Read the user guide
Getting Started
Import Chart of Accounts
Accounts, plus more
How to Enter Purchases
How to Enter Sales
How to Generate Reports

Go ahead and try it here, by simply registering with your details in the box on the right-hand side of this page, and start using it instantly.

This is a truly free accounting system. You will never be required to pay anything. Unlike many other software which claims to be free but limits access or even stops it after a trial period.

This software is completely free forever, designed by Free Accounting Pty Ltd

Modules:

* Debtors
* Creditors
* Journals
* Reports

Features:
* Multi-user
* Multi-organization
* Online
* PDF documents
* Easy reports

This software is easy to use but if all else fails read the manual. If that still does not work, email support@freeaccounting.com.au or call 1300 113 733.

Keeps your banking, sales and contact information

Read more ….

How can your small business compete against Big Business? Quite simple in some respects – by offering customer service.

The big Australian Banks seem to have spent $millions in marketing research to discover that their customers want personal service from REAL people!

Have you noticed how the banks are playing down the “large corporation” feeling, and guess what? They are bringing a “new” concept back into the branches – a Bank Manager !!!

People are fed up of call centres, and are turning away from companies using offshore call centres.

As a small business owner, or you supporting other small businesses, or do you prefer to buy the same product or service with a large company “to save a dollar”?

By supporting other small businesses in your community, you keep the cash circulating in the community, and you are more likely to receive a personalised level of service

As bookkeepers, our whole business is built on customer service! Clients want the assurance that they will be dealing with the same bookkeeper every time. They understand that their bookkeeper is a major asset to their small business

Cash flow is the blood of any small business, and the control of cashflow is an important part of bookkeeping. By hiring an inexperienced bookkeeper to save the business money can often lead to failure down the track

Bookkeepers that do not have sufficient experience don’t always understand the importance of financial management in a small business, and the necessity to keep accurate and up to date accounting records. A small mistake through lack of bookkeeping experience can be extremely costly to a small business.

We’ve all heard stories about taking the car to a “cheap” mechanic, or using “fly-by-night” tradespeople. So why would you contemplate handing the lifeblood of your business over to an inexperienced bookkeeper?

Professional bookkeepers are working everyday on bookwork for a variety of small business owners. They see patterns, they notice trends, they have the benefit of experience behind them that you can take advantage of in your small business.

Business owners that have hired their spouse, friend or relative to help them out may not realise the true state of their bookkeeping until it’s too late. The accountant may not get to see the books until the end of the financial year. Indeed, many accountants are too busy to look in depth at the bookkeeping.

As professional freelance bookkeepers, we’ve come in behind “cheap” bookkeepers and have seen the devastation that’s been left behind.

Having a handle on your financial position will affect the decision making in your business. How else do you know if you can afford to replace or upgrade equipment? Or whether you can afford to employ more staff, or take on a new client?

Business owners that look at bookkeeping fees as an expense rather than an investment do not understand the full benefits of engaging professional bookkeepers. Without having a full understanding of their finances, these are the types of businesses that tend to fail within a few years, They throw away all their hard work to save a few dollars each week or month.

The application is running. You can see it in the taskbar, but you can’t see it on the screen, because it still thinks it’s running on the secondary monitor. You try and use right-click, Move, but that doesn’t do anything, and the window doesn’t move anywhere. You end up rebooting and cursing Microsoft.

There’s a simple trick to get around this. First make sure you’ve alt-tabbed to the window, or clicked on it once to bring it into focus. Then right-click on the taskbar and choose Move

At this point, you should notice that your cursor changes to the “Move” cursor, but you still can’t move anything.

Just hit any one of the arrow keys (Left, Right, Down, Up), move your mouse, and the window should magically “pop” back onto the screen.

Note: For keyboard savvy people, you can just alt-tab to the window, use Alt+Space, then M, then Arrow key, and then move your mouse.

This should work on any version of Windows. It’s really amazing how many people are not aware of this little trick.

Update: Note that you can also right-click on the taskbar and choose to Cascade your open windows, which will often help bring the windows back onto the screen.

Source: /www.howtogeek.com

The obvious way to achieve this is by hiring a cheap bookkeeper. Right?

Wrong. We’ve talked about the benefits of engaging a cheap bookkeeper and does a a cheap bookkeeping service save you money?

Unfortunately some business owners continue to fail to heed the warnings, believing that they can save a few dollars on their bookkeeping fees

We’ve just been contacted by a Gold Coast business after finding their current bookkeeper has managed to get their accounts into such a mess that she got stressed out and would not answer emails or telephone calls

Suddenly the “cheap” bookkeeper has just cost the client extra fees.

She had copied the client’s data file and then decided to upgrade it from MYOB 15 to MYOB 18.5 without first consulting the client. The consequence of this decision was that the client is now faced with an unnecessary expense of having to purchase the MYOB v18.5 upgrade.

Suddenly the “cheap” bookkeeper has just cost the client extra fees. If that client had come to us originally we would have happily continued to work on their file using our MYOB v 15 software, even though we have other clients using MYOB v18.5 software.

Not all cheap bookkeepers are lousy bookkeepers – there are some who do not charge accordingly for their services. However, you need to consider the true value of your business and ponder about the economics of saving a few dollars on bookkeeping fees.

If you have a cheap bookkeeper who is very good, then you need to considering increasing their hourly rates, and see what a difference it will make to your business.

Like many business operators, your time is very valuable, and finding opportunities to do your bookkeeping always seem to be overtaken by other tasks needed to run your business.

Benefits

The first benefit of having a professional bookkeeper come in and do the bookwork is that we won’t be distracted by other incidents that occur during the day in your business

Secondly, we do bookkeeping everyday, are skilled, well practiced, experienced and more than likely faster than you would be

Thirdly, we can most likely streamline the bookkeeping process for you, take away the stress and pressures of doing the bookwork, and free up your time to focus on what you do best in your business, and more importantly give you back some time that you can be spending with your family

Is Bookkeeping an expense or an investment for your business?

You ask about an hourly rate. We believe the question that you really want answered is “How much will it cost me to outsource my bookkeeping?” – that depends if you regard your bookwork, and having a handle on the financial side of your business, as an expense or an investment.

Our clients regard our bookkeeping service as an investment into their business for reasons mentioned above. You could be looking at anywhere from $150 per week, $300 per month or quarter, depending on the VOLUME of paperwork moving across your desk – an hourly rate really doesn’t answer your question.

We say that because we’ve come in behind bookkeepers at a third of the rate, taken four times as long, made heaps of errors, and ended up costing the client heaps – so cheapest isn’t necessarily the best

The easiest way we could give you a quote is to review your existing MYOB /Quickbooks file, and make an estimate based on your last year’s trading (not turnover, but number of transactions recorded)

We can have a chat, so that we can get a better idea of the amount of work involved in your bookkeeping, and therefore give you more of an idea of a budget for your bookkeeping

How would you know that your bookkeeper is doing the right thing?

The book keeper had been running a ponzi scheme – not quite the same scale as Madoff, but for longer.

Apparently the bookeeper had been promising clients that the money they invested with him would earn huge returns through a series of commercial loans.

He’s been doing this for the last thirty years! To run a scheme like that you’d imagine he’d have to be pretty good at bookkeeping and keep all his bookwork upto date

Simply, he persuaded new investors to get on board, and used those funds to pay out existing investors, or for his own personal use

Just because you may not have tax / BAS obligations until the end of the year, is no excuse for not having a bookkeeping system in place

That doesn’t mean you have to rush out and buy an accounting software program – it depends on the nature of your business as to what would suit you best in the first year of trading

sole traders forget that they are tax collectors working for the ATO

We find many sole traders forget that they are tax collectors working for the ATO [Assuming you are registered for GST]

Your accountant may remind you that approx 10% of your income is not, and never, was yours (ok- you may have some deductions to reduce that GST component)

Do You Know How Much Profit You’ll Make?
Our experience shows that most small businesses have no idea what their profit is until their books are done at the end of the year

Your accountant may suggest you set aside 20% of your income as you go – and get a bookkeeper to at least set up your bookkeeping system – and have it reviewed each quarter

If you need a bookkeeper, we can point you in that direction

We’re amazed how some small businesses survive without doing any bookkeeping, when they first bring us their paperwork

as long as they’ve got enough money in their hand at the end of the week

They think that as long as they’ve got enough money in their hand at the end of the week / month to buy groceries, pay the bills, home loan, etc – that they must be doing OK

Those people are generally the ones spending their GST / Tax money because they think that if it’s in their bank account – then it must be their money

When a sole trader is just starting, how do they know what their profit will be?
Since there may be start-up costs and initial outlay, it can be harder to estimate the profit in the first year

Speak to your accountant or tax agent because the comments made here should NOT be taken as specific taxation, financial, legal or investment advice.