
It’s worth nothing that this option of working on a file offline is limited only to MYOB Account Right Live and isn’t available on other web-based cloud accounting software — FreshBooks does allow you to download a file to work on, but this doesn’t stop another user from updating the file in the cloud at the same time.
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In short, using cloud accounting software offers you enormous flexibility. By using a cloud-based accounting package, you’ll put an end to the printing and hoarding of hardcopy files, or worrying about hard drives and backing up. Instead, you’ll have piece of mind that all your data and important information is stored safely on an online server, accessible at any time. Sounds good, huh?
As the mornings get colder, darker and less inviting, getting up to go to work is that much harder. But what if you didn’t have to get up at the crack of dawn and commute into the office? What if you operated your own bookkeeping business from your home office? With cloud accounting software like MYOB Account Right Live — you can. (If you’ve never used MYOB Account Right Live before, our MYOB Training Course will help you get up-to-speed.)
The Rise of the Cloud
Although cloud computing has been around since the mid 2000s, its use had largely been limited to those companies with access to high-speed Internet; your average sole trader using cloud-based accounting software was rare, confined mainly to contract IT experts.
But as time went on, access to high-speed Internet connections increased — and will increase even more when the NBN rollout is complete — which made cloud computing more easily accessible for individuals working from home; even bookkeepers.
MYOB entered the cloud accounting space in 2012 with their MYOB Account Right Live software that still looks and feels the same as their hugely popular offline versions, but with the added benefit of using an online storage server.
Benefits for Bookkeepers
Cloud accounting software is making it easier to work from home.
In moving their software online, MYOB’s intention was to make bookkeeping easier for the business owner, but MYOB also made it easier for a bookkeeper to access their client’s accounts. It also made operating a home-based bookkeeping business easier, too.
[quote]You’ll be pleased to hear that our Small Business Management Training Course has a slant towards operating a business from home using the latest internet based services like Google, WordPress and more..[/quote]
For bookkeepers one benefit of having their client’s accounts online is that they don’t have to physically go to their client’s place of work; instead, bookkeepers can login to their client’s accounts from their own home or office.
The ability to work offline (known as “checking out”) also means that if your Internet connection is down, you can still keep working as normal; once you connect to the Internet again, MYOB syncs the data with the version stored in the cloud.
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For bookkeepers, cloud accounting software like MYOB Account Right Live makes operating a home-based bookkeeping business a more convenient career option — in more ways than one. Avoid cold mornings and the long commute; start a bookkeeping business.
We are constantly refreshing the content of our MYOB training course so that you are privy to all the latest information you need for becoming a bookkeeper, running your own bookkeeping business, or doing the books for the businesses of others.
Certainly, technology has reshaped the way most of us work, learn and interact with each other. Whether working from home or from an office, many of us spend the bulk of our time online, and for many, it’s not uncommon to feel increasingly disconnected from others, lonely, even. However, in this ever-increasing virtual world in which we live and work, there are ways to combat loneliness — things we’ve probably learned from our mother’s and grandmother’s: to mind our P’s and Q’s.
Everybody Emails
If you are thinking about working from home and running a bookkeeping business in 2013 (or you already do this), it goes without saying that things are substantially different to the way they were 20 years ago; different, even to just 10 years ago. Instead of seeing your clients often and chatting regularly on the phone, you email. On a daily basis, your Inbox fills with emails from clients — emails you rarely read in full, scanning instead for keywords or instructions that you mentally note down for later; the email is then closed. Rarely a response longer than “No problem”, “Done” or “Sure, will do” is sent back (something I’m guilty of myself!).
However, there was a time when a client would have phoned through their request or query, you’d have chatted, built a relationship, and some of the loneliness of working from home would have been assuaged. Today, we rarely indulge in such pleasantries — and we complain we’re lonely.
Building Relationships
But loneliness is so easily rectified, particularly in business. Instead of emailing a one-word email back, engage with your customers. Get to know them; ask them how they are, how business is travelling and, above all, thank them for continuing to do business with you. People like to feel appreciated; they like to feel that they’re not alone in the world.
At EzyLearn, we’re in the business of helping people build profitable businesses working from home. With all of our online training courses, we strive to ensure our online students don’t feel detached or lonely. We know that studying online can sometimes feel like you’re missing out on the student-teacher, student-student interaction, making your road to graduation a long and lonely one. It’s why we implemented the ZenDesk customer support system — to handle and respond to your queries quickly and efficiently — and why we’re also active on social media so you can connect with us quickly and easily, every time.
Next time you feel lonely when working or studying online or from home, perhaps consider whether technology has effectively placed a barricade between you and those around you. Are you likely to be regarded as a real person by your clients, or more a faceless, voiceless email that happens to bear your name? Use technology, instead, to connect (or reconnect) with people — and what better place to start than by saying, “Thank You”!
Online study (or correspondence or distance learning, as it was once known) has long divided people into two camps: those who see online or distance students as being self-motivated and dedicated, and those traditionalists or purists who see face-to-face learning as being, in some way, superior.
Truthfully, both sides are probably right. Face-to-face learning does force interaction between students — a precursor to real-life interaction and networking in business.
Business Means Dealing with People
We have often said that one of the fundamental requirements when starting a business is being able to plan. Another, however, is being able to interact and communicate with people from many walks-of-life. And from time-to-time, this means respecting the ideas and opinions of your colleagues whether you agree or not.
Managing or running a business often has less to do with balance sheets and more to do with managing people, or rather, managing different personalities. To a large extent, these are skills you learn in the playground; the university campus.
But they’re also frequently skills a person either inherently has or hasn’t. University doesn’t teach these skills as much as it brings them out in people already possessing them.
Take Mark Zuckerberg — an ambitious Internet visionary — but someone ill-equipped to deal with people and personalities (it’s Sheryl Sandberg who does that), even though he studied face-to-face at university, where Facebook was born. It’s true that face-to-face learning can sometimes conceal a great deal of unmotivated people — people that require constant direction, attention and supervision.
Online Study: If YOU Like Being in Charge
Online study doesn’t allow you to be unmotivated and in constant need of direction; it’s wholly autonomous and requires students to have a great deal of self-motivation, drive and ambition. These are traits that, for a person completing a course in bookkeeping with the intention to work as a sole-trader, will go a long way in determining your success a business owner.
Online students also show a great deal of technological savvy — the ability to work with new systems without a person at the ready to prompt you or answer your questions is an invaluable trait for business owners that often only have themselves to rely on for guidance.
In many ways, online students are problem-solvers; where it’s human nature to put our hand up for help, online students are forced to really look at the problem-at-hand logically, and thoroughly exhaust their options before sending off an email or picking up the phone.
But like universities don’t teach social interaction — they merely foster it — online study doesn’t teach autonomy. I would say that online students are attracted to online study because they already possess those traits likely to make them successful in business.
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When you enrol in one of our MYOB training courses, you should be happy to know that you’re among a group of self-motivated, ambitious individuals with the drive and determination to succeed.
Together with EzyLearn, you’re on track to become the next small-business entrepreneur.
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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…
