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Business Office Administration Training to find Remote Work

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I recently wrote about the Internship opportunities for selected business and office administration training courses – this work can all be done online, remotely working from home.

One of the best things about running an online training business is that we can deliver our courses to the thousands of students who live in remote parts of New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland and the rest of Australia!

Read on to discover how you can up-skill and learn how to become a remote working virtual assistant performing business and office administration work from your own home

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Digital Business Skills to Compliment Xero & MYOB Training

Xero-MYOB-Microsoft-Excel-Bookkeeping-Academy-freelance-or-contract-workers-for-your-business-online-business-training-course-EzyLearn

Digital Business Skills are important for everyone who works for a company or who owns one. Authentication for Xero Course students highlighted to me the importance of general digital business skills. Our Digital Business Course has been available for a while as a FREE student inclusion but we’ve recently added to it.

Electricians, tradies and real estate agents are communicating with prospects and customers digitally, even regarding their accounts, and I wrote about how we’ve started to see these skills come up in office admin job ads. If you have any doubts about how to do this you need to up-skill.

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What’s The Difference between LIFETIME Access and Lifelong Learning?

We’re here to help you learn FOR LIFE!

lifelong learning platform woman online learning for lifeWE HAVE TALKED about lifelong learning in a previous post; lifelong learning being the concept of learning as an ongoing exercise that individuals should undertake throughout their lifetimes, in order to remain productive and engaged members of society. In other words, learning never stops.

Lifelong learning is particularly important in the workplace, where the rates of technological advancement threaten to wipe out entire professions and replace them with new ones. We’ve talked about Xero’s newly announced lifelong learning platform, which launched in November 2017, in partnership with Swinburne University (for Australia and New Zealand). A full global roll out is expected in 2018. 

We are also thrilled to announce our new Lifelong Learning Hub for all EzyLearn students to access. It is part of our Additions and Updates policy and all students who have signed up for Lifetime Access since 2013, and all students within their 12-month access period, can access the following:

Lifelong learning is a theory, not a platform

Xero’s Lifelong Learning Platform is clever, but it’s a misnomer since “lifelong learning”, as a concept, doesn’t relate to a single pursuit (accounting or finance), but rather an individual’s entire attitude toward learning and how they learn.

If you haven’t already, I recommend you go back and read our post about lifelong learning, specifically the section on the four pillars of learning, which outlines four key types of learning – another topic we’ve covered at length in the past.

Xero’s lifelong learning platform offers just one pillar (learning to do) of lifelong learning, not a framework to engaging in lifelong learning, the concept.

Lifetime Access is what it says it is

Have you ever gone to re-watch a movie or TV show on Netflix and discovered that it’s been removed from the Netflix library to make way for other titles? Good thing, you’ve seen it already.

The same happens at educational institutions that have to update or make way for a new course, and so they purge their content and course offerings. (Just try and find a TAFE that teaches shorthand nowadays, even though it remains a sought-after skill in a lot of professions.)

If you’ve already taken a now-deleted course, the good news is that you’ve learned those skills already. The bad news is that you can’t go back and brush up on them. The ever worse news is that you have to start a new course from scratch if you want to build on your existing skills with the update content.

That’s where EzyLearn’s Lifetime Access training courses are different. When you enrol in a training course with lifetime access, you have access to every version of that training course for life. When we update our course content, we continue to provide you with access to previous content (which includes older versions of the software), so you can go back and refresh your skills.

Lifetime Access for CPD points

As Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is a requirement for most professions today, but particularly for bookkeepers and BAS agents, the Bookkeeping Academy’s training courses with lifetime access are also recognised by the ICB, so you get your CPD points and access to all of our course content for as long as you need it — for one, low price.

Help us provide better courses

If you join the EzyLearn Beta Club, you get access to our courses that are still in development, giving you the opportunity to learn new skills before other students, and provide feedback on the types of exercises and scenarios you’d like to see in our courses.

Our Beta Club courses are important to us because we get to hone our course content based on feedback from students while the courses are still in development. This saves us lots of time, particularly if the feedback from students means we take the course in a substantially different direction.

It also benefits our students and partners who get the content before it’s officially launched, and can request content that covers areas of business relevant to them and their clients. This helps students and partners stay ahead of industry trends, and become experts before the courses are officially rolled out.

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EzyLearn already has a number of training courses currently in beta and available to our Beta Club members. Visit our website for more information on Lifetime Access training courses and our Beta Club.


 

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Announcement: EzyLearn LIFELONG Learning Hub is NOW LIVE!

EzyLearn LIFELONG Learning Hub Logo Excel, Xero, MYOB, QuickBooksEvery EzyLearn student now has a student account FOR LIFE!

OK, before I continue let me just clarify: If you’ve only signed up for 12 months’ course access to, say, the Xero Beginners’ Certificate Courses, then you get access to those courses for 12 months. If you sign up for LIFETIME Course Access to the Xero COMPLETE Training Course package you get Lifetime Course Access to all the Xero courses PLUS Updates and Additions.

 

[box type=”info”] So, what does a student account for LIFE really mean?[/box]

 

When you enrol into an online training course with EzyLearn, we create a student account with a username and password so you can then log in and proceed to your training courses. A couple years ago we introduced FREE Student Inclusions as a way of giving EzyLearn students more reason to expand their knowledge and learn new things. Today’s announcement is to let you know that you get access to these free courses for LIFE!

Not just free courses, but new course samples

Free student inclusions is one reason to enrol with EzyLearn but the new LIFELONG Learning Hub will give you so much more and here’s an example.

We currently have a special offer for any new student enrolling into any of our courses where you get access to the

All of this is accessible from the LIFELONG Learning Hub right now — to everyone who has enrolled into an EzyLearn course since January 2013 — EVERYONE!

From here, all you need do is login with your student account and go to the LIFELONG Learning Hub.


 

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Should You Charge Less Than the Minimum Wage as a Contract Bookkeeper?

Junior level 1 bookkeepers good cheap local bookkeeping services - Natbooks

Don’t attract interest in your services for the wrong reasons

RECENTLY I’VE WRITTEN about how your prices should be part of your business strategy and not your marketing strategy. I talked about Mark, the painter, who advertised a really low day rate but wasn’t able to carry out the volume of jobs he needed to make enough money (see Is Your Charge-Out Rate a Marketing or Business Strategy?).

A better strategy for Mark would have been to research the market and find ways to provide customers with savings elsewhere (Researching the Market is a Crucial Part of Every Business Strategy).

The same principle can be applied to contract bookkeepers charging less than the minimum wage. Although this may get you a lot of regular work early on in your business, you will soon learn that it’s unsustainable. And because it’s also really hard to increase your rates substantially, you’ll just find yourself back at square one if you do so anyway.

Check out the National Bookkeeping Rates of Pay to get indicative pricing for contract bookkeeping services.

Remember your entitlements

When you’re setting your prices, don’t forget to factor in your entitlements. As a full time employee of a business, you receive annual leave entitlements equating to four weeks’ salary, sick leave equating to ten days’ salary, public holiday pay, superannuation, and tax withheld on your behalf.

As a contract bookkeeper, you should earn the equivalent of a full year’s salary proportional to how many days or hours you work each week.

Contractor or employee?

As a contractor, your hourly rate will be higher than that of a full time employee, sometimes two times as high. If you have clients who don’t want to pay a higher hourly rate to hire you as an independent contractor, they might be better suited to employing casual staff instead.

If you’d prefer the life of an employee check out our Career Academy Success Program.

Increasing your rates

If you decide it’s time to increase your rates, you need to show how you provide value to your clients’ businesses, in order to discourage them from seeking the same services from another, cheaper bookkeeper. If there’s some extenuating circumstances, it may also be worthwhile explaining the reason for the increase — if your compliance costs have increased due to government regulatory changes, for example. (Note: Rising electricity, broadband or rent is best kept to yourself.)

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You’ll learn ways to increase your rates without losing your clients by enrolling in Research the Market module of our Business StartUp training course as a standalone mini course. Visit our website for more information or to enrol.  

Ref:#700

 

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Beware: The Quick Quote

Quick quotes are better in Xero, MYOB or QuickBooks to collect prospect customers contact details

Don’t get the details and say goodbye to even more money!

Quick quotes are better in Xero, MYOB or QuickBooks to collect prospect customers contact detailsIN THE PAST I wrote a blog titled Three Mistakes That Will Cost Your Business Thousands in Lost Revenue. Here I explored the importance of timeliness when it comes to quoting for work. However, there’s a difference between timeliness and a quick quote.

A painter I know was asked to give a quick price on how much it would cost to paint a room the same size as one he was currently working on. He said it would cost around $300, and that was that. The problem?

He didn’t get their details!

As I’ve mentioned in three Mistakes That Will Cost Your Business Thousands in Lost Revenue, you must always get a prospect’s name and contact details, so you can follow up on their interest in working with you.

Don’t assume that they’ll contact you if they want the work done. Sometimes they might, but most of the time the person will wait for YOU to close the sale. If you don’t, they’ll simply assume you’re not interested or too busy, and they’ll go find someone who is more interested.

Don’t know the job specifics?

Then ask for information on the following:

  • Where is the job located?
  • What’s the condition of the room?
  • Does it have ornate ceilings, picture rails or skirting boards that complicate the job?

Even if our case study example; in this instance, the painter, was going to give a quick quote; he should be sure to make clear that it’s a rough quote that may change depending on those things.

Does the quote include paint?

Selling Academy Sales Training Courses logoUsually, the answer to this question is no. But the painter should make this clear. Often the cost of paint is the most expensive part of the job, and that $300 paint job might just be closer to double, depending on the type of paint used. Remember, people all too often confuse pricing a little on the low side, with winning work (and then making it work for you). In reality, this is usually mistake.

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Our EzyStartup Course will you teach you about pricing your services, business planning, marketing, and running your small business efficiently. Visit our website for more information or to enrol — OR stay tuned by subscribing to our blog.  Remember too: right now, for every student that enrols, you become part of our Lifelong Learning Hub where you can access our Selling Academy Sales Success Training Course absolutely FREE.