Are you enrolling into an MYOB or Xero Bookkeeping Course or Microsoft Office Course and are currently employed? You’ll get access to some FREE Student Inclusions when you enrol into a Complete Course or Combination.
EzyLearn’s FREE Student Inclusions give students more value in their careers and the work they do and there is a different offer for you depending on your situation.
Continue reading FREE Training Courses for Career Builders
EzyLearn had added Single Touch Payroll (STP) Phase 2 Training to our Xero Payroll Administration Training Course.
As Xero continues to be one of the leading accounting program for Aussie small businesses, we’ve been updating our courses to stay up to date with changes. We’ve also recently added Xero My Payroll content to this course.
The Australian government launched STP in 2016, where employers with over 9 employees must report their payroll information for each pay run to the ATO. When the ATO introduced STP Phase 2 earlier this year, some of the reporting obligations changed.
Here’s what you need to know about STP Phase 2 reporting in Xero, and how EzyLearn’s got you covered with the training.
Continue reading STP Phase 2 Training Added to Xero Payroll Course – Learn ALL Payroll Courses Across Multiple Software in Advanced Certificate in Payroll Administration
Do you provide your employees with gym memberships or concert tickets? Or maybe you work for a company that provides you with a vehicle or accommodation? There are lots of perks that business can provide to their employees outside of salaries and wages – and these are called fringe benefits and they may apply to you if you worked at home due to COVID-19.
FBT is not as simple as handing out freebies. Employers have to pay tax on these benefits they provide, and the amount can depend on the type of fringe benefit they’re providing.
We’ve written before about how fringe benefits tax is important to consider when you engage a new worker, but let’s look more in-depth into what fringe benefits are all about, and how to ensure you comply with your liabilities:
Continue reading Are You Complying With Your Fringe Benefits Tax Liability of up to 47% (especially COVID-19 related ones)?
Invoices can be a hassle for both businesses and their clients. There’s nothing fun about chasing up that client about their late payment, nor is it an efficient use of time to trawl through emails and inboxes trying to find that invoice from however long ago.
The Commonwealth Government is pushing ahead with an alternative, that looks like it will make things a bit easier for everyone.
eInvoicing is on the rise! And since software like Xero has jumped in on the change, it’s important for small businesses to know what eInvoicing is all about:
Continue reading Here’s What Businesses Need to Know About eInvoicing in Xero
There’s lots to do when businesses engage a new worker. As an employer, you’ll be busy going through the onboarding process and showing your new employee the ropes, but there are other important things to do when you add a new member to your team.
Keeping accurate records complete with the right information is essential for businesses to maintain, and that means updating and adding data when engaging a new worker. Here are some things to keep in mind as you go through this process:
Continue reading Engaging a New Worker? Here Are The Things You Need To Do, particularly if you’re classified by the ATO as a withholder:
For small businesses, getting the administrative aspects of payroll and super in order can be stressful and confusing. Things need to be paid by certain dates at certain amounts, and failure to comply can have some serious consequences, PARTICULARY when it comes to employees pay and entitlements.
So what does it mean for a small business or employer if they don’t pay super on time? Here’s what you need to know about the super guarantee charge, and how you can avoid it.
Continue reading ATO’s SUPER GUARANTEE CHARGE Could Slug Employers Extra for Late Super Payments (SG vs SGC)?
In 2016 the Australian government launched Single Touch Payroll (STP) as part of the Budget Savings (Omnibus) Act 2016. It’s a mandatory obligation for employers with over 9 employees to report their payroll information for each pay run to the ATO.
The idea is to reduce the burden on employers having to report information to multiple government agencies. With STP, employers can report all this information to the ATO through their approved accounting software (like QuickBooks Online, Xero, and MYOB).
But now the rules have changes… AND our Payroll Courses have already been updated!
Continue reading ATO Announces Changes to Single Touch Payroll & EzyLearn has New STP Phase 2 Training Materials
ALL BUSINESSES CAN TAP into useful cash flow forecasting apps, whether they use Xero, Quickbooks or MYOB. There are also a host of basic expense and budgeting apps that sole traders and contractors can use for similar purposes.
The difference between the two boils down to price and functions: The more functions you need, the higher the price tag. Businesses that require high-level reporting and forecasting tools, such as a “scenarios” function that lets you determine the impact different business decisions would have on your cash flow, before you actually make them, would need to stump up, at a minimum, between $50 and $80 a month for this functionality.
Free expense and budgeting apps would suit most contractors and sole traders who don’t require complex forecasting and reporting tools, but who do need to see when money is coming in and when it’s going out, and whether there are deficiencies.
Looking into the best expense and budgeting apps for small business, we came across the Australian Tax Office’s app, simply called ATO. It works on Windows phones, as well as iOs and Android devices, and it’s updated regularly by the ATO, so you know this isn’t just a passing fling.
Our post on cash flow reporting and forecasting for contractors and sole traders went through the app’s functions, including what we thought were some standout features:
If these features sound familiar, that’s because they’re all the features you’ll find in a basic cloud accounting program, with the notable exception of invoicing. Electronic invoicing is not something the ATO is particularly concerned with because it’s not a requirement. Invoicing, of course, is a requirement, but how you do it — in person, by snail mail, email, etc — isn’t.
If the ATO app introduced a simple way to invoice customers, we’d say it was definitely muscling in on QuickBooks and Xero’s territory, since both programs appeal to the small business owner, QuickBooks in particular.
In absence of that, the ATO app is a great tool for contractors and small business owners to use to keep track of their expenses and deductions, and especially to calculate their tax rates (so as to properly keep money aside for tax, rather than being hit with a tax bill you have to pay off). For contractors with a very simply business model, it’s even useful for lodging your tax return.
But otherwise, cloud accounting applications are still the best and easiest way for businesses to run an efficient, compliant business. At the end of the day, for many small business owners, they’re not drawn to Xero or QuickBooks because they want to stay compliant, it’s because they want to be able to easily invoice customers and track their income — compliance is just an added bonus.
Our online Xero training courses meet all skills levels for ONE LOW COST. We will show you how to record deductions, invoice customers, run financial reports, and lodge activity statements and tax returns. Visit our website for more information about our range of online accounting, media and general business courses.
Need to brush up on Excel? You receive access to ALL OF OUR COURSES, including ALL SKILLS LEVELS for ONE LOW PRICE. You can even start your Excel journey with our FREE Beginners’ Excel Course Workbook. Read more about our beginners’, intermediate and advanced Excel training courses on our website, or enrol to start learning by 5pm tomorrow! And all of our Excel courses can be counted towards CPD points.
Are you still receiving your Business Activity Statements via mail? We receive our notification that the BAS is ready at the ATO’s Business Portal but the Business Portal is much more useful than just a way to deliver your BAS.
There are some great features of online tax lodgement:
The most complicated part of dealing direct with the ATO is the setting up of a digital certificate, but once that is sorted out you have all the convenience that you have come to expect from your internet banking and any other online service. All the information is there, you don’t have to rely on the mail to send or receive your BAS and you know exactly where you stand. If you have missed a lodgement you’ll also find that information at the portal.
The website address for the portal is https://bp.ato.gov.au/ so check it out and get through your compliance issues faster.
Our MYOB Reporting, GST and BAS course (which includes bank reconciliation) shows you how to get to the BASlink to produce a BAS using the data that you have already entered into MYOB. If you have entered everything correctly you will just need to complete your contact name and number and how long it took to complete. Then you can print that form out and keep it in your records. The information you see in the totals can then simply be entered in the Business Portal and submitted to lodge your BAS and get your compliance tasks out of the way so you can focus on running your business.
We recently announced our updated MYOB Payroll Course videos and training workbook and were asked to explain PAYG tax tables in a bit more detail. We’ll explain tax tables using the data from the ATO website relating to tax tables for the 2013 financial year.
We recently witness a federal budget and there are usually some changes in each budget that relate to tax tables or tax thresholds. These tax tables simply define how much tax you pay for each threshold and the simplest way to describe it is to define the first category. This category is called the tax-free threshold and it is the level at which you don’t pay any tax. The annual pay for this level will be $18,200 from 1st July 2012 (the beginning of the next financial year). Any money you earn up to this level you don’t pay any income tax on.
Any money you earn over this tax-free threshold amount but less than $37,000 will be taxed at 19c per dollar.
The most important thing to note is that just because you earn $50,000 doesn’t mean you will be taxed at 32.5c in every dollar you earn. You’ll be charged
