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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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Aldi specials all the way down to the toilet

Aldi Toilet Fixed Price Installation - Office Admin and Business Administration Courses - Xero & MYOB training web

One success story worth watching in Australian grocery retailing is Aldi. With their special buys, weekly catalogue and well known overseas brands (that no one knows here) they have an unbelievable advantage in price and differentiation.

One thing they did that really stood out to me a couple years ago was their $299 toilet offer, including installation. Who else includes installation as part of the sale of something that NEEDS installation!

Marketing-Academy-Joint-Venture-Training-Course-Creating-the-Perfect-Offer-Magazine-Advertisement-1-Aldi-Toilet-Suite-Installation-Package-small

Harvey Norman do and both operate a certain way to do it.

The tricky parts of this marketing strategy are:

  • Installation quality can vary from site to site
  • Installation issues can vary massively depending on how old the home is
  • Co-ordinating plumbers in every suburb is a huge job
  • Managing the ordering of trades for new purchases is a customer service hot spot

Aldi nailed it all and provided a good quality product and service. How do I know? I tried it out!

Business Course – How to create a Perfect Joint Venture

QuickBooks Online Training Courses - Acquired CreditKarma to help clients check on credit scores and get loans

Learn how they created a Joint Venture that enabled them to sell a product that is normally delivered and installed by a trades person.

Not only did they sell a good quality product at a good price but they also helped their Joint Venture partner earn some money too.

One of the biggest risks that trades people have is credit risk, particularly the credit risk of supplying a product AND a service and copping the risk on both items.

The Xero Beginners Course includes training on Credit Risk to help reduce it.

Harvey Norman and Aldi use “perfect scenario installations” to sell their products. Very few installations are perfect so most people will need extra services and that is how both parties benefit from the Joint Venture.

Digital Marketing, Customer Service and Sales Training

Creating the perfect marketing offer is a strategy to increase sales but the follow through and communications from your team is what makes it successful.

Selling Academy Sales Training Courses logo

The Targeted Ads, Customer Service and Training course gives you the knowledge and tools to create marketing strategies that provide results that you can measure.

It is built for micro businesses who sell products and services and one of the case studies is someone starting a bookkeeping business.

See the Special Offers, Customers and Sales Training Course

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How will Xero and MYOB Training get me a job?

Re-leased-property management software integration image at Xero partner integration website - smart digital marketing

The most challenging question we receive when students need to upskill in how to use Xero and MYOB relates to getting work. The question of how our online bookkeeping courses will help students find work can be answered in different ways but the only real answer is that it will give you knowledge and practical skills using Xero and MYOB to do bookkeeping work and this increases your confidence.

Some students ask us if there is a guaranteed job after completing our bookkeeping courses and I am still surprised when I hear that question.

Bookkeeping Interns

The closest thing a bookkeeping course graduate will get after completing any course is an internship with an accounting or bookkeeping business. Some training companies that I have seen offer internships but the bookkeeping courses cost close to $10,000 – in other words you are paying for the ability to work for free for an accounting company.

What a Xero and MYOB course offers you is leverage. The ability to pay a small amount of money to get an advantage that can result in you earning much more money.

When you complete a Xero and MYOB Course combination with EzyLearn you get discounted membership to the Bookkeeping Academy where we create a digital profile to help you get discovered online by potential employers.

Leverage is how people make money in real estate.

What is Leverage?

In property investment leverage is the ability to borrow a large sum of money to buy an asset that you don’t have enough money to buy by yourself. The cost of borrowing that money is the interest that is charged every week or month and this is called the holding cost.

The main benefit of having debt when buying an investment property is that the debt stays constant even if the value of your property increases.

Here’s a scenario:

  1. You use your own savings of $100,000 to buy a property worth $1M
  2. You borrow the difference which is $900,000
  3. Your equity in this transaction is 10% and you are borrowing 90% of the value of that asset
  4. In 5 years that property is worth $1.5M
  5. During those 5 years you have been paying the interest to hold onto the asset
  6. If you have been paying interest only then your debt is still $900,000
  7. You now have $600,000 equity in that property
  8. Your equity in that property is now 60% as a percentage
  9. If you sold that property for $1.5M you have turned $100,000 into $600,000

What I haven’t factored into this scenario is all the other costs associated with property investment, including:

  1. You need a good job or 2 incomes to get the loan in the first place
  2. Income rates can increase and property prices can go down
  3. Rental income from the property usually helps pay the mortgage
  4. There are transaction costs like stamp duty,
  5. You’ll need to pay council rates and utilities costs
  6. You will need to pay agent fees if you use a real estate agent to sell the property
  7. You’ll need to pay capital gains tax on the profit from your sale

If you’ve followed this blog or completed one of our Xero and MYOB courses you would have come across some case studies around property investment. There are more articles and training content coming that relates to property investment so make sure you subscribe.

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How To Get Discovered By Local Employers

Local Awareness Digital Marketing for Bookkeeping Academy members - find a local bookkeeper - EzyLearn

For small businesses bookkeeping isn’t a full time job. It’s often something done by the owner themselves or their partner in life and these people are not usually that good at it – PLUS they’re family and that throws up all sorts of issues and resentments.

Wives, girlfriends, partners and friends are often chosen as the small business bookkeeper because they are either cheap or trustworthy but that isn’t always a good reason to “use” them.

Many bookkeeping jobs are part time, casual or contract jobs because they only require a few hours to a day a week to do and that is why so many students start a bookkeeping business. A big problem with this approach is lack of skills in marketing and sales but the Bookkeeping Academy can help.

Continue reading How To Get Discovered By Local Employers
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Poof! – and Mentor Education is gone – Oops, page not found, then Inspire Education Type Message

Only 404 errors for Xero & MYOB Courses from the Career Academy at Mentor Education website before shut down - EzyLearn Online Bookkeeping Courses

If you’ve been following what is going on with Mentor Education and my article about what happens when a company goes through voluntary administration you’ll know that Mentor was spending a lot of money on advertising courses which they hadn’t normally promoted in the past – short courses in MYOB & Xero & Payroll.

Mentor Education was a big success and quite a large RTO (Registered Training Organisation) that offered many different Cert IV and higher qualifications on their “scope”. This included the Cert IV in Bookkeeping and Accounting.

As soon as they went into administration I noticed a couple big changes.

Continue reading Poof! – and Mentor Education is gone – Oops, page not found, then Inspire Education Type Message
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8 People Can Learn Xero COMPLETE For $88 ea

Corporate training and group discounts for Microsoft Office Excel and MYOB and Xero Training Courses

You read correctly! This is part of our Corporate Training pricing for Bookkeeping Certificate courses in MYOB and Xero. The price is low because it based on volume pricing. The same is true for Group Training prices for Microsoft Office Excel and Word.

You can get a further discount off the Corporate Training prices if you don’t need a Certificate at the end of your training. This option is great for business owners or small businesses who just want to get their team trained up but don’t need the evidence of a Certificate of Completion.

Continue reading 8 People Can Learn Xero COMPLETE For $88 ea
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Employment Hero offers $100 if you’ll demo their software

Get $100 Invitation email for attending a demo of Employment Hero - Workforce Management Training Courses

A popular and well funded HR and Payroll software company, which is backed by Seek (yes, the employment site) is offering 100 to “qualified” businesses who agree to participate in a demonstration of their software.

This is an example of what companies need to do today to get in front of their prospects in business to business selling. This company is trying quickly and this tactic reminds me of the kind of marketing tactics that PayPal used to massively grow their user base. It looks like the kind of strategy that Peter Thiel writes about in his book Zero to One.

Continue reading Employment Hero offers $100 if you’ll demo their software
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QuickBooks Payroll brand is changing to Employment Hero

Employment Hero owns KeyPay - workforce management training courses and employee benefits, loyalty and team building - EzyLearn

Intuit revealed the name change to their QuickBooks Payroll customers today as part of an acquisition of KeyPay owner by Employment Hero.

If all that didn’t make sense the only real change here is that KeyPay will be rebranded as Employment Hero. Employment Hero has been around since 2014 and purchased KeyPay owner, Webscale Pty Ltd in 2021.

The messy part of this from my perspective is that Intuit, who owns Tsheets is now depending on Employment Here for their payroll solution. It also means that we now have an Employment Hero training course 🙂

Continue reading QuickBooks Payroll brand is changing to Employment Hero
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How can Elon make money with Twitter?

Business Today Article about Elon Musk firing Twitter staff - will Twitter become a payment service like PayPal for Xero Integration - EzyLearn

I’ve been on Twitter since March 2009 but I don’t use it as much as I could have, how about you? Lately we’ve been Tweeting about recent enrolments and graduates who have received their certificates because it is a great digital marketing tool to get short messages published. If you go to our website you’ll notice that these Tweets appear in a rotating banner at the top of the page.

Twitter is going through a massive transformation under Elon Musk and whether you like it or not you’ll find that Elon will achieve his goals for the software company. The reason is simple – he is constantly “iterating” and testing and measuring to see what works and what doesn’t work.

What I think will become the most fascinating aspect of Twitter is when it starts becoming a peer to peer payment platform.

Continue reading How can Elon make money with Twitter?
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Micro Courses in Excel, Xero and MYOB or BUNDLES, COMPLETE Courses and COMBOS

Micro Courses and Stackable Micro Credential by EzyLearn

One of the disciplines I’ve tried to focus on when created online courses in bookkeeping and office admin is to keep the courses short and manageable. When we operated our Sydney training centres we tried to keep class times between 2.5-3 hours because most students can’t concentrate for a whole day.

For the MYOB & Xero Bookkeeping Courses this means that students can enrol into short courses, which are now commonly referred to as Micro Courses that cover very specific skills. We’ve recently changed how we show this information using our Learning Orbs.

Continue reading Micro Courses in Excel, Xero and MYOB or BUNDLES, COMPLETE Courses and COMBOS
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Straighten Up and Fly Right

Straigten up and fly right by Robbie Williams at the Royal Albert Hall - 2023 New Years Resolutions - Learn Bookkeeping skills with EzyLearn

I hope you enjoyed your New Years Eve and that you are still on track for your New Years resolution (if you like to make one). I had a bigger NYE experience than I anticipated and one of the most interesting comments that someone made to me was their New Years resolution – to Straighten Up and Fly Right.

It got me thinking about how complex our lives are these days and how many things we now have around us that distract us from what is important.

Continue reading Straighten Up and Fly Right
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Learn Xero AND the Integrations that make it a platform for work.

Xero Subscriber Growth - Learn Xero in our online training course and get an Internationally recogised Bookkeeping Certificate - EzyLearn

Xero have just announced their financial and performance results and the headline figures show strong subscriber growth all over the world, including UK and US where they are trying very hard to get market share like they have in Australia.

It’s now more evident than ever that if you get certified in Xero that you could work for a business in most modern countries around the world. Is that what they called Internationally Accredited?

Continue reading Learn Xero AND the Integrations that make it a platform for work.
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R U Spending Too Much Time Alone?

Do you spend more time alone or with your partner, co-workers or your children - Study Xero & MYOB Online Courses and spend time with your family - EzyLearn

Many new students learnt how to use online accounting software like Xero and MYOB Business Essentials during the Covid Period because they were working remotely from home. Most of those students thought we had just started working from home ourselves but we told them we’ve been online for over a decade.

The conversation topics that came up a lot was how can you work from home, do you get lonely, do you get distracted etc?

The reality is that our entire team work from home and once you are used to the discipline of working from home you can take lots of breaks when you need them and can focus better on customer service. I found some research that showed just how much time people are now spending alone.

Continue reading R U Spending Too Much Time Alone?
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Microsoft Excel Intermediate Training Course Case Study: Working out Commission Payable to Sales Reps

Learn how to use Intermediate Microsoft Excel Skills to produce reports with complex formulas. Online Training Courses

Sales is an interesting career path which includes everything from real estate agents, account managers to direct sales people who walk from door-to-door or make calls on the phone.

Being a Sales Representative is something that every bookkeeper does if they have their own bookkeeping business. You speak with prospects, find out what they want, see if you can do the work for them and then sign them up and start working. You’re helping to match a business with a customer.

I’m often fascinated at how many Bookkeepers HATE hearing the word “sales” associated with any part of their work and as a result they act like a ROBOT when they speak to potential clients, but I’m digressing and that’s a topic for another blog post!

The benefit of being in sales is that you can earn a commission which is often much larger than your base salary – but keeping track of commissions payable each month can be complicated and we teach you how to use Excel to make it EZY.

Continue reading Microsoft Excel Intermediate Training Course Case Study: Working out Commission Payable to Sales Reps
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What % of expenses can you claim to reduce your taxable income?

Working from home and claiming expenses using Xero & MYOB software training courses

We’ve received lots of training course inquiries from new business in this last couple of months and a question that came up recently was “do you have a course that explains how much I can claim”. The person was asking about how much of the cost of their car can they claim as an expense because they use it for their business.

The answer to this question reminded me of how “flexible” the taxation laws are in Australia. You can “claim” any amount that you want and unless you are audited by the ATO you could possibly get away with it!!

The correct way is to determine how much of your costs are actually associated with your business and use that percentage. The ATO goes on to explain how to do this in detail.

Continue reading What % of expenses can you claim to reduce your taxable income?
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Xero Asks Nicely for Feedback using NPS, But EzyLearn Interviewed Xero Course Students via Zoom

If you’re looking into a business, maybe you’re thinking of buying a product from them, subscribing to a service, or even just doing a bit of research, one of the places you’ll want to go is the ratings and reviews page.

I’ve written before about how reviews and testimonials are more valuable than number ratings when it comes to revealing important things about a business but for medium and larger companies, who aren’t able to have a personal relationship with their customers, they have to rely on these ratings. They’re also used an opportunity to measure what matters to their clients.

One of the ways they do this is through Net Promoter Scores (NPS), and you’ve probably contributed to one even if you don’t know it!

Continue reading Xero Asks Nicely for Feedback using NPS, But EzyLearn Interviewed Xero Course Students via Zoom