Tag: start a bookkeeping business

Starting a bookkeeping business is easier than ever and since Covid19 you have every reason to be able to work remotely from home.

QuickBooks Online, MYOB and Xero are all online, cloud accounting programs that enable you to do the work from anywhere (ie. home).

With training courses and Certification in MYOB and Xero you can then start promoting your bookkeeping services online to local businesses and employers.

Be careful NOT to promote BAS Services unless you are a Registered BAS Agent (learn about the Cert IV in Bookkeeping as a step to becoming one).

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

Bookkeeping Academy membership includes

  1. a digital profile,
  2. local awareness marketing, as well as
  3. listing in the National Bookkeeping Bookkeeper Talent Pool.

It is one of the cheapest ways to up skill, get specialist skills and digital marketing to get discovered for bookkeeping work.

Read on for blog posts and articles which relate to starting a bookkeeping business and working from home.

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Is a bookkeeping franchise the way to go?

Bookkeeping franchise or your own business

start a bookkeeping business or franchiseA good percentage of the students who complete our MYOB training courses want to start their own business. Getting into any new venture can be daunting if you have never been in business before and if that’s you a bookkeeping franchise might be the way to go. There are many aspects to Small Business Management and they include:

  • how that business works,
  • how to get and maintain customers,
  • how to provide great customer service
  • how great customer service will bring new customers
  • ensure you do a consistently great job, and
  • manage your finances well

The key aspects to consider when looking at a bookkeeping franchise are the costs. When we ran our training courses in Dee Why (Sydney) there were many business owners in surrounding shops and I recall speaking to one franchised business owner who said that he chose the wrong location and his overheads were killing him. This highlights the most important gripe that most people have about a franchise; “what am I paying for?”

Franchise regulations

Franchising is regulated now which means that bookkeeping franchise operators like all others, now need to disclose more information about existing franchisees. StartupSmart recently wrote about the harsh franchising reality check that a couple went through in South Australia and it’s an interesting read if you want to explore a bookkeeping franchise further. The article quotes Phil Blain, Co-author of The Franchisee’s Guide:

[quote]Thanks to recent legislative changes franchisees are now able to access critical details in the disclosure document like full details of existing franchisees and also people who have left the system.[/quote]

What are you paying for with a bookkeeping franchise?

If the franchise you are researching charges you a percentage of sales it’s good to know exactly how they are going to get you new customers and justify this payment. It’s also important to know that if you buy into a franchise you will have to sell your business to someone who also wants to buy into that franchise. Sometimes the franchiser can have a sale in who buys your business.

The other popular alternative is to go it alone and start your own bookkeeping business by yourself. If you are in this category you will have to spend more time at the beginning choosing your logo and other branding aspects of a small business. You also won’t have the leverage in advertising that a larger company can offer.

MYOB Training Courses

If you are looking for work as an MYOB Bookkeeper and have contemplated buying a bookkeeping franchise feel free to ask questions and share your story at our Facebook page. We have teamed up with Workface to help not only our MYOB Training Course students, but any bookkeepers find work or new customers if they operate their own bookkeeping business. If you are looking for work as an MYOB Bookkeeper feel free to register at their site.

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Start a Bookkeeping Business For Very Little Money

I recently wrote about our MYOB Training students and how many of them want to start a bookkeeping business so I thought we would go through some of the costs involved.

Remember that these are the startup costs and you may incur more marketing costs as your business grows. Starting a bookkeeping business, like most other businesses, takes a little extra time, effort and money initially. You need to spend money on advertising so you get to speak to as many prospective clients as possible.

The more prospects (or leads) you speak to, the more you understand what bookkeeping clients want and also what you are able to help them with – and what you can’t or don’t want to.

Continue reading Start a Bookkeeping Business For Very Little Money
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Business plan for your startup bookkeeping business

Free Business Plan Templates

Start a bookkeeping business plan

I recently wrote about the importance of writing a business plan if you want to start a bookkeeping business. I included a great business plan template that is made available by the Australian Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research. You can find free Microsoft Word templates from within Microsoft Word or by doing a simple Google search. Today I’ve included a link to some free templates from Microsoft.

This website provides a template for a “business plan for a startup business” but you might notice there is also a business plan template for existing businesses.

Who Starts a Home Based Bookkeeping Business?

Many of our students are mums who are returning to work after many years of looking after young children. They may have had a professional careers, but their circumstances change and they now want to operate a business that allows them to drop children off and collect them from day care and school. If you are one of those people you’ll be thrilled to hear that there are several work-at-home-mums (or virtual assistants) as part of our EzyLearn Online Training Team 🙂

Small Business Management Course

You may also be interested to know that our Small Business Management course includes training on topics that enable you to work from home via the Internet. Cloud based services like Google, WordPress, Dropbox and even the new MYOB software now make it possible and we show you how to do it.

Best of all, the Australian Government provide a website full of resources for those people who want to start a home-based business and a bookkeeping business is one of the best (according to us) because:

  1. It allows you to work your own hours
  2. If you are smart you can earn good money
  3. Every business needs to do bookkeeping
  4. Very few business owners WANT to do bookkeeping
When you enrol in an EzyLearn online MYOB Training Course you receive access to the courses for LIFE so they are always available to you as a resource, with case studies of various different business scenarios used in our training workbooks.

Bookkeeping Business Plan Built By a Registered BAS Agent

National Bookkeeping Business Plan Template

Do you want to start a bookkeeping business? Want to work to a plan that was built by an experienced bookkeeper? Does it all seem a bit daunting?

[quote]Jacci, our Registered BAS Agent has worked through the Small Business Management Course to create a Bookkeeping Business Plan for those who want to start their own bookkeeping business.[/quote]

This course not only gives you a well rounded education of the requirements to start and build a small business, but you will receive a business plan that you can tweak to suit your own circumstances as part of the course! Read more..

NEW! Start a Bookkeeping Business Without Buying Into a Franchise

Maggie Richardson’s Small Business Management Course is now online at EzyLearn BUT better than that we’ve combined it with a bookkeeping business plan (written by Jacci) as well as some legal templates, agreements and other training to help you get started with a bookkeeping business you can operate from your own home quickly.

When most people think of startups they think of technical wiz kids who create mobile phone apps, but our startup academy helps ordinary people start their own business as independent virtual assistants working from home in industries that are growing and with companies that can provide the support to help them get up to speed quickly and get great clients.

Want to learn more about starting a bookkeeping business?

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Starting a new MYOB bookkeeping business? Got a plan?

start a bookkeeping business as an MYOB bookkeeperWithout a plan, could you be planning to fail?

I AM REGULARLY SURPRISED at the number of our students who are learning how to use MYOB because they want to start their own bookkeeping business.

Many of them already have accounting or bookkeeping qualifications, but these are usually in larger accounting systems and so they learn to use MYOB to apply their accounting skills to help small business owners.

Start a MYOB Bookkeeping Business

I recently wrote about the Australian small business startup scene and have been working with like-minded, successful business owners to put together a series of bookkeeper business building webinars. Indeed, one of the critical parts of starting a new business is the business plan.

To some business owners this is the “art” part of starting a business, particularly if you are starting something from scratch! I’ve often heard people ask:

How can I possibly predict my future income?

How do I work out how much to spend on advertising?

What price should I charge?

What if I don’t get that many customers?

Business plan for your bookkeeping business

National Bookkeeping Business Plan Template
Get a bookkeeping business plan created by a registered BAS agent and get started fast

The best answer I can give is that a business plan is really just some solid information that you have collected from your research about the industry you want to work in.

It’s the best estimate that you can make at the time. But the best part of it is this:

  1. You can always modify your business plan
  2. Your next business plan will be more precise

[quote]The most commonly asked questions I hear about business plans is: Where do get one? Can I see yours?[/quote]

Where can I get a business plan?

The EzyLearn StartUp Course comes with a business plan template that will help you determine, not only the viability of your business, but also how to achieve your business aims. It will enable you to justify to your clients — and yourself — why you charge the fees you do. It is a dynamic blueprint that you can look back on and go over as you need to, in order to remind you of your goals, your business mission statement and keep you on the right path.

Oh, and please don’t underestimate the importance of a business plan. There is a famous quote from Benjamin Franklin:

[quote]“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!”[/quote]

The Australian Government’s www.business.gov.au website also has a free business plan template you can modify. Watch their video below:

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Want to take a peek at XERO, part owned by MYOB founder?

xero online accounting for remote bookkeepers dashboardI recently wrote about my discoveries of the preferred accounting software for local startup businesses in Sydney and wanted to share something that our resident BAS agent, certified bookkeeper and MYOB trainer has created for you. A training video about how to enter a payment for an invoice you create using Xero online accounting software.

If you are looking at starting your own bookkeeping business it is useful to learn more than just MYOB accounting software to widen your potential client base. It is also good to learn about an online accounting program that is growing very fast in user adoption, such as Xero. Why is Xero growing so fast? There are several reasons, but one simple reason is that you can access your accounting file from anywhere.

As you can see in the free Xero training video at the bottom of this blog, using online accounting software is just like using many other online services, you login and click, type, tab etc. One of the other great features that we have discovered from speaking with accountants and some IT professionals is that your accountant or your bookkeeper can use your accounting system at the same time as you do, without having to worry about sending a data file and wondering who has the most recent version of that data file.

One of the new great features of doing your MYOB training courses with EzyLearn is that you have 12 months free access to the Bookkeeping Academy, through which we will be releasing hundreds of bookkeeping training videos to help budding bookkeepers learn a wider range of software as well as develop new skills to help them find work or build their own business.

Feel free to let us know if you are a XERO user and share your experiences at our facebook page.

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What is a start up? Is your business in this category?

18% of MYOB course students want to start bookkeeping business
18% of MYOB course students want to start their own bookkeeping business

We use this blog to explore what is happening in the world of small business, including the technology they use and what they plan to use in the future. I’ve recently been speaking with a start up entrepreneur who has built a website that helps people like you and I find a place to park our car in our congested cities, by linking car space owners with car owners.

In the time we’ve known each other Daniel started with an idea and a passion to build his website and now has a live website for the world to use. Now that’s a start up business isn’t it? But what about your business?

A survey of students who have recently graduated from our Bookkeeping Academy after completing their MYOB training courses revealed that 18% of them want to start their own bookkeeping business. Is that a startup business? It is in my mind. It’s about having an idea and determination and the drive to start a brand new business and we are committed to helping startup bookkeepers build and grow their business.

The career and business building professionals at our Training Partners, Workface, write a blog about things that you can do to get that dream job or build that bookkeeping business you have thought about for years.

We are also in the production phase of some more great training videos about bookkeeping software that will come out shortly as part of our bookkeeping academy CPD program.