Updates Archives - Page 9 of 12

Posted on March 21, 2012March 20, 2012 by Steve Slisar

Do you have to compete against workers from Bangladesh and The Philippines?

High Speed Internet, Software as a service, Crowd-sourcing websites, cloud-based services. They are all making it easier for small business owners to hire workers from anywhere in the world for rates that are much lower than Australia’s minimum wage.

I have written several blog posts about these new and exciting developments because they finally give small business owners the ability to hire like many large Australian companies. Finally, your local small business can have a professional logo or website without having to pay thousands of dollars. This might not be a good thing for Australian workers though…

I was interested to read an article about the PURGING of the professions in the Sydney Morning Herald because it highlights the huge issues that might face our workforce in the decades to come. There is one thing that does stand out in all this glum scenario and that is the value of Australian Qualifications, the ability to speak English (with an Australian accent) and the value of Continued Professional Development (CPD) to be current in your knowledge.

Most importantly it is important for Australian workers to be as aware as possible about software that can greatly improve their “productivity” so you can get more done in less time.

If you are not subscribed to this blog you can do so at this link. We have some exciting new announcements and new content for both Advanced Excel and some extra features using the latest version of MYOB AccountRight Plus so stay tuned.

Posted on March 20, 2012July 16, 2012 by Steve Slisar — 19 Comments

Why is Continuing Professional Development (CPD) important?

Twenty years ago you could safely complete a degree knowing that your qualifications will fuel your wages (that in turn fuel your lifestyle and desires) for the rest of your life. This is no longer the case. Changes in technology are partly to blame but so too are changes in legislation and workplace practices.

If you are an accountant, working in the finance or medical professions you would know about CPD (also called Continuing Professional Education – CPE). It’s a system of providing education for professionals to keep them up to date with what is going on in their professional and this is particularly important if your profession involves advising your clients.

CPD usually involves training seminars, short courses, watching online webinars and completing assessment tasks and each one of the tasks you complete give you a certain number of points towards your total yearly point requirement. Keeping track of your attendance or the results of an exam you did at the end of completing a short course are some ways of keeping track of these points.

Why do we mention it? Because it going to become VERY important if you want to be a professional bookkeeper.

If you have completed (or plan to complete) an EzyLearn online MYOB Bookkeeping training course you will be reassured by the fact that we are currently working on tools and assessment tasks to providing you with a solution for affordable Continuing Professional Development.

You’ll also be thrilled to hear that as an accredited training provider of the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers our CPD program will provide you with points towards their CPD program.

Posted on March 16, 2012March 13, 2012 by Steve Slisar

New Training Material: Advanced Microsoft Excel 2010 videos

Sometimes we use the EzyLearn blog to provide some free tips from new training material that we create, like manipulating Pivot Tables we mentioned earlier in the week. Today we are announcing that 14 new training videos are now available for our advanced Microsoft Excel course (number 308).

This is the list of videos that are now available:

Video for 3.1.1 – Using AutoFilter

Video for 4.1.1 part 1 – Cleaning up data using AutoFilter

Video for 4.1.1 part 2 – Cleaning up data using AutoFilter

Video for 5.1.1 – Perform an Advanced Filter

Video for 5.1.2 – Advanced Filter using Wildcards (search text within cells)

Video for 5.1.3 – Advanced Filter for multiple search criteria

Video for 5.1.3 – Narrowing search results using Advanced Filter

Video for 6.1.1 – Inserting a Pivot Table

Video for 6.1.2 – Filtering data in a Pivot table

Video for 6.1.3 – Sort dates by month in a pivot table

Video for 6.1.5 – Changing the value field settings in a pivot table

Video for 7 – Creating pivot table charts

Video for 8.1.1 – Get months values using the Choose function

Video for 8.1.2 – Show grades for student results data using CHOOSE function

Our new video references match the many exercise tasks you can complete to master the skills taught in the videos. Everything you watch in the videos you can re-produce using the exercise files that come with the course. The training workbooks contain step by step instructions so you can print them out and practice where-ever you are.

If you are an existing EzyLearn student with LIFETIME access you’ll have access to these new videos and all new content that we create. Stay tuned for more updates soon as we create new videos for the other advanced Excel topics covered in courses 308 and 309. Plus we’ll show you how to create your own macros.

If you like what you read and want to enrol to take advantage of lifetime student access as well as access to all levels of Microsoft Excel for just one price, use our enrolment form. Enrol into the Excel course today and start by 5pm tomorrow (next business day).

Posted on March 15, 2012March 13, 2012 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

Live Excel Pivot-Table Stats: self-paced learning versus class-based training

Want to see some live data from when we operated our Sydney-based training centre? We conducted courses for Absolute Beginners (we call it Computer Learners now), Microsoft Word and Excel, MYOB Accounting software for bookkeeping and others. We also offered different start times and different methods of delivery including self-paced (which has evolved into online) as well as class-based training courses.

The data in this free Microsoft Excel training video is taken from our student enrolment database the same year we created our first training videos. We created these videos to make them available to students who couldn’t fit into a schedule or wanted a more personalised training experience. Want to learn more about my fond journey in computer training? Feel free to also subscribe to my small business blog while you are at that site.

If you are reading this as an email, click on the heading to get to our blog site and enjoy the free training video about Pivot Tables using Microsoft Excel (the exercise file is provided in our Excel Training Course) and shows live data of enrolments for that year. We used a pivot table to find out:

The popular courses,
The popular training methods
The popular start times for courses.

Can you see in the video which year the data is from? Back then we had experienced trainer like Maria Landrelli and Marie Diblasio to deliver our popular MYOB Day-to-Day courses to find work as a bookkeeper.

< !>

Posted on March 14, 2012March 13, 2012 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

New Macros in Excel Course to handle prepayments

We are please to announce that our most advanced Microsoft Excel course (course 309) now includes a training exercise on Macros!

You may recall we asked the question as to whether it is better to give a discount and accept prepayments or to charge your normal price and chase invoices and statements? Well, we got our Microsoft Excel expert to create a simple table that enables us to keep track of prepayments as well as incremental reductions from this prepayment.

This file is a great tool to keep track of how much credit a customer has if you decide to invoice them in advance. There is a way of accepting prepayments in MYOB and our MYOB expert and resident BAS Agent is currently putting a guide together on how to handle prepayments using MYOB. Using Excel can be a handy replacement for using MYOB in this one aspect of your business.

Best of all, Karen created a short guide that we have added to the 309 course training manual which explains how to replicate what she created. Both the Workbook and the demonstration file that Karen created are now at the learning site.

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Steve Slisar — 3 Comments

EzyLearn MYOB students now get free membership to the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers

If you are learning MYOB because you want to become a bookkeeper you should know that the bookkeeping industry is undergoing huge changes at the moment and that you need to be aware of these changes.

One of the best ways that any person or company can keep up-to-date with changes in an industry is to participate in continuing professional development training and by joining an industry body. EzyLearn is a member of a number of professional associations including:

Australian Institute of Training and Development,
Australian Web Industry Association, and the
International Coaching Federation

We are also an Accredited Training Provider of the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers. This industry group ensures that all industry participants abide by professional standards and we are also thrilled to announce that as of today all EzyLearn MYOB course students are eligible to join the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers as a student member for free (normally $75)

The forms to access this free student membership have been updated in our learning platform so please feel free to log into your course and get your free membership.

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Steve Slisar

MYOB Day-to-Day course now available separately

Up until now we have sold all our courses as one package because we felt that that is what everyone wants. Guess what? A lot of people did and still do love it, but we found that a lot of people just want enough skills to get then a job performing data entry tasks using MYOB. For this reason we’ve made that course available.

The MYOB Day-to-Day course is still a full days worth of training on the Sales, Purchases, Banking and Inventory modules. The workbook in that course takes you through the process of a company ordering products from the wholesaler, receiving the stock and then selling that stock combined with the services they provide to their customers. Along the way, there are part payments, full payments, Accounts Receivable reports, sending of statements and much more.

The new individual course is available with 12 months access so that we can provide a great resource with up to 12 months to access it when you need to. MYOB Day-to-Day training course includes all the topic in course 502. See what’s included in the MYOB Day-to-Day Course.

If you are interested in this new low cost online MYOB training course option, discover the price for this an our other online training courses at our enrolment page.

Posted on March 2, 2012February 28, 2012 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

Can MYOB repay it’s debts with its head in the clouds?

We wrote back in early 2010 about what appeared to be a revolutionary move at the time about MYOB founder Craig Winkler jumping ship and moving to Xero. In the recent bad press about the bug-ridden upgrade of MYOB AccountRight 2011 there is an interesting mention about Cloud Based accounting and MYOB’s goals to get into that space.

In the past 12 months we have worked with as well as provided training for many virtual assistants (remote contractors) and we’ve come into contact with other cloud-based accounting/bookkeeping services you might like to know about. Our pick of the bunch would have to be SAASU at this stage because they have a product that is perfect for remote contractors or micro businesses.

It appears that Xero and SAASU own the online accounting market space but it will be interesting to see how MYOB go as they diversify into cloud accounting as well as their many other products like website hosting, which we’ve never really understood when there are market leaders like MelbourneIT and NetRegistry as well as thousands of small providers.

While we’re on the topic of cloud, here’s a little plug for virion business grade voip. Our trainers have compiled an Excel spreadsheet to demonstrate the cost savings of VoIP over traditional telephony and this year we will have some training for IT Consultants about the Siemens Gigaset office phones.

Posted on March 1, 2012February 28, 2012 by Steve Slisar

Is it better to repay your debts or prepay with discounts?

The recent bad news about MYOB AccountRight 2011 demonstrates the risks involved when you borrow money for any venture (MYOB have a $575M loan that they need to repay). The money needs to be paid back and luckily you can use MYOB software to keep track of what is owed to you. It also brings up the question of rather than having a debt to repay can you pre sell what you do (at a large discount)?

We are asked many questions in our MYOB online training course support service we call “EzyLearn ANSWERS” and one of the recent questions was “what is the best way of keeping track of Prepayments”. We took the question to our Registered BAS Agent and MYOB Tutor as well as our Microsoft Excel Expert and we’ve come up with two scenarios, one using MYOB and one using Microsoft Excel.

What is the best solution?

You could use MYOB to handle pre-payments, or you could use it as a simple track of the lump sum payment you’ve received into your bank account and use Excel to enter the day to day information about how and when that prepayment is used.

We’ve created an Excel “Handy file” for you and we’ve putting the finishing touches on the workbook that explains how to do it using both Excel and MYOB so stay tuned to this blog or subscribe to receive these blog posts via email as they are published.

Need something created in Excel? Enrol into the online Microsoft Excel course and use EzyLearn ANSWERS to put it to our Excel guru.

Posted on February 29, 2012February 28, 2012 by Steve Slisar — 3 Comments

Accountants now refusing to recommend MYOB

As part of our commitment to create new training content every quarter for our online MYOB training course we’ve added some addendums to the bank reconciliation and payroll courses in line with the latest version of MYOB AccountRight Plus available. Many Accountants however are not recommending that their clients make the upgrade.

We received some complaints from students about issues they experienced with the MYOB Bank Reconciliation and Payroll Intro courses and as a result our Registered BAS Agent and MYOB Tutor, Jacci, went through the course and wrote some notes to help students come up with the correct results.

Just as we suspected after speaking with bookkeepers and accountants it appears there are major flaws with the current version of the software and it’s affecting the revenue of MYOB Professional Partners and Consultants (who are being encouraged not to share the information).

It’s times like these that we are all tested as trainers, installation consultants, bookkeepers etc to be confident that we are doing our best to use the software to provide the information that we need. It’s also a good time to understand the benefits of having alternative ways of working with your data (ie. using a spreadsheet like Microsoft Excel) to perform calculations for PAYG and Superannuation.

Posted on February 21, 2012February 21, 2012 by Steve Slisar

Do you pay yourself but don’t use the Payroll feature of MYOB?

Sometimes we use the EzyLearn Blog to inform readers about general course information. Today we’re announcing a new exercise file that is included in our Microsoft Excel Course 308 (which covers Macros) as well as the MYOB Payroll Course.

If you are a small business owner and you only have yourself or a handful of employees you might come across the dilemma about how to keep a record of payments you’ve made to yourself so that you can pay the correct amount of PAYG, Super etc. If your business is only small you may decide not to purchase and use the full MYOB AccountRight Plus version of MYOB accounting software and opt to keep Payroll records separately or in an Excel spreadsheet.

In a previous post we mentioned that one of our course content creators was working on a spreadsheet to help with PAYG and Super calculations for BAS reporting. Well it’s now ready (AND there’s more to come).

The Excel spreadsheet we have created enables you to enter the total amount that you have paid to an employee (or yourself) and calculates the PAYG and Superannuation that is payable for that amount (you can adjust the superannuation rate). All you have to do now is enter the payment into MYOB and your compliance is assured.

This file is handy if you pay yourself irregularly or differing amounts as you need it. Using this PAYG spreadsheet you simply enter the total amount you’ve paid yourself (or an employee) over the quarter and it finds how much you need to pay in PAYG and Super.

This excel file uses the VLOOKUP command in Microsoft Excel and the tax tables for weekly pay at the ATO website. If you are an existing student you’ll find the exercise file in the Excel 308 course (under the heading Handy Files). This course covers 3D formulas, CHOOSE, VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP, MATCH and INDEX, nested functions and how to protect worksheets.

Did you know that when you enrol into the EzyLearn online Microsoft Excel course that all levels are included for the one price? This also includes access to new content as it is created and you have lifetime access.

Posted on February 13, 2012February 10, 2012 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

Statement of formulas for calculating PAYG amounts to be withheld

The MYOB Payroll Training Course is in stage two of development. The contents of our existing Payroll course give students an introduction to how to navigate around and get fundamental information about the payroll environment in the sample company file. As part of our constant improvement process we are developing payroll scenarios as exercises for our students. This new content when published will be available for all existing Payroll Students and all those who have enrolled with the LIFETIME training course Access option.

Which table to use?

The ATO release papers that provide you with the information you need to perform your calculations regarding PAYG, super etc. In this blog post we look at Schedule 1 Pay as you go (PAYG) withholding NAT 1004. If you take a look at table 7 on page (see diagram on this page) you’ll see the variables or what the Australian Tax Office call coefficients.

New Spreadsheet for Excel and MYOB students

One of our content creators is in the process of creating an Excel spreadsheet as a simple tool to help you work out how much PAYG tax and super you owe at the end of quarterly BAS reporting period. It’s a tool that we will offer both Microsoft Excel and MYOB Training Course students when it’s ready. And no, before you think of asking, it won’t cost you any extra money to receive it. It’s available as part of our LIFETIME student access.

Posted on February 7, 2012April 3, 2012 by Steve Slisar — 2 Comments

Having problems with bank reconciliations using MYOB AccountRight Plus version 2011?

Sometimes we use the EzyLearn Blog to inform readers about modifications to our MYOB online training course. We’ve received feedback in the MYOB Support area from students that elements of our MYOB Bank Reconciliation course are coming up with errors when they use the most recent version of the MYOB software.

One of the great aspects about coming across problems in a course is that it replicates the type of problems you’ll experience in the workplace or while managing your own business. Jacci, our resident BAS Agent has gone through the steps in the course and identified potential issues. She has written up a concise guide that is now included in the bank reconciliation course (#503) to help you balance the books using MYOB.

If you come across problems or issues please feel free to use the EzyLearn ANSWERS service we launched in May 2011. It is part of our growing support options for students. If you operate a small business and want to know something or if you come across an issue that is not covered by the training in our existing course let us know because EzyLearn courses are LIVE courses, they are growing every month with new content that you don’t have to pay extra to use.

Oh, before I leave you on this blog post I want to highlight our new student support option we launched last month – Tutor Support and Student Community – it’s a way to connect with other students and have direct contact with our professional tutors who have real life experience using the software in their daily business life.

Posted on January 17, 2012January 17, 2012 by Steve Slisar

Have you seen the latest version of MYOB software

We sometimes release information at the EzyLearn BLOG that relates to information that will benefit our students. If you are a student and you download the free trial version of the software you will be downloading the latest version.

Back on November 17th 2011 MYOB launched their MYOB AccountRight Plus version 2011 product.

We’ve recently recorded some training videos about MYOB Reports for GST Collected and Paid and where GST is located in source documents like invoices. We’ve then gone on to show you how to update your BAS Info in MYOB and use the BASlink feature that collects your GST information and quickly and easily gives you the information you need for your Business Activity Statement (BAS). This information is covered in our MYOB Reporting and BAS course (code 504). If you are familiar with EzyLearn you’ll know that this course is included with all the others MYOB courses for the one price and LIFETIME membership.

The navigation around MYOB AccountRight Plus version 2011 is very similar to earlier versions (although MYOB has updated the icons they use). We’ve downloaded and recorded a quick video to show you what it looks like. If you are receiving this blog post via email, click on the heading to see the video below.

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Steve Slisar

MYOB Training Course and Support – Reporting Course updated (BASlink added)

Sometimes we use the EzyLearn Blog to inform readers about new course content or updates to existing training tutorials. We have created new content for the MYOB Reporting Course and more specifically how to complete your BAS using the BASlink in MYOB.

If you are an existing student you’ll know that you have access to this new content for no extra charge.

We downloaded the latest version of MYOB AccountRight Plus to perform these tasks and you’ll be thrilled to know that the navigation of the program (apart from where the Sample company file is stored) is VERY similar. The icons and images are slightly different, but navigation is the same.

Stay tuned for the next free MYOB Training Video about this newest version of MYOB Accounting software. The next step after performing a bank reconciliation (Course 503) is the Quarterly or Monthly BAS (Business Activity Statement).

Posted on December 28, 2011January 16, 2012 by Steve Slisar

We are OPEN now – enrol before school starts

WE are planning some exciting new content for our online MYOB training course, including new support features for students who want extra support. Remember, once you enrol into the EzyLearn online MYOB training course (with LIFETIME membership) you receive access to all new and updated content for no extra cost. Now is an excellent time to enrol.

Now is the perfect time to start a course because most people are on holidays and you have time to think, study, learn and refocus your life strategies for 2012. If you do want to improve your bookkeeping skills and learn how to use MYOB accounting software you’ll be happy to know that we are open over the holiday period (except public holidays).

We hope you enjoyed your Christmas day (if you celebrated it) and wish you all the best for 2012. We sent a thank you out to you and our EzyLearn team, but we forgot to include Monique from Monstar Documents and Rosie Shilo from Virtually Yours. You have both been excellent to work with and we are thrilled at the benefits we have provide some of your members with our Online WordPress training course. Now, more and more virtual assistants and home workers are able to earn an income while working from home.

Here’s to a successful 2012 to you!

Category: Updates