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I’ve been away for 5 days and everything is out of date

Access to updated training courses in MYOB & Xero and Microsoft Office and Excel courses

There are times when I wish we all had the choice to only upgrade our software if we wanted to!

Microsoft made us all do it by changing the “look and feel” of their Microsoft Office programs like Microsoft Excel and MYOB made us all doing it by putting the changes in PAYG tax tables in their update rather than leaving it in the core MYOB AccountRight software.

I had a few days off and decided NOT to take my laptop with me and gee that felt great!

When I came back my Inbox was full and my website was out of date! Some students messaged to say that the software was a bit different to the training material and the navigation of some of my apps had changed.

It’s normal these days to spend time just catching up on changes in your software, office procedures and prices!

EzyLearn Online Course Updates & Additions for latest versions of Xero, Excel & MYOB courses

When you enrol into a Xero and MYOB Bookkeeping Course with LIFETIME course access you get ongoing access and support for LIFE!

When you join one of our Career Academy membership programs you also get ongoing access and support.

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I wish you could see this

Archiving subscribers in Mailchimp Email Marketing Course - Marketing Academy

EzyLearn has been an online training company for Office Admin and Business Admin courses since the Internet appeared and geez I could tell you some stories about what I’ve seen.

Something frustrating is happening at the moment and it pits the developing countries again rich countries like Australia.

If you’re reading this because you received an email notification then you’re a subscriber to our blog – WELCOME!

We manage this list using MailChimp because it helps us to be compliant for AntiSPAM requirements but it doesn’t stop people entering all sorts of information into our “Lead Capture Pages”.

PS. Did you know that QuickBooks Online owner, Intuit, now owns MailChimp?

Check out these entries

Continue reading I wish you could see this
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My son asked what my favourite formula is

30_year_mortgage_calculator image from Wikipedia - Advanced Formulas in Microsoft Excel Online Courses - EzyLearn

All I could think about what the financial formulas in our Excel Courses!

He is learning about Pythagorean theory and all I could think about is how to reduce my mortgage!

I’ve spoke to hundreds of people about real estate, land and building new homes in the last few months and the cost of living is such a major issue in most of our lives.

Continue reading My son asked what my favourite formula is
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Eric Jones inquires about our courses every day, but he also has a message to share

Who is Eric Jones - online sales training by EzyLearn

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..

Continue reading Eric Jones inquires about our courses every day, but he also has a message to share
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Bunnings receipts (tax invoices) straight to your MYOB Business software

Smart receipts stored in MYOB from Bunnings - Learn MYOB with online courses from EzyLearn

Unless you’re a tradie with a Commercial “PowerPass” account with Bunnings you probably wouldn’t know about their fantastic system of keeping track of all your tax invoices.

It’s actually quite easy to get a PowerPass account and it’s very similar to using Flybuys. You go and buy all the things you need – like I did to erect the garden shed in our Job tracking and Projects case study for the MYOB and Xero Courses – and scan your card when you pay. You get a discount and your tax invoice is recorded in the Bunnings PowerPass system.

Bunnings-forge-partnership-with-Bunnings-for-Smart-Receipts-for-PowerPass-members-MYOB-AccountRight-and-Essentials-Online-Training-Courses-EzyLearn

You just log into the PowerPass admin area and EVERY SINGLE invoice is available to you there!

Xero made a big deal about their Hubdoc purchase and how it was included for all users when they increased their monthly subscriptions by $2 in 2019.

This was the start of what seems to be an ongoing increase in the monthly subscription price for Xero. Xero appears to come across like a money hungry landlord that has you hooked on their software and wants to see how much they can extract from you.

It’s a big job to change accounting programs and like many software publishers Xero need to increase their subscription rate or earn more money by selling addons that they own – or they can charge a per employee rate for payroll services!

If you are starting a new business or switching back to MYOB Business from Xero learn how to use MYOB Business online with us.

If you are looking for work you are best to learn both version of MYOB: AccountRight and MYOB Business. They are available in our MYOB & Xero Bookkeeping Course Bundles.

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MYOB Business vs Xero comes down to payroll

MYOB Business is better value than Xero for small businesses with 2-3 employees

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.

1-Learn-Beginner-Level-Payroll-skills-with-Trim-and-Styles-Hairdressing-salon-Payroll-training-course-and-Certificate-using-QuickBooks-Xero-and-MYOB

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

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Learn MYOB one skill at a time

MYOB is now better value for money than Xero and online

MYOB has struggled for a long time against Xero but now seems to be in a sweet spot for price vs features.

MYOB is used by more than 1,000,000 users in Australia so it is a very good skill to have if you are looking for bookkeeping jobs or business admin jobs.

When we started delivering MYOB courses in a classroom in Dee Why in the late 1990’s I realised early that learning bookkeeping skills is best to do one step at a time. When I say 1 step I mean in training sessions that last no more than about 2-3 hours.

That’s why we created Micro courses in MYOB.

Visit the MYOB Training Course information page and see each of these different skill levels. You’ll see that it is based on the case studies I’ve written recently about like Flockana Cafe and Trim and Styles Hairdressing Salon.

See the MYOB Courses separately

MYOB Business and AccountRight pricing plans - Learn MYOB online

MYOB costs less than Xero but now have similar features and that makes it an attractive choice of accounting software.

Xero on the other hand are constantly increasing their monthly subscriptions and that has caused a bit of an up cry for some users.

Bookkeeping Academy to find accounting jobs. Learn how to use MYOB and Xero with online training courses - Employer Recognised and Industry Accredited.

Bookkeeping Academy course packages are discounted courses which include MYOB & Xero Courses as well as combinations of Xero and Microsoft Excel.

Explore the Bookkeeping Academy courses and current specials.

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The $600 Shed that really cost $4,000

Garden shed being erected at Windale investment property - office admin courses - Advanced Xero Projects Course

House renovations and improvements are interesting projects which need good project management skills. Several years ago I had to erect a shed for a tenant and to show how naïve I was about building back then I just saw a nice sized shed advertised for $600 and thought that would do the trick – good size and nice and cheap.

Job Tracking, Projects in Xero, MYOB AccountRight & QuickBooks Online Training Courses to report profits for tradies and builders - garden shed

Luckily I had a friend who was much handier than me and some staff who could help with the project.

Job Tracking (in MYOB) and Projects in Xero is a system where you can allocate job numbers to transactions and then run reports to show the income and expenses that relate to that job number. Seems pretty simple right?

The problem with proper project and job tracking is that it involves many people making sure that they use that job number. Not just office admin staff but the trades people who are working on site need to keep track of every aspect of the job.

tradie pouring concrete for concrete slab for garden shed - project and job tracking in cloud accounting bookkeeping training courses (Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks)

In this case study you’ll see how the trades people going to Bunnings to buy screws and wood for the concrete slab need to keep track of their expenses, just like the tradies who picked up the 10 bags of cement from the depot.

A tricky transactions was when they needed the help of another staff member to come and help put the roof on the shed. This person had to come from another work site, spend 30 minutes helping and then driving back to the other site – it was 1.5 hours of time that needs to be tracked as an expense!

Learn Job Tracking in MYOB and Projects in Xero

Learn how to manage the income and expenses for job tracking using both MYOB and Xero in The $600 Shed Case Study with the Advanced Xero and MYOB Courses. Read other blog articles relating to Xero Projects.

Combine these skills with good credit management skills and you can ensure that your business doesn’t lose money when working on small or large projects for clients.

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Advanced Xero Training Course Workbook for Cashflow, Budgeting and ROI is now available for Immediate download

Advanced Certificate in Xero Cash-flow, Reporting, Budgets, ROI and Credit Management

This Advanced Xero training workbook BUNDLE follows on from the BAS course case study of Jerry’s Messy Startup and continues Jerry Lames small business endeavours for The Next Quarter.

You’ll learn how to import transaction data for 3 months of bank statement activity and produce advanced financial reports to learn about and interpret the financial results for his business.

Advanced Certificate in Xero Cash-flow, Reporting, Budgets, ROI and Credit Management

This Advanced Xero Course workbook goes deeper into understanding the financial results of bad business decisions on cashflow and credit management. Many small business owners use all of the money in their bank account because they see it is there and available to them when they can instead chose options that help their cashflow.

Jerry uses digital marketing to find clients for his various businesses and in particular uses HiPages to attract leads. HiPages is a project bidding site just like Airtasker, Bark and ServiceSeeking and this case study looks at whether you are better off getting your own website and using Google Ads to attract people to your business directly.

I’ve written about project bidding websites a few times in the past and am not a huge fan for various reasons. See some of the articles I’ve written about project bidding websites.

Don’t get me wrong, project bidding websites are handy and cheap compared to creating your own website and running Google Ads campaigns but the main winner is the project bidding websites themselves.

Bella interviewed some EzyLearn course graduates and one of the interviews with Jo-Anne, a Registered BAS Agent in Melbourne, revealed a great way to use Bark.com when you’re starting a bookkeeping business.

In this case study Jerry buys a small warehouse for his business so he doesn’t have to bring clients to his house and we explore alternative ways that this “capital purchase” could have occurred.

Buy your copy of the Advanced Xero Course in Cashflow, Budgets and Return on Investment Workbook

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The Xero BAS Course takes 5 hours

MYOB GST, reporting and BAS training courses

People often ask “How long does it take to complete a Business Activity Statement” but there are several different correct answers to that question.

If all your transactions are entered correctly in your accounting software and your bank account is reconciled the BAS Lodgement takes a matter of minutes.

The hard work is often completed by bookkeepers who do the daily data entry or the catchup bookkeeping to make sure all the data is captured. This task can take days or even weeks!

If you want to save money you can lodge your BAS yourself and use our BAS Course workbooks to learn how to do it.

Advanced Certificate in BAS and Financial Reporting Training Course - introduction to Payroll using Xero Workbook

Advanced Xero Training with the BAS Course Workbooks

Learn how to lodge your BAS, including simple payroll wage payments using our Xero BAS Course training workbooks and sample data.

We use Jerry’s Messy Startup case study and you will be his bookkeeper to make sure everything is accurate for lodgement.

It is assumed that you know how to perform daily data entry and bank reconciliations using Xero.

The tricky part of lodging Business Activity Statements is making sure you get the correct tax codes for GST transactions and payroll. If you get these codes wrong you could end up paying less tax to the ATO than you are supposed to or even underpay your staff.

BAS Courses for BAS Agents

The difference between a BAS Agent and a junior bookkeeper is the compliance requirements to make sure they get it right. A BAS Agent has a duty of care to ensure that the correct tax codes are used and the Cert IV in Bookkeeping and BAS Agent skillset courses (which are Nationally Accredited) take students through the legal framework around compliance.

When a Registered BAS Agent provides these services as a contract bookkeeper they are providing a BAS Service and that is administered by the Tax Practitioners Board.

A BAS Agent is trained but more importantly insured to ensure they get the information 100% correct – otherwise they can be sued. That means they have to have Professional Indemnity insurance to provide BAS Services to clients.

If you want to start your own bookkeeping business and provide BAS Services you need the Cert IV in Accounting and Bookkeeping Course.

You don’t need to complete a Cert IV in most circumstances

In most circumstances where you are completing the BAS as an employee you will be working under the supervision and direction of the business owner, business manager or the bookkeeper or accountant for that business.

Students who enrol into our BAS Courses simply want to know how to perform these tasks using accounting programs like QuickBooks, MYOB and Xero.

See the BAS Courses for Quickbooks, MYOB and Xero

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Forms, Forms and more Online Forms!

Creating Forms in the Microsoft Word Intermediate course for Microsoft Office admin training courses - EzyLearn

Do forms frustrate you? I’ve come to learn that forms are critical to organise and systemise a business. They’re an orderly way to collect relevant information for the different admin tasks of a business.

Without forms you’ll have a messy filing system or an Inbox that is so full of confusing information that you’ll spend half your time just looking for thing!

Different uses for online forms

checklist for job interview questions for bookkeepers

We use forms for tasks like:

  • Enrolling into an online course
  • Customer feedback
  • Online course enquiries
  • Surveys
  • Free training course samples
  • Requesting a certificate
  • Joining one of our Career Academy services

When you think about forms the concept is pretty simple really – you just use a program like Microsoft Word to create a form and then hand it to your clients to fill in, right? WRONG

Most forms are completed online these days so you need a specialist form builder that enables you to collect the information from anywhere (usually your website).

Online form builder benefits

Using online forms in your business means you don’t need to do the data entry, your customers do. This makes the information accurate and takes away unnecessary work for your staff – and that is called productivity. It also makes it easier to get that information into other software programs used in your business.

Xero became a massively successful bookkeeping program because of the hundreds of software programs that integrate with it. Learn about some of the popular Xero integrations. Integrations enable information to be shared between different software programs.

Using an Online Form Builder enables you to do the same with information that is collected using your form.

Microsoft Forms Training Course - Build online forms for surveys, orders, opinions etc - Learn with EzyLearn Career Academy

Microsoft Forms is an online form builder that enables you to

  • create forms for anything,
  • embed them into your website and then
  • enable support and admin staff to access this information from anywhere.

The Microsoft Forms course is included for free with the Microsoft Office Academy training course package.

Typical Online Form Scenario

A typical use for online forms is:

  1. Collect customer details
  2. Sending the mobile number to an SMS authentication service
  3. Once authenticated, sending those client details to an email marketing system like MailChimp
  4. Have an email sent to an email support ticketing system (like Zendesk)
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Microsoft is pushing McAfee down my throat

McAfee warning on new Microsoft Windows Laptop popping up all the time - Master Microsoft Office online courses

I bought a new laptop recently and one thing is frustrating my like crazy. It’s only a small thing and easy to just click away but how many times do I have to do it!?

The ads for McAfee protection is what I’m talking about and I thought that one click to say “No, thank you” would be enough but it keeps coming up and it looks scary.

Microsoft partner with thousands of companies to leverage their command of the operating system market but how bad can this get? It’s enough that they are pushing their new “same as Chrome” browser to compete with Google Chrome but here are some of the examples that just keep popping up.

Surely new Windows Laptop buyers shouldn’t have to deal with this every day or so!

McAfee warning on new Microsoft Windows Laptop popping up all the time - Master Microsoft Office online courses
First message which appeared on new Windows Laptop from Dell
Last change or Accept the risk
Time is still running out
Another 4 days? Seriously?
How can you be allowed to add the McAfee extension to Google Chrome!!

Maybe it’s Dell I should be complaining about?

The laptop I purchased is a Dell and you can see that McAfee is recommended by Dell in some of these messages.

What you should realise is that I have NEVER clicked anything to say I consent to these message or want to use McAfee but they keep appearing.

The worst part of this saga is that McAfee now appear to have installed itself as an extension in my Google Chrome browser!

If there is a Government body or some organisation that allows you to vote to stop this constant bombarding of advertising messages please let me know because this is just over the top.

We seems to simple go with the notion that we should just accept these ads and just swipe them away but doing so is like swatting flies away around a BBQ in the middle of summer.

Master Microsoft Office with online training courses

Microsoft-Office-Academy-Beginners-to-Advanced-Training-Courses-in-Word-Excel-PowerPoint-and-Outlook-EzyLearn-Online

Microsoft remains the market leader for office productivity software and their flagship software programs are mandatory skills in most office support and office administration jobs. These programs are:

  • Microsoft Excel,
  • Microsoft Word,
  • Microsoft PowerPoint and
  • Outlook.

Master them all in our Microsoft Office Academy Course Package. It includes beginners to advanced skills in all these programs and include

  • instructional videos,
  • exercise files to practice with,
  • training workbooks with practical exercises
  • business case studies and scenarios

Discover our Microsoft Office Courses

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Thriday slyps past Xero directly to NAB Bookkeeper trial

NAB Bookkeeper uses Thriday to Fight Xero for tax obligations and reconciling

The one thing I’ve found fascinating in accounting and bookkeeping is watching technology companies try to win clients. I’m not just talking about the special offers, features and pricing but how they use technology to make bookkeeping seamless – to replace some of the bookkeeping tasks!

The most recent event I’ve witnessed is NAB bookkeeper service that has a six month free trial and is $20 per month thereafter. 

NAB, CBA, ANZ and WBC Slyp under Xero to provide smart receipts before Hubdoc gets them - Learn MYOB, Xero, QuickBooks to find accounts jobs - EzyLearn

When you read the fine print it is revealed that Thriday is the technology behind NAB bookkeeper.

Continue reading Thriday slyps past Xero directly to NAB Bookkeeper trial
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Congratulations! What’s next?

EzyLearn Office Admin Course student testimonials

Is your name on this list?

I want to thank the following students for choosing EzyLearn and graduating from their Office Admin and Bookkeeping short courses.

At this point we don’t speak with some students again because they have the new skills they want and they use them to find work or do better in their jobs. That is a sad part of the training business for me.

Some students take advantage of our Career Academy services and stay around to get exposure to employers and other students.

Continue reading Congratulations! What’s next?