Xero has always used its partner network to reach it’s users. I remember one claim made by Xero that they are the accounting software of choice for property and real estate businesses but it was really their integration partner Re-Leased that did the heavy lifting.

I received an email from Xero promoting GoDaddy. It was a promotion where GoDaddy would create the website for you and optimise it for Search engines.

What surprised me the most is that GoDaddy will actually create the website for you – not just host it.

The purpose of a well designed course is to provide a series of steps for students to perform that gives them the knowledge and practical experience they need to learn.

We use a number of different tools and case studies and one of my favourites is the Jerry Lame “. He’s like many people that you’ll meet every day.

I’ve tried and tested hundreds of software programs over the last 25 years and I’ve noticed something very interesting in the last 12 months – they’ve gotten so complicated!

Email marketing is commonplace these days and you know it’s a money spinner when Intuit buy Mailchimp.

The cost of email marketing software has gone up and up and up and all the software vendors are increasing their prices at the moment. I thought Xero was pushing it with their yearly price increase but Aweber is similar to Mailchimp and they recently increased one of their monthly packages from $10pm to $55pm – that’s OVER 500% increase.

Is it worth it?

That’s the big question I’ve been asking myself lately, now that all the software vendors are increasing their prices you start to question what you really need.

Now, try to remove these services from your business and websites and you start to realise how “sticky” they are.

We were using Gravity Forms in our WordPress websites because we thought they increased convenience for students but in the end it caused a headache with form spam and we already had an online form solution that did the job just fine.

In the end I’ve come to realise that most business needs are pretty simple and it’s times like these when you need to stick to your core services and focus on doing a great job.

When I look at the knowledge that most businesses need their staff to learn about bookkeeping using MYOB and Xero it comes down to perfecting the data entry and credit management.

The MYOB and Xero Data Entry Courses teach those skills and if business admin and bookkeeping staff focused on getting these tasks done perfectly most businesses would be in great financial shape.

These skills include:

• Accounts Payable
• Accounts Receivable
• Receiving payments
• Making payments

In reality small business owners need to master all aspects of their accounting to get their financials right every month, quarter and financial year. This usually means they need one or more team members who specialise in each aspect of the accounting tasks required.

Job seekers, explore the Bookkeeping Academy course combinations – they provide beginners to advanced certificate level skills (Complete) in the major accounting programs.

Running a business is hard.

It’s hard because you have to know most aspects about your business and financial management is a critical one – after all the reason for starting a business is to earn money!

One of the hardest parts I’ve found for bookkeepers and accountants is sales.

When you’re a business owner you see all sorts of things that employees don’t normally see. I get to see every online course enquiry for all our courses and its interesting to see what students want to learn but Eric Jones takes the cake.

Eric and his friends enter their details into our enquiry form at least once a day. He wants to learn everything and in ever format possible but want he really wants is tell his own story..

MYOB is far better value for micro businesses with 2 or so employees. When you go past the current marketing discounts and look at the regular monthly rate MYOB is far better value for money at $31 per month vs Xero who charges $70 per month.

Micro businesses are massive employers even though they only have a small number of employees yet they have some of the hardest work to do.

These small business employees have to do all the same administration tasks that larger companies (with more staff) do while also stretching themselves to keep their customers happy.

Xero’s pricing has been criticised recently because they’ve continuously increasing prices almost every year despite the hardships that small businesses are going through.

If you are making the switch back to MYOB from Xero or starting a micro business from scratch you can learn everything you need to know with the MYOB Business COMPLETE Course package, including:

• Daily tasks like quotes, invoices and payments
• Weekly tasks like credit management (A/R and A/P)
• Payroll Administration tasks
• End of Month tasks like bank reconciliation and financial reporting, and
• Quarterly tasks like lodging your Business Activity statements.

See what is included in the MYOB Business COMPLETE Course package