Keep up to date with the government’s increases to superannuation.
Now that we are offering the Small Business Management Course, and with so many of our MYOB Course students running their own businesses, many of our readers will know that the Superannuation Guarantee (SG) rate increased on 1 July to 9.25% in a government scheme that will see the SG rate increase incrementally until it reaches 12% in 2019-2020.
The increase to the SG rate follows 2010’s Henry Review, which identified that the number of Australians over the age of 65 would increase from 3 million to 8.5 million by 2050.
Who Pays? Workers or Employers?
The scheme can be seen as a coup for workers. Business owners, however, will receive no government assistance in meeting the new rate. As such, the scheme has been criticised by some economists who believe it will adversely affect low-income earners.
Writing for ABC’s The Drum, Sinclair Davidson a professor in the School of Economics, Finance and Marketing at RMIT University, called compulsory superannuation a “fiscal illusion”.
“The illusion,” Davidson writes, “revolves around the fact that superannuation is an ‘employer contribution’ — many people think superannuation is paid by employers and not employees.”
While the government will kick in an extra $500 for those low-income earners taking home less than $37,000 per year, the increase to the SG rate for most workers will mean a reduction in their take-home pay, though maybe not immediately.
Conceding that many employers will reduce pay rises in order to offset the cost of the SG rate increase, the government has, however, cautioned business owners that breaking wage agreements won’t be tolerated.
But given most employers now advertise salaries as a “package” that includes superannuation, holiday and sick leave, annual leave-loading, overtime, and the like, a $60k salary package just became $150 lighter almost overnight.
On the upside, however, by increasing compulsory super contributions by 3 percent, an aggregate $500 billion will be added to the existing pool of superannuation savings by 2050.
If you’re a business owner, as it’s now 1 July, you must pay 9.25% super for each of your employees until 1 July 2014, when the SG rate will increase again to 9.5%.
For a full schedule of the SG rate increases visit the Future Tax Website.
It’s all too easy to be distracted but if you do you’ll work harder and longer with less results.
As part of the Lifetime membership when you do an EzyLearn MYOB training course, you get ongoing access to the content we are constantly updating to reflect the ever-changing bookkeeping industry.
If you’re one of the many bookkeepers who have started your own business after completing our online MYOB course or perhaps you’re thinking of starting your own business, then today’s post is here to say loud and clear — don’t waste time on things that don’t matter!
As part of our range of courses, EzyLearn is now offering a small business management course which will give you the skills you need to start your own business. It will also teach you how best to spend your time by doing tasks that result in profits, rather than getting distracted by things that don’t matter. (It’s a little frightening just how many business owners do, though!)
Classic Time Wasting
We’re all guilty of it: logging into Facebook to post a quick update and spending an hour watching cat videos. Wasting half a day trying to create the perfect flyer/postcard/ logo/webpage/cover image/thinga-ma-jig when you should have outsourced it or settled on version #5. Taking a week to make a decision because you “need” to have all of the facts.
Here’s the thing. Wasting time may seem innocent enough. But it is destroying your business. It is causing you to work too hard and too long. It is causing you stress and making you feel unproductive.
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If sales and marketing are what you do when you have time or when you get around to it, then you will never have the business you want.
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The List of Main Priorities
Your main priorities should be (in order of importance):
1. Servicing current clients.
2. Having a sales conversation with hot prospects.
3. Cultivating warm prospects.
4. Identifying leads and getting referrals.
5. Marketing your business with social media and other tools.
6. If you have a website, creating content that people want to read.
7. Creating new products (that is, solutions) to service your client’s needs.
8. Everything else.
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There’s no better time to start than right now (a tad cliched, but true). Spend the first hour of today only working on things that will get you more clients. That’s it. Nothing else. Only tasks that will grow your business. See how that feels. You’ll find it feels a whole lot easier doing the same thing tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that. Learn to always prioritise and you’ll really start growing your MYOB or small business.
We’re often talking about start ups, starting a new business, what it takes to succeed, and we cover many of the practical aspects of owning and operating your own business in our Small Business Management course. We’ve also touched on prepaid legal services for bookkeepers who have completed our online MYOB training course and the latest provider to enter the prepaid legal fray: LawPath — which is also the latest venture of start-up incubator, Pollenizer.
Pollenizer: How it all Started-Up
Based in Sydney’s Surry Hills, Pollenizer, which was founded by Mick Liubinskas and Phil Morle — the former chief technology officer of infamous file sharing site, Kazaa — aims to co-found companies and grow them to a point where the founders can then exit for a profit.
Pollenizer’s most recent success story is that of group-buying site, Spreets, which was sold to Yahoo for $40 million dollars after only 12 months.
When Morle and Liubinskas spot a start-up they’re interested in, they invest up to $150,000 to help get what is often just an idea scribbled on a napkin off the ground.
Pollenizer’s Start-Up Science
How do ideas make it to some kind of fruition? This involves employing what Morle calls the Pollenizer “start-up science” where each start-up is dragged over Pollenizer’s so-called technical and marketing coals.
Discovery, Validation and Efficiency
Starting with discovery, the Pollenizer team looks into whether a particular start-up solves an existing problem and whether customers will pay for the solution. Next, is validation — testing whether real people will actually want to pay for the product. The last stage is efficiency: ensuring the business is capable of operating when more customers come on board.
But about half of the start-ups don’t make it past the second stage.
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But one of the most interesting aspects to the way Pollenizer operates occurs before you’ve even opened your doors for business, so to speak: Pollenizer’s “start-up science”.
By methodically looking at your business idea and what your business aims to do, you’ll discover any pitfalls you may encounter, giving you the chance to modify and refine your business idea.
We all like to think we have a great business idea that could change the world. But as Pollenizer shows, for half of us it’s just an idea.
That doesn’t mean give up; it means research, reassess and retry.
How will reforms to the Privacy Act affect your business?
As EzyLearn provides what, in our humble opinion, is the best Small Business Management Course in Australia (yes, blatant plug, but we firmly believe this and can show you why) the issue of privacy, and the way people’s privacy is handled by small business, is of concern to us.
In November last year, the Gillard government’s Privacy Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Bill was passed in parliament, marking some of the biggest changes to the Privacy Act in the last 20 years. The reforms, which are due to come into force in March next year, give individuals greater control over their personal information and who has access to it, making it essential for all businesses to review the way they handle their customers’ details to ensure they’re not in breach of the Act.
Australian Privacy Principles and Direct Marketing
Perhaps the biggest change to the Act is the introduction the Australia Privacy Principles (APPs), which, by streamlining previous policies relating to privacy into one set of guidelines, will limit an organisation’s ability to use unsolicited information; regulate the use and disclosure of personal information for the purpose of direct marketing; and introduce new responsibilities for organisations transferring information overseas.
For the first time, the Privacy Act — by way of the APPs — takes issue with direct marketing, particularly whether or not an individual would reasonably expect an organisation to use and disclose their information for the purpose of direct marketing.
So for every business that collects email addresses and other personal information during the course of their operating procedures and then uses that data to contact lapsed customers or remind them of “special offers” this could well be in breach of the Act.
Regardless of whether organisations offer individuals an “opt-out” mechanism, greater onus is now being placed on how the organisation came to hold the individuals information in the first place.
Individuals will now be able to request that organisations tell them how they got their personal information or request that an organisation doesn’t disclose their information to anyone for the purpose of direct marketing.
This could potentially put an end to the practice of organisations renting data to or from other companies for the purpose of direct marketing, or at least reduce the instances of it.
Privacy Breaches
The reforms also introduce a new scheme for credit reporting — making it possible to be denied any future credit if you miss or pay a loan or credit card payment late — and give the Information Commissioner greater powers over privacy breaches.
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For every business dealing with their customers’ personal information, the new reforms should serve as an impetus to review your current policies relating to data collection to ensure you’re in compliance with the Act. To start with, does your business or website have a readily viewable privacy policy? You can find a variety of free online templates and more at LawLive.
And on a lighter note — Happy Mother’s Day to all the Mum’s out there.
We made the decision to use WordPress for our website because it’s easy to use, inexpensive yet looks professional. It’s great for blogging and bringing visitors to your website and is also really flexible — with an abundance of features, layout options and plug-ins.
Yet, when it comes to websites, there are still thousands — yes, thousands — of business owners who don’t have one. These are people who still believe in phone books.
Phone Book Uses
Phone books are pretty handy things. They’re handy for fashioning into a makeshift monitor stand to prop up your laptop. They’re handy for wrapping glassware and crockery when you’re moving house. They’re pretty darn handy for killing really big spiders. And if you’ve got a stack of them collecting dust in your garage since, say, 1982, then why not build a fort? Surely that’s pretty handy for someone, somewhere — the kids, maybe?
Phone books are not particularly handy, however, for finding a telephone number or business listing in 2013. Why flick through some-seemingly million pages searching for something you could easily find with a click of your keyboard, a glide over your tablet device, or a quick chat with Siri?
Get a Website
If you’re a business owner and you don’t have a website, our strong advice is: get one! Today, when people are searching for a business, product or service they invariably Google it, so for anyone in business, a website is an essential online marketing tool.
Again, we highly recommend WordPress. Business owners can manage their own content, which gives you enormous flexibility and it comes with a host of attractive themes and options. We offer an online WordPress training course, designed to help you understand things like SEO, working with plugins (including mobile sites and RSS feeds) and much more.
The 7 Website Must Have’s
If you’re a business owner and you already have a website but it looks like a 90’s relic with loads of Clipart, an endless-scroll of 10-point, Times New Roman copy, punctuated periodically by headings that are underlined, in bold and capped off with 73 exclamation points, then it’s time for a makeover.
There are 7 things you must do when building or renovating your website:
1. Establish Goals: Like anything in business, you need to establish some goals for your website. Things like: Why will people visit my website? What information do I want to provide? What do I want people to do next? You need to answer these questions before you begin.
2. Don’t Forget to be Mobile: The Internet is literally in the palm of your hands; so don’t forget to consider a mobile strategy during the planning stage. You’ll need to consider the main reason people will be visiting your site — for information about your products and services, to purchase your products and services, or something else — and build that into your mobile site, make it the most prominent feature.
3. First Impressions: Your website is your brand, your personality, and your reputation all rolled into one. If your website resembles the shambolic mess we described above, that’s how people are likely to view you and your business: as a shambolic mess. Photos from online photo libraries, like iStockPhoto will give your website a professional finish, but don’t forget to add a bit of you into your website. Too many stock-standard images and you run the risk of seeming generic, uninspired, bland. And bland is boring.
4. Keep it Simple: Don’t overwhelm your visitors with too many links, too many choices. This isn’t a Pick Your Own Adventure novel, it’s a website. Ensure your menu and links are intuitive and consistent. If you want to point people to the “contact us” page in your copy, use the same language that’s in your navigation menu — this will eliminate confusion.
5. Use a ‘Call-to-Action’: Your visitors are here for a reason; capitalise on that. Make sure it’s easy for them to find what they’re looking for — display contact details, proceed to checkout links, or your mailing list prominently — and encourage them to take the next step.
6. Less is More: The endless scroll of copy has got to go. It doesn’t matter how multifaceted or interesting your business is, people won’t read it. They don’t care. If you can’t whittle your business and services down to two or three (short) sentences, get someone else to — we recommend you use a professional copywriter.
7. The Need for Speed: Load times are critical. If people can’t open your page within ten seconds — that includes mobile devices — they’ll try a website where they can. If you’re taking your own photos to include on your website, remember that huge files require huge download times. Make sure to reduce the image sizes to a few kilobytes rather than a few megabytes.
You can master the skills to build a fabulous website a lot sooner than you think! Check out the details of our WordPress Course Outline
There’s an art to resume writing but it’s not rocket science.
The job market is tough; that much is true. But if you’ve been sending out your CV with very little response, the job market is only one part of the problem. It’s more than likely that your resume isn’t doing you any favours.
Keeping resume writing simple
Resume writing is about showing prospective employers why you are the best fit for a position and their organisation. It’s not about listing all the jobs you’ve ever had in the past — a café owner looking for a new barista is probably not interested in the three years you spent working in a corporate law firm.
When it comes to pointing out your experience, there are some basic do’s and don’t’s to resume writing. A resume shouldn’t be like a laboured novel; nor should it be so subtle in pointing out your experience that the reader is left to work out exactly how your experience applies to the position they need to fill — recruiters don’t have time for that.
And remember, the majority of companies today outsource the recruitment process to recruitment agencies that receive thousands of CVs and resumes on a daily basis for their large portfolio of clients. Even those companies that still handle recruitment themselves will have extremely busy HR departments; even in large companies, often there’s only one person reviewing the abundant CVs they receive.
35 seconds to make your mark
When it comes to resume writing, you have to get them in quick! Being time poor and exceedingly busy, most recruiters only spend about 35 seconds on each CV or resume.
This means you have 35 seconds to convince a recruiter that it’s worth reading your CV further or, better still, getting you in for an interview.
You’ll achieve this if you:
Get to the point, but don’t be arrogant — this is a massive turn-off.
Don’t over-embellish: if you didn’t actually do something, don’t say you did — you willget found out.
Are concise: don’t cram your resume or CV full of interesting (to you) but ultimately irrelevant previous positions (like dog walker in 1982), achievements or interests (ferret racing is better kept to yourself).
But don’t see the minimalist approach as an opportunity to get fancy with the design of your CV.
Unless you actually are a designer of some sort, just use a clean template that clearly highlights why you’re the right person for the job. I once received a CV formatted like a crossword puzzle to list the person’s experience and education; clever perhaps, but the CV after that was easy to read and it was that person I called in for the interview.
To avoid the daunting task of resume writing from scratch each time you decide to change employment, you should get into the habit of updating your CV on a regular basis.
Need more help?
EzyLearn is in a great position to help you with your resume writing because we understand the employment market and the needs of employers. We also have team members with top quality resume writing skills and experience in creating quality resumes for administration and bookkeeping positions in particular. Other related blog posts: Finding a Job Using LinkedIn
Are you in business as a bookkeeper, tradesperson, retailer, trainer or real estate agent and want to stand out from the crowd? We can teach you the online marketing techniques to help you do just this! Check out what’s included in our comprehensive Social Media and Digital Marketing online training courses.
It’s often said that the majority of new businesses fail in the first year. Some people even go as far as to say that 90 percent of new businesses fail within their first twelve months of operation, but is this statement really true?
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics it’s not. The number of new businesses that fail in the first twelve months is closer to 30 percent, or 3 out of every 10.
However, just because a business survives its first year or even the second or third, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a successful one.
If a business isn’t able to pay the owner a wage that equaled or exceeded what they could have earned elsewhere as an employee, it’s not successful.
Further, if that business hasn’t generated a profit or positive cash flow, it’s still not successful.
Nor is a business a successful one if it hasn’t had enough working capital to service their debt, pay taxes and suppliers, and so forth.
New businesses are incredibly risky; and even if you have a great idea for a start-up or years of experience in your particular field of expertise, that doesn’t guarantee success.
Ensuring a new business is fail-safe requires a solid business plan. A business plan is like a road map—it shows you exactly what route to take in order to arrive at your destination—and without one you’re literally driving blind.
If the idea of writing a business plan seems a little daunting, you’re not alone. It’s one of the key components to running a successful business, but it’s also the most often overlooked, which is why we are now offering a Small Business Management course.
Among the subjects included in the course such as, researching the market and creating a marketing action plan, you will also learn how to write your very own roadmap to success—a business plan.
If you’re already employed as a bookkeeper or have graduated from our MYOB training course and starting your own business is something you’ve always dreamed of, then turn that dream into a reality.
Starting a bookkeeping business is one of the few low-risk start-up options, because a bookkeeping business, unlike other bricks and mortar businesses, can be operated from your home-office, eliminating many of the costly overheads that eat into your profits.
In fact, many of the overheads related to running a home-based bookkeeping business involve items you probably already have or are inexpensive to source, such as a laptop, mobile phone, internet connection, and a designated work-space.
But like any business, just because you have previous experience or the zeal to make your venture a success, doesn’t necessarily guarantee success—a business plan does. This should be the first thing you do.
Writing a business plan lays out things like what services you will offer, pricing structures, and how many customers you will need to turn a profit. But it also forces you to do market research and compare your services and prices with your competitors. Our Registered BAS Agent has created a bookkeeping business template that you can use if you start your bookkeeping business with us!
Market research, no matter how experienced you are in the industry, can help you establish a point-of-difference from other bookkeeping services and aid in the setting of your rates. Many small business courses like our Small Business Management course cover writing business plans as well as other strategies to ensure you manage your business efficiently.
Contacting an insurance broker to find out what kind of policy you will need should be your next port-of-call. Rather than calling many different insurance companies and going through their product disclosure statements yourself, a broker can do this for you and find the best policy at the best price.
You’ll also need to contact an accountant to discuss the ways to maximise your business tax deductions—this could also serve as a good way of drumming up some business, as many sole traders still take their shoeboxes full of receipts and bank statements to their accountant to sift through come tax-time!
It’s also wise to consider ways you can grow your business using low-cost marketing strategies. Many small-business owners make the mistake of thinking that as a small business, they don’t need to worry about marketing, leaving it to the big guys instead.
If you’ve been dreaming about one day starting your own bookkeeping business, then what are you waiting for? We now have the training, coaching and mentoring support to help you start a bookkeeping business and work from home as an independent contractor working your own chosen hours. We’ve teamed up with a registered BAS agent and business coach to compliment the small business management course and provide you with the support and training you need to start a bookkeeping business without joining a bookkeeping franchise and paying ongoing franchise fees.
Get a bookkeeping business plan created by a registered BAS agent and get started fast
Become a National Bookkeeping Licencee
If this is something that interests you explore the “Start a bookkeeping business” opportunity with National Bookkeeping and get franchise like support without loosing a percentage of every hour you work. We can help you succeed in your own bookkeeping business by give you the training you need.
National Bookkeeping is designed to help ordinary people start a bookkeeping business as an independent contractors working from home as a virtual assistant with the help and support of existing businesses.
I was speaking with an entrepreneur who built a very successful plumbing business and he told me you don’t need to do a course to start a business, you need to have a passion for what you are doing and just get out there and do it. We realise however that some people are bolder than others and some people prefer to plan to reduce the risk of failure. At the “end of the day” it’s really just about getting started and turning ideas in reality and activity.
We spend a lot of time designing courses to help provide students with step-by-step instructions so we understand that many people want to learn how to start a business the right way. There is also a lot to consider when starting a business including your pricing, competitors, legal business structure, marketing, daily operations, financials and reporting to contend with so it’s important to have a business plan in place to help you get a clear picture if what you’re doing. Starting a business is about knowing what you need to know and creating a plan for your future.
I’ve also come to understand that you go to a doctor for medical advice, a dentist for your teeth and an electrician for any electrical work so wouldn’t you rather learn how to start and build a business from a company that is living and breathing this stuff every day!?
For this reason, not only are we working with a very experienced training company that delivers the Cert IV Small Business Management but we will be working with a team of experienced business owners who will contribute their real world knowledge into the courses over the coming year via webinars and interviews so you get to see practical implications of the subjects in the course.
If you’re interested in starting a business in 2013 or working in small business management subscribe to this blog for our launch announcement and receive our fantastic launch pricing.
FOR ANYBODY WHO DECIDES to be self-employed and own their own business, or who is doing so already, the question of how to match the hourly rate of someone working on salary while working in your pyjamas is one that frequently goes unanswered.
But ponder no more.
If you’re well versed in the advanced features of MYOB, Xero or Quickbooks, possess an accounting qualification and can operate your business as an independent contractor, you’re well on your way to earning the big bucks as a bookkeeping consultant.
Specialist skills earn you more money
Currently, bookkeepers with a good understanding of things like time billing, job reporting and forecasting, advanced payroll, end-of-period transactions and journal entries, as well as Australian tax, are highly sought after by other businesses to work as consultants.
Of course, you could also carve out a niche specialty for yourself if you happen to be highly skilled in a particular sector or industry.
MYOB Training Online
Our MYOB courses (offered for one low price and include lifetime access) cover 85% of the MYOB skills the majority of MYOB bookkeepers require to perform most bookkeeping tasks. For everything else, however, it’s a good idea to engage the services of a specialist who can provide a solution to your specific needs.
If you are familiar with our online MYOB courses you’d know that each course includes at least one training workbook and each workbook goes through a common scenario of daily, weekly and monthly transactions to teach our students how to use MYOB accounting software. We are now seeking information from website designers and SEO professionals about their bookkeeping needs because we are assembling a new MYOB training workbook for website designers!
When we start designing our workbook case studies our quest always begins with “What does a web designer and SEO expert offer” and here are some of the things we have come up with.
Concept design and website goal setting
Theme design (if you use WordPress)
Page structure, menus and written content
Images to be used (graphic design, clipart or custom photography)
Blog writing
Social Media Marketing and commenting
E-commerce
Domain name registration
Hosting Services
Setting up and managing Google Adwords Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing
If you are a website designer and you want to have some input into the the contents of this course please feel free to make contact. You need to be an Australian based company and you can feel free to promote your services via our facebook page.
I’VE WRITTEN A NUMBER of posts about the power of LinkedIn to replace the traditional resume, but after speaking with an expert from CIA (Sydney-based company, Computer Information Agency or CIAOPs) I learnt some new secrets about Linkedin. Robert Crane, CIA’s Director, shared some tips as to how and why LinkedIn is a fantastic tool to help you get a job AND find more customers.
Robert Crane is the Director of Computer Information Agency
Here’s what Robert had to say…
One of the greatest advantages that Internet based technologies can provide is leverage. Nothing could be more the case than with social media. Unfortunately, too many businesses and professionals fail to see the potential that it can provide themselves and their businesses. Probably the most effective social network for business is LinkedIn.
You may be surprised to know that LinkedIn in has been around for over a decade. It was around long before Facebook and Twitter as a source of connecting business people together. LinkedIn allows you to create a personal or business profile to which you can add all kinds of information.
[quote]Many professionals use LinkedIn as a “living CV” where they can post their career and achievement records for others to view.[/quote]
Sharing that information with others help them grow their potential network and makes it easier for others to locate people with the right skills.
The True Power of LinkedIn
This is where the key technology of search begins to reveal the true power of LinkedIn, for not only can you share your information with others, independent parties can search LinkedIn and locate individuals with the skills they need. This is reason why so many HR people use LinkedIn to locate and target individuals with the skills they require.
[quote]Posting resumes and trawling employment website is now ‘old school’. Indeed, the highest quality applicants are signed up via Linkedin even before a job is offered.[/quote]
Is It Too Late for You?
This means that if you are not using Linkedin your competition probably already is. So what can you do to catch up?
Firstly, you’ll need to create a LinkedIn accountand then fill in the information about yourself. The more professional information you provide the better. It is also important to include a professional headshot as part of the profile so if you don’t have one of these go out and get one.
Once you have all your information entered start looking for people and associates you know who are already on LinkedIn. When you find them send them an invite to ‘connect’ with you on LinkedIn.
Once you network starts to grow make sure that Linkedin becomes an ongoing part of your business strategy. Don’t let the information you have entered get stale. Revisit your account regularly and ensure it is always as current as possible. As you meet new contacts look them up on LinkedIn and ask them to ‘connect’ with you. Always be looking to grow your network and don’t be afraid to ask people in your network for introductions to others on Linkedin.
When you start to feel comfortable with Linkedin use the testimonial feature to ask business contacts and clients for referrals. These referrals can be directly posted on your profile for all to see.
Nothing lends credibility like endorsement so always continue to seek them out and grow the number that you have. Once the endorsements start to flow make sure you direct other information about your business to your LinkedIn information. Use it on your website, business cards, etc.
Other Powerful LinkedIn Uses
The more you work with LinkedIn, the more powerful you will find it. When you need something you can ask your network of contacts, you can search their skills for what you need, and you can join any number of special interest Linkedin groups on the very topic that you are seeking assistance on. Because Linkedin has become such a worldwide tool for business, chances are you’ll find the person or business you’re looking for, if you know how to use it.
Jump On the Social Media Bandwagon
I went to a seminar recently and heard Nick Bowditch from Facebook speak. He said that the businesses engaging with, and using, social media will be the ones still around in 5 years. Perhaps it’s arrogant to think that social media is so mighty, but given the speed with which technology is moving these days, and the ferocity of competition, it’s better to build a profile, reputation and brand that people know, like and trust — and social media is the opportune way to do this.
Are you in business as a bookkeeper, tradesperson, retailer, trainer or real estate agent and want to stand out from the crowd? We can teach you the online marketing techniques to help you do just this! Check out what’s included in our comprehensive Social Media and Digital Marketing online training courses.
A great way to participate in a continuing education program for bookkeeping is to apply for our MYOB Bookkeeper VIP membership. It’s free! Membership is not guaranteed however and you have to participate in our MYOB bookkeeping Training Courses incubator. If that sounds like you, read on…
Why a MYOB Bookkeeper VIP membership?
If you are a regular EzyLearn blog reader, you’ll be aware of the sadness we experience by not being able to have a coffee and Tim Tam with you. We are inching closer to finding a solution to that though and I think we’ve found it! The MYOB Bookkeepers VIP membership. You could call it a club for people willing to participate in our training material creation process.
What’s in it for me?
You get to road test our new training material and participate in the creation process (well OK, that’s also a benefit for us)
You get to elevate your status in the learning community
We’ll include your details in our forthcoming bookkeeper register
We’ll explore ways to help you perform online marketing to build your own business
You’ll get access to other training resources to widen your skill base
You’ll get to know similar minded people and build a great network
You’ll be able to explore new bookkeeping technologies with us and keep your skills up-to-date
Continuing Professional Development for Bookkeepers
Continuing Professional Development is going to become more and more relevant and important for MYOB Bookkeepers across Australia as the industry becomes more regulated and you will be at the coalface of our training development.
We have some exciting news to release in the coming months about new partners who will be working with us to provide our students with small business management skills including the ability to write a comprehensive business plan including financials. As a MYOB Bookkeeper VIP member you will have privileged access to this new material.
The MYOB Bookkeeping Training Courses is your first step to gain access to the club but even if you are an experienced bookkeeper or accountant you are welcome to submit your details into our Bookkeeper Register.
I’ve written several articles about starting a bookkeeping business in recent months but an article I just read in the Sydney Morning Herald about the value of a bookkeeping business re-inforced a great reason to be in business for yourself. Capital Gains.
Yes, it can be hard to start a new business from scratch and yes, you may need to get out of your comfort zone to meet new people and share your story and yes, you may need to do some courses and learn some new skills, but the rewards are more freedom, flexibility, capital value and you might meet some great business owners and managers in the process.
I recently wrote about our MYOB Training students and how many of them want to start a bookkeeping business so I thought we would go through some of the costs involved.
Remember that these are the startup costs and you may incur more marketing costs as your business grows. Starting a bookkeeping business, like most other businesses, takes a little extra time, effort and money initially. You need to spend money on advertising so you get to speak to as many prospective clients as possible.
The more prospects (or leads) you speak to, the more you understand what bookkeeping clients want and also what you are able to help them with – and what you can’t or don’t want to.
I wrote last week about the importance of securing your website in-case you get hacked (it has happened to us several times so we have learnt from the mistakes!). I wrote about a free WordPress Plugin called BackWPup and now I have some WordPress training about how to update WordPress and install the backup plugin at the bottom of this blog post.
If you subscribe to this blog post and are reading this on email, click the heading to get to the online WordPress training video.
About WordPress
WordPress is an open source Content Management System (CMS) that enables you to make changes to your website and keep a blog. Both of these tasks make your website more relevant to Google and helps to increase your PageRank with the Google search algorithm.
Just like Windows, WordPress is regularly updated and kept current by the developers and there are thousands of plugins that can be installed to make your website more functional. The WordPress training video in this blog teaches you how to upgrade your WordPress website and install and activate a plugin.
WordPress Training and Free Templates
Our WordPress training course gives you all the tools to create and maintain your own website and it comes with lifetime student access so you can use it as a resource when you want to get more complicated with your online marketing strategy. With enough WordPress training and practice you can not only create and update your own website, but perform this work for other small businesses who need to get online.
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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.
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