Posted on November 27, 2015November 27, 2015 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

What to do at a networking event

Networking Event Tasks: Step 1 – Let people like you

networking2 — Once you start networking it becomes easier and more natural.

Whether you’re starting a new business or hoping to expand your existing one, networking can be your life support. Successful networking helps you to find and connect with like-minded individuals, with whom you can share your experiences as a new (or established) business owner, and gain valuable insights on the ways you can grow and develop your own business.

I’ve written about networking before, because I think it’s something every business owner should engage in regularly to complement their current marketing strategies. Networking with other business owners not only gives you access to a great brains trust to provide you with tips and advice, but it’s also a great opportunity to use referral marketing to grow your business.

What is networking exactly?

Many people think networking events and groups are places people go to sell their products or services to other attendees, but that’s not actually what a networking group or event are about at all.

[quote]The true definition of networking is ‘the process of interacting with others to exchange information and develop professional or social contacts’.[/quote]

That being said, as a business owner, you should always look for new or potential business opportunities in everything you do. This is how you can help to grow and expand your business. But, where discussing your business might not always be appropriate in typical social settings, at a networking group it’s more than welcome; it’s encouraged.

Networking is a balancing act of meeting people and being social, while also looking for opportunities that will help take your business to the next level. To achieve this balance and make meaningful connections with other business owners that will prove beneficial to your business requires planning beforehand.

How can networking help your business?

If you run a home-based business, it’s not uncommon to find that you can go entire days and weeks without interacting with another person on a professional level. This lack of interaction is not only isolating, but it can prove detrimental to your productivity and the continued growth of your business.

Your business needs new, fresh ideas and perspectives to thrive, and networking groups and events can help to connect you with people who can provide you with those ideas. They also give you the opportunity to do the same for other business owners, which is what makes the arrangement so mutually beneficial.

Take the following real-life example, for instance:

A home-based bookkeeper was looking for advice about her website and how she could increase her search engine rankings and traffic to her website. She’d previously enlisted the help of SEO experts and web developers and funnelled a lot of money into her website, but she felt it still wasn’t performing well – it wasn’t mobile, for instance, and she felt the copy could read better. The bookkeeper decided to go to a networking group of small business owners who were meeting to discuss online marketing, in the hope that someone might have some advice for her or could refer someone who could help. There she met another small business owner, who operated a content marketing agency and who advised her on how to increase her web presence by blogging, creating shareable content, and optimising her Google My Business page; the agency also had an in-house web designer and developer. The bookkeeper was so impressed with the content marketing advice she received, particularly the tips on Google My Business, that she hired the content marketing agency to manage all of her content marketing, including updating her website so it was mobile; they, in turn, referred a number of fairly big clients to the bookkeeper.

Five ways to succeed at networking

The key takeaway from the above example was that the bookkeeper went to a particular networking group with a goal in mind: to solve her online marketing issues. She was seeking qualified advice from other business owners who could empathise with her situation and perhaps recommend a course of action or someone qualified to help. She received both. At the networking group, she met a person who was willing to give her advice that she could implement at herself. Because she’d received useful advice before that worked, she felt safe in her decision to trust the agency to manage all of her content marketing.

So what are the five main things you can do to ensure the next networking group or event you attend is successful? Well, it starts with goal setting.

Network with a purpose:

Like our bookkeeper in the example above, you need to determine what your needs are and why you’re going to a networking group or event, in the first place. If it’s to find advice on how to improve your web presence, select networking groups with a focus on operating a business in the online world; if it’s merely to share the experience of operating a small business with other business owners in your local community, choose one in your area with that focus.

Research:

Now that you’ve established your networking goals, it’s time to find the networking group or event that will deliver them. Check out the attendees and members of some networking events or groups to see which ones are most suited to your business and your networking goals. Once you’ve identified some people you think are worth pursuing at a glance, research them online. Check our their LinkedIn profile, website and other social media. This’ll not only help you to further refine your list of people to connect with at each networking group, but it’ll also help you to find some common interests to discuss with them when you do meet.

Brainstorm some questions:

Before you attend any networking event, think of some questions that you’d like to ask the group or any individual member. It may seem like a waste of time, but it will help to ensure that, even if the other attendees are unprepared, at least you’re going to come away one step closer to reach the goals you set out for your business in the first place. Having targeted questions also helps to show the other attendees that you’re interested and engaged, rather than just there to kill time.

Establish your presence:

Show the group that you’re somebody worth knowing and that your contribution to the group is as valuable as everyone else’s. It’s worthwhile remembering that some groups only allow one member from one profession only, to ensure there’s meaningful business opportunities for everyone attending, so you need to show that you’re worthwhile keeping around on a regular basis. Listen, be attentive, show you’re there to help other’s problem-solve just as you are there to problem-solve for yourself. Always be willing to share and contribute ideas, but know when to back off so as not to be the guy who hogs the conversation and makes the group all about him.

Establish connections and follow-up:

Don’t just hand out and collect business cards willy-nilly. Your goal should be to establish a real connection with people that you’d like to add to your professional network of contacts and, in turn, be that person to them too. Exchange business cards, email addresses or other contact information and try to make a plan to meet-up outside of the networking group. After each event or meet-up, follow-up with each person you’ve exchanged details with. It’s probably taking to too far to call, unless you’ve made an arrangement to meet already, but otherwise sending an email or connecting on social media like LinkedIn is a good place to start.

Follow these five steps each time you attend a networking group or event, and you’re unlikely to go wrong. If you’d like to read more about networking and how you can make it work for your business, continue reading our blog. Otherwise, it’s time to get out there!

Posted on November 24, 2015September 27, 2017 by Angela — 1 Comment

What do bookkeepers do during the first consultation?

Interviewing a potential bookkeeper

become an independent contract and start a bookkeeping business IF YOU’RE LOOKING TO start your own bookkeeping business, or looking to hire a bookkeeper to help you with your bookkeeping, you might be wondering, how does a bookkeeper assess a business’s bookkeeping needs?

As it’s a legal requirement for every business to file a tax return and, sometimes, a quarterly business activity statement (BAS), it’s necessary, then, to keep accurate records of the business’s income and expenditure.

The process of keeping this up-to-date and, if the person is also registered to do so, complete any activity statements, is the role of a bookkeeper.

A bookkeeper, unless they’re just providing a business with general data entry services – reconciling accounts, paying invoices, chasing late payers – should be registered with the Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) as either a tax agent, BAS agent or both. If they’re not, and they don’t hold a bookkeeping or accounting certification, either, then they’re only qualified to charge for the general data entry services.

But, assuming they are TPB registered and qualified to prepare and lodge tax returns and activity statements, then there are a number of things you can typically expect of a bookkeeper during the first consultation with a prospective client.

Free consultation with bookkeeper: what to expect

1. Accounting data file health check

If a business already has an accounting package, a bookkeeper will perform what’s called a ‘health check’. This is a basic check to ensure the accounts have been set up properly in MYOB, Xero, Quickbooks or whatever accounting software the business happens to use – though it’s generally only these well-known packages that a bookkeeper will work with. If a business is using a lesser-known package, like Zoho books, for instance, they may not be able to work with it.

2. Recommend an accounting package

If a business doesn’t already have any accounting software – or maybe they do, but it’s not a package the bookkeeper is familiar with – they may recommend certain software for the business to use, typically MYOB, Xero or Quickbooks.

Generally, the bookkeeper will recommend that someone in the business is trained in whatever software they recommend, as there are some functions — invoicing for example, and even sometimes bank reconciliations — that the business will still need to take care of themselves to reduce their costs, unless the business wants to pay the bookkeeper to do this. Some bookkeepers provide this training so there’s a uniform approach to managing a business’s books.

3. Review of current systems/procedures

The bookkeeper may make recommendations to your general account keeping procedures or systems to improve or streamline them. This could involve, for instance, a recommendation to open a business bank account or using a certain credit card for payments; invoicing clients on a particular day of the week or as jobs are completed to improve cash flow, et cetera.

4. Draft a tentative action plan

In that plan, the bookkeeper will include a confidentiality agreement or letter of engagement which both parties need to sign; they’ll also make recommendations as to how the business should provide information, such as source documents which will differ based on the working arrangement. For instance, virtual bookkeepers may suggest uploading documents to Dropbox, while a local bookkeeper may go to the business’s premises or request the business to come to theirs.

The bookkeeper will also make suggestions as to how regularly their services would be required — once a week, month, and so on.

5. Answer any questions or queries

If the bookkeeper is registered tax agent, they should be able to tell you what sorts of expenses count as a tax deduction. Many people mistakenly believe that only an accountant can provide this sort of advice, but that isn’t true.

An accountant can only lodge and give tax advice if they’re a registered tax agent, and the same goes for a bookkeeper. Thus, should be well versed in Australian tax law.

Why a free initial bookkeeping consultation?

Typically this initial consultation is free and should take an hour or less and it also gives the bookkeeper an opportunity to see if you are the right fit for the client base they would like. Generally the initial consultation occurs in person, even if the bookkeeper will work from home or remotely once their services have been engaged.

In the case of virtual bookkeepers working in a different city or state to their clients, it’s now possible to carry out the initial consultation using Skype, Google Hangouts or any other video conferencing apps – or even just over the telephone.

If the bookkeeper finds that your circumstances are not ideal for their skills or time capacity they should have a network of other bookkeepers/accountants who they can refer to you.

Start a bookkeeping business today

If you’d like to start a bookkeeping business, EzyLearn has recently partnered with National Bookkeeping, which is looking for licensees.

As a licensee with National Bookkeeping, you’ll have access to EzyLearn training courses (which also means the license fee is one hundred percent tax deductible. Visit the National Bookkeeping website today and register your interest online.

Posted on November 20, 2015 by Steve Slisar

Intermediate skills in Microsoft Word can help you create great sales letters

Microsoft Word Training Course is Being Nurtured With New Content

I recently wrote about the content in our Microsoft Word Training Courses and because its a couple years old we’ve been offering the Microsoft Word Courses as a FREE BONUS to anyone who enrolled in our Excel or MYOB courses (with certificate options). If you’re a regular reader (subscribe here) or an EzyLearn student you’d also know that we offer either 12 month or lifetime access to courses and that includes access to brand new content.

[highlight]We’re in the process of create brand new content for Microsoft Word, including training on the creation of great sales letters, resumes and tender proposals.[/highlight]

I’m happy to share with you that we’ve been working on our Word course feverishly for the last 3 months (and there is still a couple months of work to go) to make sure that we have training on the most recent version – Microsoft Word 365 (the clould-based Microsoft Word program that you can purchase on an annual subscription that costs less than the previous versions). The new Word course content is now also aimed at helping you create documents to make sales (for businesses) or find work (for job seekers).

If you’ve always wanted to improve your skills using this popular program and write documents faster, make them look more professional or take advantage of tools like Mail Merge then you’ll get some great value out of this course. We’ll be going through some exercises to help you create

A great sales letter to highlight the call-to-action for your direct marketing campaigns as well as
A resume for the job you’re looking for (and a focussed cover letter).
Proposals and tender documents to win new business for your company

Sales Letters, Resume’s, Cover Letters and Proposals

[highlight]Can you see what they all have in common? They are all marketing focussed.[/highlight]

Each of these documents are used by people EVERY day to show how professional, smart, committed and capable they are. Most companies need to write sales letters and proposals to try to win new business and maintain or increase their annual revenue. Job seekers create resumes and cover letters to convince employers that they are the best person to choose for a job vacancy.

In creating this updated Microsoft Word Course content we’ll also be working on some real life examples of creating marketing materials as part of the Small Business Marketing Courses AND our Career Academy that aims to prepare students to confidently search and apply for job vacancies.

Sales Letters for Bookkeepers and Website Designers

Bookkeepers and website designers need new clients all the time, sometimes because they just don’t have enough work but sometimes because the nature of their work is project driven so it’s [highlight]important to always be spending some time in the sales department[/highlight] (even if you are a one person band). Some people do this with content marketing, or Pay-per-click advertising on Google or Facebook, while others actively seek to meet new people and give them a reason to engage their services.

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]e’ll be working on sales letters as part of a direct marketing effort to reach potential clients and give them a [highlight]reason to act on the sales letter using a special offer and a call to action[/highlight].

You can create sales letters for your marketing campaigns using beginners skills in Microsoft Word, but when you develop the Intermediate or advanced skills you’ll find a dramatic difference in the quality of your documents.

Special Prices & BONUS Courses are for a LIMITED TIME ONLY

Are you planning on doing a Microsoft Word Course in the new year? Why not enrol now and save at least $50?

After we’ve completed all the new course content and support exercise files we’ll be bringing the Microsoft Word Course prices inline with our other course prices, so when you enrol now you can get the Word course free if you enrol into Excel or MYOB (Certification option) or you can enrol directly into Microsoft Word and get the current discounted price. Enrol now and you’ll get the benefit of the new Word course material when it’s published but you’ll get it at today’s price.

Posted on November 11, 2015March 25, 2020 by Steve Slisar

The High Cost of Selling Too Cheap

How to tell whether your prices are too cheap

DETERMINING YOUR PRICES, and whether you’re selling yourself too cheap, is a critical element in the success of your business, and in your own success as well.

The EzyStartUp Course covers setting prices in some detail as there are many factors you need to consider and include in your prices to ensure you’re not just competitive — but that you’re also drawing a living wage. Continue reading The High Cost of Selling Too Cheap

Posted on November 9, 2015 by Steve Slisar

Will you always be a MYOB Bookkeeper?

Now that you are more Internet savvy will you change careers from bookkeeping?

A report by the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary (thank you to whoever shortened it subsequently) in 2012 attempted to identify the links between education and jobs. The report created for the NATIONAL VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING RESEARCH PROGRAM (NCVER) had 4 key findings and this was the first one:

[quote]Some fields of education have tight links to the workplace (for example, nursing), while others have a much weaker relationship with specific jobs, such as in finance and agriculture.[/quote]

I was reviewing the courses we offer and the most popular are our:

MYOB Courses (has been our biggest seller since 2008),
Xero Courses (which have had a MASSIVE uptick in enrolments this year) and
Microsoft Excel (doing very well now that we tell people about it).

As you can see our most popular courses are financially based ones and most of the students are aiming to either change careers or start their own bookkeeping business so they can work more flexible hours. If we look at the research paper and understand that our students (and most bookkeepers) are working in a variety of different business sectors it makes sense that they’ll be exposed to many different and new skills, particularly as businesses adopt the use of more software and in particular Internet based software – ie. the Cloud.

Is marketing a better career choice than bookkeeping?

If I look at what I spend most of my time doing it’s marketing, and I have to admit I prefer that work to bookkeeping, but you might also find that it’s not unusual for financial types to broaden the type of work they do.

Page 22 of this report, under the heading Trajectories and motivations, the report uncovered:

[quote]Students’ reasons for wanting to undertake further study are related to the reasons why they embarked on study in the first place. While getting a job was at the centre, this was interwoven with their priorities, values and circumstances more broadly. One nursing student reflected the views of other students saying, ‘This is my area. In five years time I will be a nurse. In ten years time a nurse. I will be a nurse until I retire’. Students undertaking accounting and finance programs saw their field in broad terms which included management and other aspects of the finance industry, but also included related areas such as marketing.[/quote]

I recently wrote about bookkeepers offering marketing advice to their clients and my discovery of this report re-confirmed that this is possible on a professional level!

Is Content Marketing the best type of marketing for small businesses like real estate agents?

I have to admit something at this point. My team and I are working on a project offering content marketing solutions for real estate agents and our showcase real estate agent sells homes in Sydney’s Lower North Shore. If you search for him you’ll get to the website that we’ve just assembled and you’ll experience the significant changes it will go through over the coming weeks as he finishes his round of educational videos for people who are looking to buy or sell a property. Go on, give it a quick search – his name is Derek Farmer.

With the importance of content marketing / online marketing / digital marketing it’s no wonder that this profession has great growth potential and just like bookkeeping it is work that can be completed on a contract basis and better still from your own home!

Here are some posts I recently wrote about WordPress and Content Marketing:

What is inbound marketing?

Can a bookkeeper give marketing advice?

How do you manage your online content marketing?

Who really cares about Sensis? Yellow Pages? Content Marketing shows you care.

Blogging for Business Training Course

Content Marketing vs Google Adwords

Want to try Content Marketing for your business?

I’ve teamed up with a some writers and editors and other marketing types to create our Content Marketing services (and course – which is currently in development) and if you are interested in being kept in the loop you can register at our content marketing course page for free – follow the links.

[quote]Work with me to put your content marketing strategy together[/quote]

Better still I’m one of the mentors for the Marketing training course at the Australian Small Business Centre (whose small business management courses are delivered via our LMS – Learning Management System) so if you enrol into that course (and choose the mentor option) you’ll be able to work with me to put your content marketing strategy together.

[button link=”http://ezylearnonline.com.au/courses/sales-and-marketing-courses/content-marketing-training-courses/landing-pages/”]Content Marketing free Registration[/button]

Posted on October 28, 2015October 27, 2015 by Angela

The NBN Means Do-or-Die for Remote Workers

The NBN isn’t smoke and mirrors for home workers

In September, the Australian Government launched a 780-tonne rocket, called the Sky Muster, into space. The Sky Muster was not intended to determine whether there was life on Mars nor any alternative solar systems; it’s purpose was to beam wireless broadband back to 200,000 homes and businesses in some of Australia’s most remote outposts. It was the next phase of the National Broadband Network’s rollout strategy to have more Australian premises connected to its fibre optic network.

We’ve been keeping a close eye on the NBN rollout because, when it’s finally complete, it will mean that almost every household and business in Australia will have access to high-speed internet, providing greater opportunities for regional businesses to work with metropolitan and international-based ones, for kids to have access to high-quality education, and to give a greater number of people in regional Australia the opportunity to work from home.

Although the NBN has been through many incarnations – first under the former Labor Government as fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP), then under the Abbott Liberal Government the priority was fibre-to-the-node (FTTN), and now under the Turnbull-led Liberal Government as a mixture of FTTN and FTTP, where the the latter is available – the NBN is still a hugely important investment in Australia’s future.

The high cost of living makes NBN a necessity

The high cost of living, particularly the cost of housing in places like Sydney and Melbourne, has seen many Aussies, including singles and younger couples, moving to regional parts of Australia, where housing is more affordable; a practice that wouldn’t have been possible a decade ago, or even as recently as five years ago.

That’s because jobs, excluding those in the retail and hospitality sector, are limited in regional Australia. Moving out of the city for a sea or tree change was something retirees could afford to do, but not younger working people because the jobs simply weren’t there. But technology, coupled with cloud computing and, of course, high speed internet, has changed that.

Now, more people can continue to work for their employer in Sydney, even though they live, say, on the Central Coast, by teleworking at one of the NSW Smart Work Hubs in Gosford or Wyong (more people, still, can live in Newcastle and only commute as far as Gosford or Wyong to telework at a Smart Work Hub for their Sydney-based employer). But what’s becoming far more commonplace is the number of people starting their own businesses, which they operate from their homes in regional Australia.

These are the next communities to receive the NBN

If you live in regional Australia, then you’re probably very familiar with the challenges people have accessing broadband internet. In most regional communities, demand for broadband internet outweighs the supply ports, so you have to wait until someone else disconnects their broadband service – which, today, means they’ve either moved out of the area or…. died – before you can connect your service (or progress in the queue). And believe it or not, that’s not even the worst of it.

Other areas throughout Australia don’t have the infrastructure available to even connect to the exchange, never mind the port. That’s because Telstra’s ageing copper wire network is in desperate need of an upgrade, but the company had been so slow to prioritise any upgrades that it threatened to derail the Government’s NBN initiative. In December last year, the government-owned NBN Co signed an $11 billion buyback deal with Telstra, so that the copper wire network can be gradually replaced with FTTP but that could still take many years.

The good news is that there are currently more than 870,000 Australians who can already access the NBN, while an additional 550,000 premises, throughout Australia, have been added to the rollout plan, with construction to commence by September 2016. These additional communities include:

Queensland	New South Wales
Greater Brisbane (21,300 premises) North Queensland (24,400 premises) Sunshine Coast (36,200 premises) Southern Queensland (8,100 premises) Gold Coast (19,500 premises) Far-North Queensland (780 premises) Wide Bay Burnett (1040 premises)	Greater Sydney (26,600 premises) Central Coast (6,400 premises) Central West (16,900 premises) Hunter (25,000 premises) Murray (9,700 premises) North Coast (26,100 premises) North West-North West Slopes (2,400 premises) Riverina (35,100 premises) Snowy Mountains (5,200 premises) Southern Tablelands (800 premises) Southern Highlands (1,600 premises)
Victoria	South Australia
Metro Melbourne (56,200 premises) Barwon (5,300 premises) Gippsland (23, 400 premises) Loddon Mallee (46,900 premises) North East (15,370 premises)	Adelaide Hills (900 premises) Greater Adelaide (19,00 premises) Eyre Peninsula (10,400 premises) Far North (2,800 premises) Limestone Coast (23,300 premises) Yorke and Mid North Coast (9,900 premises)
Western Australia
Greater Perth (56,100 premises) Goldfields-Esperance (6,000 premises) Great Southern (3,700 premises) Kimberly (6,400 premises) South West (2,000 premises) Wheatbelt (3,700 premises) Mid-West (500 premises) South West (670 premises)

Is the NBN coming to you?

If you’re already able to access the NBN or are shortly going to be able to, don’t just sign up to Netflix! Make the most of the NBN by starting your own home-based business and provide valuable services to businesses located all over Australia. Whether you’re a writer, a web developer, bookkeeper, or administrative assistant (better known online as ‘virtual assistants’), there’s a huge marketplace for your skills all over Australia and throughout the world.

Content marketing, for example, has become a hugely popular marketing activity for many businesses, now that other traditional marketing opportunities have started to dry up. A key component of content marketing is written content – blog posts, ebooks, e-newsletters, web copy. If you’re a writer, with a flare for business writing, you can start your own home-based content marketing or freelance writing business from your home in regional Australia, and all you need is a computer and access to the internet!

EzyLearn can help you to start your own business today

EzyLearn has being using content marketing almost exclusively ever since we transitioned from a bricks-and-mortar business to an online one in 2008. In that time, we’ve seen a plethora of other businesses begin to utilise content marketing too, so we decided to create a content marketing training course, born of our 7-plus years content marketing experience.

If you’d like to learn more about creating marketing content for businesses, you can register your interest in our content marketing course or enrol in our blogging for business training course. If you’re looking for work now, and you have experience as a virtual assistant, a bookkeeper, content marketing, health and safety, or in IT, EzyLearn has partnered with WorkFace to help you start your own home-based business. Visit the WorkFace website for information on the opportunities currently available.

Posted on October 2, 2015 by Steve Slisar

Why Continuing Professional Education is Important for Bookkeepers

CPD for Bookkeepers is Becoming More Important

Education is obviously something we think is very important, whether you’re changing careers, starting a new business, or looking to upskill for a promotion. But what about education to keep your current job? The Australian Government thinks that’s equally important, especially for BAS and tax agents.

In March this year, the Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) changed their renewal process to now include continuing professional education (CPE) as a mandatory for all registrations after July 1, 2016. Between now and June 30, 2016, it’s sufficient for BAS and tax agents to merely show they have read and understood the new CPE policy to renew their registration, but this arrangement can only be used once; moving forward those BAS and tax agents will still need to complete further education to register again as a BAS or tax agent the in the future.

Are You a Currently a BAS or Tax agent?

Over the last few years, the Government has introduced a lot of new measures that BAS and tax agents have had to comply with in order to continue to offer their services to clients, namely the changes in 2010 that made it mandatory for all BAS and tax agents to hold a minimum qualification of a Cert IV in bookkeeping.

The new CPE requirement could seem like just another measure that BAS and tax agents need to comply with just to be able to keep their jobs. It’s not. CPE has been introduced to ensure that BAS and tax agents continue to understand, not just their own industry – that of tax and finance – but also how other industries are changing too.

There are more people leaving their jobs as employees and starting to work for themselves as consultants and freelancers and contract workers, across a wide array of industries. Marketing professionals, for example, no longer simply come up with marketing hooks for companies; they also have to understand how to create websites and how SEO works and social media. In some cases, they even become unofficial spokespeople and sales reps for the companies they’re consulting with, leveraging their contacts on their clients’ behalf.

CPE makes BAS and tax agents more valuable, not less

This vastly complicates a marketing professional’s tax if that marketing professional’s job now encompasses the roles of several other professions within it. Similar changes have been observed in bookkeeping, with registered BAS and tax agents now providing more operational and administrative-type services, in addition to just bookkeeping.

The point, then, of CPE is not to make it more difficult for tax and BAS agents to renew their registration with the TPB, but to help tax and BAS agents to remain as highly skilled as they’ve ever been, in an ever-changing labour market. And the better skilled you are as a BAS and tax agent, particularly those self-employed BAS and tax agents, the more value you’ll be able to provide your clients, and the more work you’ll get from them in return.

To learn more about continuing professional education for bookkeepers, visit the TPB website. Otherwise, to read more about bookkeeping, particularly starting your own bookkeeping business, continue reading our blog.

Are you a Writer and Want to Work from Home Blogging for Businesses?

I write about marketing professionals because they are increasingly important in small businesses as businesses grapple with getting discovered online. I recently wrote about Blogging for Business and our new training course to help businesses with their content marketing strategy and tasks because it’s something that my team are spending more and more time on. It’s also an area that is evolving every month and requires writers to learn about and adapt to new technology.

Enrol into the Blogging for Business Course now and take advantage of it’s current cheap price. We’ll soon be adding real life exercises where blogging students will be asked to create content and have it edited and published so they can participate in a real world business blogging project!

Posted on September 14, 2015July 26, 2021 by Steve Slisar — 3 Comments

Tis the Season to Switch to Xero

MYOB – Bain Capital Cashing In While They Can

Switch to Quickbooks or Xero from MYOB — Intuit Quickbooks has made this offer for a long time already

You may be aware that MYOB is once again listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) as Bain Capital aim to grab some cash back for the massive investment they made in the accounting software company.

In the recent lull in the share price of companies on the ASX in general you’d think that MYOB company executives are worried about getting their money back let alone making a return on their initial investment. After all they are now competing globally with small startups like Xero (and SAASU) as well as MASSIVE accounting software companies like Intuit.

We’ve always been committed to MYOB accounting software training courses because the software is so popular with most Australian accountants and it is (even today) by far the most used accounting program for small business in Australia.. BUT, we’ve noticed a significant increase in enrolments for our Xero Accounting Training Courses and we wondered why? Why is August and September such a popular time for enrolments in Xero and it was then obvious.

[quote]Everyone is finishing off their end of year accounts for the 2015 financial year and those that want to make a change away from MYOB are switching to Xero now.[/quote]

Our Xero Course is Now Beefed Up and it’s Yours for Nothing Extra

We’ve just increased the cost of our Xero courses because we’ve beefed it up with:

3 new Xero Training Course Workbooks,
More detailed Xero knowledge review questions AND some
Industry specific training guides for the tradies who want to change to Xero.

[box type=”tick” size=”large” style=”rounded” border=”full”]Existing Xero students can access all of these new training aids for no extra cost and that is a great feature of our 12 month membership offer- you can lock in the current price and get all of the future benefits as we get the Xero course to the same level of detail as our popular MYOB courses.[/box]

Xero Seems to be the Tradies Choice

Plumbers are switching to Xero from MYOB accounting software — From The Reece Plumbing Website

Ever since I interviewed Ken from Love My Home Theatre I started to realise the appeal of Xero for tradies! Plumbers, Electricians, Concreters, Builders, Pest Inspectors, Painters and most other tradies are always out doing their work whether they are quoting, working or finishing off they are always seeing their customers and potential customers so it make sense for them to do as much as they can while they are ont and about. They also have to keep good records of:

Products they purchase for their customers
Resources they allocate to their customers
Money that is owed after the work is completed
Progress payments as the jobs are gradually completed

Bookkeeping is also something that isn’t second nature for tradies and it’s usually done by their wifes, partners, a trusted friend or someone who knows their industry very well. Being cloud-based (online) accounting software tradies can now create quotes using an iPad or other mobile device and the invoicing, debtors follow-up and bank reconciliation can be done by a bookkeeper (from anywhere).

For this reason we’ve created a Xero Training Guide for Plumbers and Concreters. We’ve got some classic examples of how a plumber may buy products from Reece plumbing on their account for one of their clients and they need to keep track of this purchase.

Reece Plumbing Integrates with Xero

One of the most interesting observations about what Reece Plumbing have done with their purchase and payment system is their integration with Xero Accounting software so that customers don’t need to perform data entry and automatically have a copy of each of their tax invoices.

The benefits sited by Reece are:

No need for manual uploads of tax invoices/receipts
No data entry mistakes
Save time and money
See your tax invoices in Xero

Learn more about the benefits of using the Reece Plumbing Xero Integration.

After School Holidays is a Good Time to Learn How to Use Xero?

If it is time for you to migrate or transfer your accounting information to a new platform we’d love to help you. We’ve also had a lot of bookkeepers learn how to use Xero so it’s clear there is a ground swell to good online (cloud) accounting software and Xero seem to have done well so far. If you are interested in adding Xero to your pack of software skills take advantage of our current prices – you can always start your course when you come back from school holidays and the kids are back in school.

Will the NEW Quickbooks Make a Comeback?

I’ve written before about Quickbooks and they are still doing great stuff with their pricing. As the blog image above suggests they have maintained a steady first year discount for at least 12 months (from our observations) and maybe this is their strategy to squeeze the margins for much smaller startups like Xero.

It’s a good time to note that the Quickbooks we’re talking about is the NEW Quickbooks from the massive US Company Intuit, not the one that WAS distributed in Australia by Reckon before Intuit and Reckon dissolved their distribution agreement.

I’ve taken the time to explore Quickbooks and it’s pretty impressive and easy to use. If its something you want to learn about make sure you visit our Quickbooks Training Course page and pre-register to receive the course at an Introductory price.

Posted on September 10, 2015 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

Has the Australian Government shelved its Teleworking initiative for good?

How Teleworking Began in Australia

In 2011, the then-Gillard Government introduced a teleworking initiative, established to encourage private sector employers to allow their employees to regularly work from home. The teleworking initiative was soon followed by Gillard’s own commitment in 2012 to have 12 percent of all Australian public servants teleworking by 2020. But the initiative also served another purpose: to promote the use of the national broadband network (NBN).

That was then. By 2013, the Gillard Government had been ousted, and the NBN has been through many different incarnations since it was first announced – it’s still moving forward, albeit as a significantly scaled back offering to what was originally proposed. Also ousted in 2013 was the Department of Broadband Communications and the Digital Economy (DBCDE), which oversaw the Government’s Teleworking initiative.

In place of the DBCDE, the Government formed the Department of Communications. It’s primary functions are the same as the DBCDE’s, with one exception: there’s no teleworking initiative, which has ostensibly gone the way of the clog (remember those?). For whatever reason, it now appears that the Federal Government isn’t very interested in encouraging Australian businesses to have their staff telework or to utilise teleworkers, who may be scattered across Australia.

Employed Teleworkers not Independent Contractors?

Could it be that the telework initiative stepped on the toes of various of state and territory level telework initiatives that involved funding, what the NSW Government has dubbed, Smart Work Hubs? Smart Work Hubs, like the one at Wyong on the NSW Central Coast, are essentially co-working spaces established to encourage employers to allow their staff to telework – from one of the government-funded smart hubs, of course.

This is an interesting move, but it relies on people who are already employed and already commuting to a major city centre or business district to utilise the smart hubs, which come at a cost to either the employee or their employer. The locations of the existing five pilot smart hubs in NSW are already located in major areas – Western City and the Central Coast; all areas with easy access to high speed internet services.

For more smarts to be rolled out in other regional areas – Newcastle is rumoured to be next – the existing ones need to prove they’re worth the investment, and that relies on numbers. A significant number of teleworkers, the emphasis here being on teleworkers and not the self-employed, need to be using the smart work hubs regularly enough for the NSW Government to rollout the next phase of smart work hubs.

But as I hinted before, this relies on people who already have access to high-speed internet services at their home and who are still within commuting distance to their place of work, to be willing to pay to telework regularly. Maybe the reason the Federal Government really scrapped its teleworking initiative had nothing to do with the NSW Government’s smart work hubs at all. Maybe it had more to do with it’s new-look NBN.

What the scaled back NBN really looks like

When the NBN was originally proposed, the original plan was to deploy high-speed-to-the-premises (FTTP) broadband for most Australians, but that was soon ditched by the Abbott Government for being too expensive. The new-look NBN now consists of a mixed network that prioritises fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) technology, which means that fibre optic cables are run to each internet node and the rest of the connection is completed through Telstra’s ageing copper wire network.

Under this NBN, the speed of your internet will vary on how far you live from the node. The further away you live, the slower it will be. But it’s okay, the Government has promised that the slowest NBN speeds could ever get to is 25 Megabits per second (Mbps), the same speed the US Federal Communications Commission defined as the absolute bare minimum to be able to call an internet connection broadband.

The other issue, of course, remains the copper wire network, which the Government now has to buy back off Telstra for $11bn (after the Howard Government sold it to Telstra a decade ago) when it discovered there was a lack of infrastructure in most regional areas of Australia that prevented many households from even connecting to the exchange, never mind the port – as well as some households in major cities.

So what now for teleworkers?

If you’re a teleworker and you live near a NSW Government smart work hub, use it. Certain hubs offer discounts to the NSW Government’s definition of a teleworker – someone who usually commutes to their workplace – while the self-employed can still reap the benefit of working from a smart hub, which are located near or offer child minding facilities, cafes, parking, and gyms.

If you were counting on the NBN to make it easier to work remotely or start your own business, don’t give up on it yet. The Government knows that the key to remaining competitive in the global marketplace is to have access to high-speed telecommunications networks, so the NBN is still, and will continue to be, a major priority.

If you’d like to start your own home-based business, but don’t know where to go for advice and support now that the Government has, seemingly, abandoned it’s teleworking initiative, visit the WorkFace website. WorkFace is an EzyLearn business partner made up of a network of teleworking professionals who have helped many EzyLearn graduates start their own home-based virtual assistant businesses.

Blogging is a Teleworking Task

The article you’re reading is part of the EzyLearn blog and this work can be done from anywhere in the world so it’s a popular outsourced task. If you want to explore blogging for your business or want to learn how it works so you can offer it as a service then discover our Blogging for Business Online Training Course.

Posted on September 9, 2015April 24, 2018 by Angela

Is Single Touch Payroll Really Dead?

For a while there it looked like the ATO would introduce single touch payroll for all Australian businesses by July 2016, but after feedback from the businesses community that original plan has been shelved – for now. With SuperStream simplifying the way businesses manage the superannuation contributions for their employees, it’s highly likely that we’ll be seeing some form of the single touch payroll model in the near future.

Single touch payroll was an initiative developed to simplify the payroll process for Australian businesses. Currently, most businesses are burdened with a number of tax and superannuation reporting obligations, which single touch payroll would have put an end to.

What exactly was single touch payroll?

Single touch payroll, like SuperStream, was a proposed interactive tool that would allow a business’s accounting software to automatically report payroll information for their employees to the the tax office, eliminating the need for businesses to report pay-as-you-go withholding (PAYGW) in their activity statements throughout the year, as well as end-of-year employee payment summaries.

There was also a proposed digital service that would have streamlined tax file number declarations and Super Choice forms, which would obviously reduce a lot of the red tape and paperwork associated with employing staff.

Single touch payroll would have integrated with nearly all accounting packages in Australia, including MYOB, Xero and Quickbooks, just as SuperStream does now, so why was it shelved by the ATO until further consultation with the business community?

Single touch could have caused cash flow problems

The main concern for many businesses was that single touch payroll would impact their cash flow by requiring employers to pay the tax withheld from wages and super guarantee payments at the same time they paid their employees’ wages. There were also concerns about whether compliance by July 2016 was realistically achievable for the majority of businesses, especially when the SuperStream changeover is still ongoing.

For businesses with a substantial number of employees, single touch payroll could have been a godsend. Unfortunately, the original proposal alienated smaller businesses by making it necessary to pay both tax and super guarantee payments at the same time as employee wages, when most employers currently make those payments to the ATO each quarter.

But that doesn’t mean the single touch payroll system has been scrapped altogether. The ATO, in consultation with industry groups and the Minister for Small Business, is working on developing another single touch payroll scheme that will make real-time payments for withholding and super guarantee payments voluntary, which will be tested with small business owners before it’s rolled out across the board.

There’s still life in single touch payroll yet

What single touch payroll really highlights is how important it is for small businesses to make sure that they’re using a current accounting software package – and there are many on the market, developed especially for small businesses – that supports SuperStream and will also support any other ATO initiatives, like single touch payroll.

If you’re not using an accounting package for your small business, it’s wise to choose one of the major accounting software providers, which Margaret Carey of Business EEz also suggested when we spoke to her not so long ago about SuperStream.

You can read more about SuperStream and the new measures the ATO has introduced to make payroll and superannuation compliance easier for small businesses by subscribing to our blog. Alternatively, if you’re a small business owner using either Xero or MYOB and you’d like to know how to properly setup and use payroll in your accounting software, enrol in one of our MYOB or Xero training courses today.

Posted on August 24, 2015August 19, 2015 by Steve Slisar

Seriously, Why Wouldn’t You Use WordPress for Your Website?

Finding Income Opportunities for EzyLearn Students

We’ve had some exciting news in the last couple of weeks: EzyLearn students who are completing the MYOB Training Courses and WordPress Courses are starting to earn money because we’re helping them get customers AND improve their skills!

I’ve been working with the team at Workface and we’re assembling a training and mentoring program to help EzyLearn students start and operate a business from home. The best part of this, and something I am passionate about, is that we’re helping people from all over Australia become remote contractors (teleworkers, call it what you want) and work from anywhere via the Internet.

Yes, you can start a business & work from home

I recently wrote about how cloud-based software is enabling people who live in regional Australia perform work for businesses in the capital cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide etc) and also about the Teleworking hubs that are starting to appear around the country as part of the evolution of people living outside the cities and working at home or close to home.

You may also recall that we’ve also launched the Startup Academy this year to provide formalised and structured training and mentoring support. It’s for you so if you are interested in starting a business and working from home we’ve teamed up with some products/service providers to give you a flying start and projects to start on right away.

Explore running your own business from home now

Bright VIC to Melbourne Virtual Assistant is doing content marketing for infant massage business in Sydney — Imagine travelling this far to work for a client. Content Marketing can be done from anywhere

There are opportunities to provide office/admin support services, content marketing, business telephone systems and IT support and of course bookkeeping services and if you’d like to start a business in one of these areas then explore the business opportunities.

When you sign up and join our team you’ll gain exposure to many new online (cloud-based) software and services that enable us to:

collaborate,
share files,
work on project together,
set and manage goals and daily tasks,
turn to each other for support,
create and build your own online profile, and
many more skills that will enable you to work for yourself and generate your own income, no matter where you live.

Remember our goal is to help you start a business and work from home – NO MATTER WHERE YOU LIVE. Helen from Bright is our latest virtual assistant and she is doing some website design and content marketing for an infant massage business starting up in Sydney’s Northern Suburbs! I looked at a Google Map and discovered that she’d have at least 3 hours travel if she wanted to work in her nearest capital city!

Are you looking for someone to help you in your business?

We’re going to document our journey with these remote contractors and share with you some of the growth they go through as they grapple with the new frontier of internet working.

If you are a business looking for any of these services you can Find a Contractor through Workface and our team can get to work for you too.

[button link=”http://workface.com.au/services/find-contractor/”]Find a Contractor[/button]

Posted on August 13, 2015August 11, 2015 by Steve Slisar — 4 Comments

Live on the NSW Central Coast? The State Government wants you to be teleworking

NSW State Government Incentives for Teleworking

The State Government wants the NSW Central Coast to become the next Silicon Valley by encouraging commuters and freelancers to work from one of their two Smart Work Hubs located at Wyong and Gosford. The Smart Work Hubs are part of the State Government’s $1.5 million pilot program of co-working spaces, which are also part of the Government’s greater push to get more people teleworking.

I wrote a post recently [The NBN makes it easier to run a business from home] on how the NBN is making it easier for people to move out of the city and relocate to regional parts of Australia and still conduct a business from home that provides valuable services to businesses in our major cities. The NBN is just one aspect of the Government’s push to get more people teleworking, and their new Smart Work Hubs Pilot Program is another initiative that will encourage trade and investment in regional areas.

Teleworking Commuter hubs in five regions across NSW

The program is also operating in Western Sydney, with spaces located in Penrith, Rouse Hill and Oran Park, three areas that were identified as having a large volume of residents commuting to the Sydney CBD. The two spaces on the Central Coast are unique, however, because they’re the first co-working spaces of their kind in the region.

Co-working spaces have been around for some time in Sydney, originating in inner city suburbs like Chippendale and Ultimo, and spread quickly across the city as more people started businesses and began working remotely from home. Co-working spaces give home-based workers an alternative space to work from, as well as an opportunity to meet and collaborate with other like-minded individuals.

But while those inner city co-working spaces were established to encourage collaboration between creatives and start-ups, the NSW Government’s Smart Work Hubs Pilot Program has a slightly different focus, targeting commuters instead.

Member for Gosford Chris Holstein said that Gosford and Wyong been selected for the Smart Work Hubs Pilot Program due to the high volume of residents who commute to both Sydney and Newcastle for work.

“Around 40,000 residents commute outside the Central Coast region each day for work and this can have significant impact on their work/life balance,” Mr Holstein said.

“By establishing Smart Work Hubs in locations with large commuter populations, we can take advantage of the benefits of using technology to support smart working practices.

“New technology and high speed broadband are changing the way people work and NSW has much to gain by taking a leading position in this emerging landscape.”

State of the art facilities, with a 12-month government subsidy

If you’re a teleworker – that is, an employee of a business and not self-employed – then you’re eligible for a daily $20 workstation subsidy from the Government to be used at the Wyong Nexus Hub, which reduces the daily workstation rate down to just $15 and is available for the first twelve months of operation.

Although the Smart Work Hubs are aimed at commuters, freelancers, home-based workers, and small business owners are also encouraged to make use of the spaces, which have been guaranteed state government funding for twelve months. Although the self-employed aren’t eligible for a government subsidy, the day rate for booking a workstation at the Wyong hub has also been reduced to $15 for a limited time; the Gosford hub isn’t currently eligible a government subsidy.

Over the course of the twelve-month trial period, the hubs at each five locations are being monitored to determine their viability in other regions across NSW, and, if successful, the Government hopes to trial sites at other locations throughout NSW, including Newcastle and the Illawarra.

The Smart Work Hubs in both Gosford and Wyong are both been fitted out with high-speed broadband Internet, photocopiers and printers, video conferencing facilities, private offices, meeting rooms, a kitchen, and use a swipe card system to ensure security; the space at Wyong also has an onsite gym and childminding facilities for Hub customers, as well as a café and easy parking.

Why start a business at a Smart Work Hub?

Work hubs and co-working spaces are not only a cheaper alternative to renting an office, but with all the facilities they offer – gyms, childminding, etc – they’re also more convenient for home-based workers with kids. Many people who complete our training courses intend to start a business from home so they can spend more time with their kids, making a co-working space or work hub perfect for mums or dads who need time away from the kids while they get some work done.

Better than that, though, work hubs also have the added benefit of providing a space where you can network or collaborate with other small business owners. A work hub provides home-based workers with an environment not dissimilar to a regular workplace, but it’s one that’s more conducive to working productively – i.e., there’s less time spent complaining about the boss!

If you’ve been thinking of starting a home-based business, I don’t think the climate has ever been more start-up friendly than it is at the moment. Aside from the State Government’s Smart Work Hub Pilot Program, new small business owners can also take advantage of the Federal Government’s small business tax breaks, in addition to the NBN’s continued rollout of high-speed fibre optic Internet in regional areas across Australia.

If you’re looking for a low-risk new business opportunity, our partner National Bookkeeping has a number of licensee opportunities for people interested in starting a bookkeeping business. You can visit the National Bookkeeping website for more information or to register. Alternatively, read more about EzyLearn’s partnership with National Bookkeeping on our blog.

Posted on August 11, 2015March 25, 2020 by Steve Slisar — 2 Comments

The NBN will make it easier to move out of the city and start a business

Regional Australia Is Available To Work For Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth

A lot has been said in recent weeks about the cost of housing in Australia’s capital cities, but in particular, Sydney, which has the highest median housing prices in the country; a figure that, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, has increased by 30 percent since 2012 and is continuing to rise, seemingly unabated.

As a result, people – and I mean all people; couples, families, singles – are moving out of the city to regional areas, where housing prices are lower. Continue reading The NBN will make it easier to move out of the city and start a business

Posted on August 10, 2015August 11, 2015 by Steve Slisar — 1 Comment

Free Xero Course with Excel and MYOB Courses

It’s a Good Year for Xero Cloud Accounting

Many accountants and businesses are now using Xero instead of MYOB so it’s important for bookkeepers to be trained in this.

It’s been a surprising year this year for our Xero Training Courses. Xero must be doing something right with their marketing and strategy because we’ve seen a significant increase in the number of students enrolling for this course.

I was just speaking with one of our students only recently and she mentioned that of all the software programs she uses (and she uses them all) that Xero makes bookkeeping so easy that some of her clients who’ve gone onto it have reduced the number of hours that they employ her!

[quote]It’s a scary thought if you are an independent contractor who doesn’t have a professional services agreement in place for regular work with their clients, but it’s also a sign of the times for bookkeepers in the cloud (online) software era.[/quote]

The biggest reason for the ease of use? Bank Feeds. See below for our free Xero course offer..

Do Bookkeepers Need to Change What They Do?

I recently wrote about content marketing and whether a bookkeeper is someone who can discuss or even recommend this service to the people they work for. The best way to think about this is how the bookkeeper role works in many companies, for example, do small businesses look for a bookkeeper who can provide a wider range of services than just bookkeeping? It’s common for a bookkeeper to work in the administration areas of a small business because finance and administration go hand in hand and it’s common for contractors who understand cloud based services to delve into and explore other cloud based services.

I was speaking to another bookkeeper who is a Registered BAS Agent about her website and online marketing and she was telling me about all these fantastic things she was doing to promote her own business.

[quote]After talking to her for an hour I started thinking that she is a good person to talk to about Internet marketing – and that perhaps she starts offering these services to her clients too![/quote]

In the end it often depends on the size of a bookkeepers clients and the type of work they want to do. When you develop your bookkeeping and accounting skills you become more valuable as an accounts contact, particularly as a Registered BAS Agent, however you can become more of a small business administrator if you are aware of how to manage many different parts of the business.

It’s a Great Time for Free Xero Courses with MYOB Course enrolment

Sorry, I digress.

[box type=”tick” size=”large” style=”rounded” border=”full”]What I really wanted to announce was our new fantastic special offer of a free Xero course or Microsoft Word course when you enrol into a Microsoft Excel or MYOB Training Course with EzyLearn.[/box]

Xero is great to know if you want to delve deeper into the various software programs available to do bookkeeping (and a great tool to offer if you want to operate a bookkeeping business from home). Microsoft Word is a great program to master if you want to create documents for yourself or the business you work for and the tool of choice for creating a great resume so you can get that next job you’re going for.

Posted on July 28, 2015July 28, 2015 by Steve Slisar

SuperStream is good news for small businesses (and bookkeepers!)

What is SuperStream?

I recently wrote about SuperStream, the government reform introduced last year to improve the efficiency of the superannuation system, and which provides businesses with a set of standards to ensure super contributions are paid in a timely and consistent manner.

For small businesses, operating with nineteen or fewer employees, the ATO is encouraging them to take steps to become compliant with the new SuperStream measures, before the June 30 deadline in 2016, giving them twelve months to ensure compliance.

We’d heard grumbles from a few small business owners and bookkeepers who felt that SuperStream sounded like just another scheme they needed to become compliant with, which would ultimately end up creating more work for them, so we decided to speak to an expert to find out.

Why is SuperStream Good?

Xero and MYOB cloud accounting training courses Margaret Carey is a registered BAS agent, accounting software and cloud specialist, and owner of the accounting software consultancy firm Business EEz. She’s contributed to our blog in the past regarding She agreed to answer a couple of our questions about SuperStream and what it means for small businesses and bookkeepers alike.

EzyLearn: How does SuperStream change the way small businesses make super contributions for their employees?

Margaret Carey: There are two sides to making a superannuation payment, from the perspective of the employer; firstly, they have to tell the super fund which person they’re paying the money for and the period they’re paying it for, and they have to give that information to the super fund every single time for each of their employees. The second part of the process is actually transferring the money to the super fund. What SuperStream does is it streamlines that entire procedure into a one-step process – so the information has to be provided electronically and the payments paid that way too. SuperStream cuts down the time delay, it cuts down the potential for error, and it ensures the money arrives in the employee’s super fund much more promptly, as well as being fully traceable.

EL: So with SuperStream you can virtually go in and input all of the employee information and also make the payment at the exact same time, like shopping for something online, almost?

MC: Yeah it is, but this is where accounting software really helps people because it takes care of all that for you. All of the small business account software packages are now SuperStream compliant. Just as an example, with Xero, when you set your employees up in the system, you also put in their super fund details, and then when you do your payroll, there’s just a button that you push to create the super fund report, which goes straight off to the super fund and the money goes straight out of your bank account to the super fund; it’s just so straightforward, so much easier than anything else.

EL: Wow, so really SuperStream has made the super process much, much easier?

MC: It has. It really was an administrative nightmare. But I think a lot of people don’t appreciate [SuperStream] and they think, ‘Oh god, another thing I’ve got to comply with,’ but it makes their life so much easier, so I think lots of people are unnecessarily worried about it when, in fact, it makes life easier and automates things a lot more. A lot of people, anyway, without realising are already SuperStream compliant; it’s just now that they’re being told they absolutely have to be, but I think it’s a really good initiative.

EL: So the Australian Government has also set up a Superannuation Clearing House for small businesses, how does that work – do you still use your accounting software? How does that fit into the SuperStream picture?

MC: If someone is using an up-to-date accounting software – and all accounting software has to be compliant now – then they’re probably better off just doing it through their accounting software. Each accounting package has a clearing house linked into it – Xero, for instance, uses ClickSuper – so there’s no need to use Australian Government’s clearing house. But I’ve got other clients who aren’t up-to-date with their accounting software subscriptions or they’ve got old versions of MYOB and they haven’t got the SuperStream compliance function there, so they use the clearing house. But you would only use that now, in my mind, if you were not using any payroll accounting software. Mostly, I think people would or should be looking to use their accounting software because you haven’t got to do anything extra – it’s all there; press two buttons and it’s done.

EL: What else can you tell me about SuperStream that businesses or bookkeepers should be aware of that we haven’t already discussed?

MC: There is just one slight difficulty with self-managed super funds. Because you have to send everything electronically, self-managed super funds have to have some sort of messaging service. So let’s say I have a self-managed super fund and I’m an employee, then I would give my employer all my super fund details and I would have to get a messaging service so that they could put that into their records so a message would get sent to my self-managed super fund each time they make a contribution, so that’s a bit of an overhead for people with self-managed funds. But other than that, I support it. It’s a really great initiative.

We concur and recommend the main accounting software providers

SuperStream is a great initiative that helps streamline the superannuation process for business owners and bookkeepers, providing, of course, that you have a current subscription to an accounting package that has Australian operations, such as Xero, Reckon, MYOB, Quickbooks, and Saasu. Any overseas-only based accounting packages, like Zoho, won’t be compliant with SuperStream, just as they can’t cater for BAS either, so for businesses that need an accounting package with payroll capabilities, it’s best to shop local.

To ensure you’re SuperStream compliant, you need to set up the payroll component of your accounting software. Our MYOB and Xero training courses both cover payroll, which includes how to set up an employee and their super details. Visit our website for more information or enrol in a training course today.

Posted on July 15, 2015July 15, 2015 by Steve Slisar

Microsoft Excel Online Training Course Includes Beginners to Advanced with LIFETIME Access

9 Microsoft Excel Training Courses from Beginners to Advanced for One Price

Most students know about us because of our online MYOB Training Courses (5 courses for the price of 1) but we have a fantastic offer for Microsoft Excel Training Courses where we include every course from Excel Beginners, Excel Intermediate and Excel Advanced for one low price.

We create our own courses so we have the perfect combination of:

Training Videos (where we use the exercise included with the course to demonstrate how to use all the features of Microsoft Excel),
Training Workbooks (where we lay out the exercises in a step-by-step approach so you can practise every new skill at your own pace and in your own time – even without internet access),
Microsoft Excel Exercise files so you can open them and see exactly how each of the Excel features work in a real life scenario
Knowledge Review Tests to make sure you remember the most important aspects of each training course and can receive a certificate of completion (if you enrol for that option)
Microsoft Excel Training Course Certificate to demonstrate the completion of your course

Worksheets, Charts and Databases

Microsoft Excel 2007 Beginners training courses and certificate Our Microsoft Excel Training Courses will teach you about ALL of these uses for Microsoft Excel and provide you with dozens of files to learn, practise and even use in your own home or business.

[quote]Charts or Graphs are visual tools that can make mundane data interesting and useful to demonstrate patterns.[/quote]

Excel charts are based on data that is entered into a worksheet but can also be produced from more advanced tools like Pivot tables.

Charts are introduced in our Microsoft Excel Beginners Courses, along with worksheets and databases and it is covered in more detail in the Intermediate Microsoft Excel Training Courses AND in the Advanced Microsoft Excel Training Courses that include pivot tables.

[box type=”tick” size=”large” style=”rounded” border=”full”]We even include the example of how we used enrolment data from 2003-2004 to find out the best time of the day and day of the week to offer our class-based Microsoft Excel Training Courses when we had our Sydney Training Centre in Dee Why.[/box]

12 Months or Lifetime Course Access

One of the fantastic things about operating an online training business is we can give students as much access as they need even LIFETIME course access. We can do this because we use a LMS (Learning Management System) called Moodle that is used by well regarded universities around the world (as well as many more humble training organisations like ours.

When we operated a class-based training centre we offered students free repeats so they could refresh their Microsoft Excel skills if they didn’t use the software for a while after their course – now we can offer unlimited access to all courses for 12 months or LIFETIME access.

No Need to Choose Between Beginners Intermediate or Advanced Excel Courses – you get them all

A skills assessment is the normal procedure a HR manager puts their employees through to understand how much their staff know and where they need to improve. It’s also the assessment that students used to go through with us over the phone when they had to decide between the different skill levels of courses (Beginners, Intermediate or Advanced), but because we include EVERYTHING in our online course there is no need to perform a skills assessment.

You can bone up on any Excel basics, reinforce your existing skills and hone some new skills because all courses are included when you enrol into Microsoft Excel with EzyLearn!

Learn more about what is included in our Microsoft Excel Course Outline and see our Enrolment page for detailed pricing and course options.

[button link=”http://ezylearnonline.com.au/courses/microsoft-excel/”]Microsoft Excel Training Courses[/button] [button link=”http://ezylearnonline.com.au/enrol/” bg_color=”#038a20″]Enrolment Prices and Options[/button]