Every small business in Singapore has to do accounting. This is required by law and all annual reports have to be submitted to ACRA. But unfortunately this is not taught in school and accounting is difficult to understand by yourself. Even accounting degree holders have a hard time learning accounting.
For example, if you manage an aquaculture system company, learning accounting will help you with your pricing model. Most SaaS companies do a monthly fee. But you may want to charge for hardware too. Knowing your fixed cost and variable cost of your IoT products, like a water quality farming system, is very useful.
One thing that you can do is to set up your own account with either Xero or Quickbooks. Both have a huge online community and there are tons of free videos online. But many often find this to be insufficient – that’s where online accounting courses come in!
What’s an online accounting course?
It’s an online programme that shows people how to use software like Xero and the different tips and tricks found in each software. An online accounting course makes learning easy since you can learn from your home and office. As a small business owner, time management is difficult without the courses but online courses with a teacher can make things so much easier.
Say that you want to use Xero for your accounting. There isn’t a Xero accounting course in schools like NUS and NTU. Accounting degrees take two years which is much too long and you only want to know what you have to do for your business. A Xero accounting course is both informational and practical. After explaining a concept like depreciation for example, your Xero accounting teacher will then show you how to depreciate a machine immediately using Xero! You can then do it yourself and learn a simple accounting concept in minutes.
Why aren’t Youtube videos enough?
There are online communities like Xero’s online forum and free Youtube videos. But you’ll always run into problems when doing something new and you won’t have anyone to help you. Youtubers rarely respond and take weeks if they do. A Xero online course has teachers on the standby who can respond and help you immediately. It’s easy to jump on a Zoom call with someone and share your screen and explain your problem.
They can have a proper conversation with you and understand your business. They can then explain accounting concepts with examples from your business so that you can understand them easily! In addition, they can tell you what to ignore. For example, law firms often don’t have to deal with machinery and depreciation so they can tell you to ignore that part of the syllabus and focus on what you need to know!
