EzyLearn’s Xero Training Courses are the most updated courses available. The Xero software is changing regularly and we keep our training materials up-to-date every quarter.
The bookkeeping and accounting industry changes and these blog articles our commitment to the best quality standards in online bookkeeping courses, including integrations that add features and functionality to the major accounting software (including MYOB & QuickBooks Online).
I wrote about the $600 garden shed that blew out to a $4000 shed and our QuickBooks, MYOB and Xero Courses to manage Job Tracking and Projects recently.
Just follow the step-by-step instructions to enter the transactions based on our small business case studies and increase confidence and knowledge of the software.
This is a quick and cheap way to learn and by-pass the assessments.
There are many finance professionals — who does your business need?
WE’VE MENTIONED PREVIOUSLY THAT finding a bookkeeper, when you may not know much about bookkeeping, can be a difficult task.
In fact, a lot of new business owners assume their accountant will take care of everything for them, which may be costly if their accountant has to perform a year’s worth of bookkeeping in order to file the business’s tax return. But bookkeepers and accountants can work harmoniously in your business.
As a general rule, every business needs at least two finance professionals working on their business accounts, but which two professionals you’ll need to hire depends on your business needs. If you’re not sure who you need to hire for your business, here’s a cheat sheet to help you out.
Bookkeepers (not registered with the TPB)
An independent bookkeeper not employed by an accountant and not registered with the Tax Practitioner’s Board (TPB) may only perform basic bookkeeping services, such as the
entering of receipts,
coding financial transactions,
generating invoices and purchase orders
accounts receivable and accounts payable
If you hire this type of bookkeeper, you’ll still need an accountant.
BAS agents
BAS agents must, by law, register with the Tax Practitioner’s Board (TPB), which certifies that they are qualified and have completed the necessary continuing education requirements to perform the tasks of a BAS agent, which involves carrying out most of the bookkeeping tasks mentioned above, in addition to preparing and lodging business activity statements on a business’s behalf.
If your business is registered for GST, you will need to file regular activity statements. If you hire a BAS agent, you’ll also need an accountant. In some instances, you may find a BAS agent who’s also a registered tax agent and vice versa, who may be able to take care of all your taxation needs.
Tax agents
Although tax agents, like BAS agents, must also register with the Tax Practitioner’s Board (TPB), a tax agent is focused on income tax — how much income you have to declare, how much you can claim back, etc.
This is distinct from a BAS agent who is concerned with the day-to-day financial tasks of your business (bookkeeping and BAS lodgements). That said, some tax agents will also perform some the basic bookkeeping tasks on a regular basis, though they primarily specialise in lodging tax returns.
If you’re not registered for GST, and your tax agent will also perform regular bookkeeping tasks (or you can do it yourself), you may not need to hire an accountant. In some instances, you may find a tax agent who’s also a registered BAS agent and vice versa, who may be able to take care of all your taxation needs.
Accountants
An accountant is mostly concerned with planning and strategy. Unlike bookkeepers and BAS or tax agents, an accountant will assess and advise you on what actions you should take to maximise your income. Great accountants will get involved with planning the direction of your business and ensure it’s been structured properly and that you’re meeting any additional tax obligations.
They’ll also help you to make strategic purchases for equipment and machinery, and work with your BAS agent or bookkeeper to ensure these decisions are reflected in your daily financial records. An accountant is also able to prepare and lodge tax returns on your behalf.
How much should I pay a bookkeeper?
Check out the National Bookkeeping Directory, which features the details of bookkeepers, capable of doing data entry and clerical tasks, through to high-level accounting work as undertaken by BAS agents, accountants and CFOs.
You can also see the National Bookkeeping rates page to find out what level bookkeeper your business needs.
Are you earning $50 per hour at the moment? If you aren’t it can seem almost impossible to believe that you could, particularly when you look at your boss and imagine yourself asking them for a pay rise.
I searched online to see who earns $50 per hour and most of the search results in Seek and Indeed showed up saying you have to be a doctor, pharmacist or HR Manager but bookkeepers earning this much regularly.
The constant need for some companies to continue to grow revenue or subscriber numbers can make the employees do things too aggressively.
Xero has always done a great marketing job against MYOB because it was easy – all they had to do was have good software that was easier to use and in the cloud – now they’re ALL in the Cloud!
Xero focused on a cloud only model and the integrations between it and other online software programs. This was a marketing strategy that may have stretched the truth a little!
MYOB’s problem was that is WAS a Windows based software program. This made using the software harder because you had the constraints of running only on a Windows computer and had to upgrade that software regularly. It also caused issues with their Mac version and they ended up having to discontinue that software and push their Mac users straight to their Cloud version, MYOB Essentials.
If you are looking for and applying for junior bookkeeping jobs you can learn how to use Xero and MYOB in just a few hours with a short Bookkeeping course. Learning how to use Xero and MYOB is not hard when you work through a well designed, step-by-step series of exercises where you do the bookkeeping work.
We have lots of students who come from other industries and are attracted to bookkeeping work because it can fit into their daily routine (if they have children) and because it can be performed remotely from home.
What makes it ezy, not hard to learn Xero and MYOB
Learning how to use accounting software like Xero and MYOB is easiest when you go through practical training exercises using bookkeeping tasks that are performed doing bookkeeping work.
This is a far better way to learn than just trying to copy what you see in a video tutorial.
Bookkeeping data entry work forms the biggest number of jobs available for bookkeeping work. These jobs involve a lot of data entry to get the numbers into the software from every aspect of the business.
If all the data is entered correctly then the end of month bank reconciliation is quick and easy.
Discount Coupon Code for MYOB and Xero Courses
If you want to enrol now then make sure you check out our current promotion and use that discount coupon code to get a cheaper price for your MYOB and Xero course.
Some people might find it easier to learn the software through video tutorials, and replicating what they see on the tutorial using the software. This is a good way for experienced bookkeepers to up skill quickly on a feature that they haven’t used before. It is also a good way for beginners to lose their fear of accounting software.
Watching videos and replicating what you see is very easy to do but once you get past the 4-5th video you realise it’s not the same as performing bookkeeping tasks in an office.
Others might prefer to work through a printed manual with step by step instructions and sample data.
Combining instructor video tutorials, self-study, workbooks and case studies is best
EzyLearn Premium Xero & MYOB courses combine video tutorials which compliment and explain the tasks in the step-by-step training workbooks.
At the end of each subject an online assessment test insures you remember the important parts of each skill level. Each different Xero and MYOB course covers a very specific skill level which is aligned with the job requirements for accounting and bookkeeping jobs.
You can experiment with different methods and start with just video tutorials to see what works best for you. In my experience the MAJOR reasons that people choose video tutorials over practical exercises with case studies is
the higher cost, and
time and effort required
MYOB & Xero Training Course Contents
When you enrol into a Complete training course with EzyLearn you get the Beginners to Advanced skills and everything in between. Learn more about how much MYOB and Xero Courses cost.
Sales is an interesting thing. It involves skills which don’t seem to be well defined enough to create a qualification for – You don’t see a Diploma in Sales or a Cert IV in Sales do you?
Sales is also a topic that scares some people who feel it invovles pushing things upon people who don’t want them but that is not the case.
The most important step in the sales process is called Qualifying and it helps a sales person understand if the person they are talking to really needs what they have available for sale.
I have to admit that I do like reading Xero’s annual reports. They are just like their software, graphical and full of simple graphs and images.
Their share price took a hit recently even though their revenue and subscriptions grew and it’s because they recorded a larger loss than they have in the past. When you read through the report though you realise that they are using a new metric to measure their success.
Could be this be a way of reporting on the profitability of your own business or where you work?
In the United States most colleges have a Career Academy attached to their education services with the goal to provide extra services that help their students.
The Career Academy Addons that are available after completing an Office Admin or Bookkeeping Course with EzyLearn can be viewed here and the most popular option is to extend course access and support.
Many Xero beginners think that they only have 30 days to use the trial version of Xero but that isn’t actually correct. Xero, just like MYOB Business and QuickBooks online need you to create a “user” account and authenticate yourself using SMS or an authenticator app.
Once you’ve got your user account you are able to access dozens of different “company” files when you need to. This is how bookkeepers manage the company files for dozens of their own clients.
I’ve been getting up at 5.15am for the last 2 years – am I crazy?!
I’ve been getting up early because I work out with some friends and prefer early mornings to late nights. This means that I’m going to bed earlier and not working as much at night.
In the past I preferred to work late into the night and pushed myself to get as much work done as I possibly could. Sometimes this meant working until midnight but I noticed that the quality of the work wasn’t always the best.
The sun rises pretty early and I’d rather work with the natural light of the day than the artificial light of the night. I dug a little deeper into this and discovered that there are studies that explains how we perform at various times of the day and how that is affected by when we get up and go to bed – Circadian Rhythms.
Circadian Rhythms can affect how well you perform when studying too..
The most rewarding conversations I have is with EzyLearn graduates who’ve completed our courses and then gone on to manage their finances better or get an accounts job. I’ve been speaking to a lot of EzyLearn students lately and there is a consistent theme in most conversations – “what on earth is going on with the price increases for everything“.
I thought that the Covid-19 era was going to be the most challenging period because of all the disruption to our normal lives. I’m not sure if you have discovered the same but one of the best results was that more people started working from home or negotiated partial work from home arrangements with their employer.
The real disruption of The Pandemic is that we are NOW all paying the price of it with inflation and interest rates!
Amelia and her husband run a landscape construction business in Melbournes Eastern suburbs called Whitaker Landscape Constructions. She enrolled into a Xero Training Course with EzyLearn while doing a Cert IV in Bookkeeping and Accounting at Chisholm because she wanted more practical skills using accounting software.
What she discovered was how detailed and in-depth EzyLearn training courses and workbooks really are. OK, that’s enough of the boasting – here are some things Amelia said she likes about using Xero in her husband’s business.
Yes, it’s true! You can get Xero Certification for FREE directly from Xero. Xero offer two free Certifications:
Xero Certified Advisor, and
Xero Payroll Certification
We had a course inquiry from someone who had already done this certification and they raved about Xero and what it can do and how it works – BUT THEY HAD NEVER USED XERO!
Gina has 10 years experience in every aspect of operating and managing a tourist and caravan park in her home state of Tasmania and she loved the bookkeeping side of the work so much she wants to do it for other businesses.
She learnt how to use Xero and loves how it means she can do the work from anywhere – even Zeehan in Tasmania’s west.
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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…