HR Training and Finance Courses for Your MSP
HR training and finance courses for the people who run your MSP's back office: hiring, HR law, Excel and QuickBooks. Every Empath Learn seat includes them, with Empath, Microsoft Learn and Curated Collection courses.
750+
Back-Office Courses and Lessons
200+
HR Law Courses and Lessons
100+
AI Roleplays on HR Topics
10+
Empath Courses Built for MSPs
Start Here: Three First Courses for an MSP Operations Generalist
An operations generalist may touch hiring, purchasing and finance; assign these in the order those duties enter the job.
- Hiring For Great Teams Empath, 43 min Understand the people process.
- The Perfect Purchase Order Empath, 12 min Standardize a recurring purchase.
- Beyond Bookkeeping: Financial Maturity for MSPs Empath, 55 min Connect records to decisions.
For dedicated HR or finance staff, branch into the matching subjects in the business skills catalog.
“I appreciate you putting this together for those of us who work in IT but aren't from an IT background.”
What Training Does HR Need?
At an MSP, HR hires the techs, keeps the company inside employment law and handles the hard conversations. Finance and operations staff run the books and the buying.
Your back office needs:
- HR and employment law: FMLA, the ADA and Title VII
- Hiring and interviewing, with AI roleplays for practice
- Harassment prevention, with state editions for supervisors
- Accounting basics, a payroll primer and QuickBooks Online
- Excel and Power BI for forecasting and reports
- Procurement: purchase orders and vendor risk
- Learning and development: quizzes, tests and short courses
Assign courses with a due date and track progress on the Learning Progress dashboard. Empath adds new courses every week.
HR, Payroll and Accounting Courses by Skill
A sample from the full course list. All are included in every Empath Learn seat.
| Skill | Courses and Lessons | Example |
|---|---|---|
| HR and employment law | 200+ | HR Law |
| Hiring, with AI roleplays | 11 with roleplays | Virtual Interviewing for Managers |
| Workplace conduct | 250+ | How to Terminate Someone with Poise |
| Harassment prevention | 950+ | A Harassment-Free Workplace for Supervisors (California) |
| Accounting and finance | 80+ | Finance for Everyone Toolkit |
| Payroll basics | 2 lessons | Payroll Basics: Who, What, When, and How |
| QuickBooks Online | 150+ Intuit videos | Intuit QuickBooks Online Tutorial |
| Excel | 350+ | Analyzing and forecasting data in Excel 365 (2024) |
| Procurement and business essentials | 100+ | The Perfect Purchase Order |
| Learning and development | 6 by Empath | So, You're a Learning Manager? |
A course can count in more than one row.
Operations, HR and Finance Courses by Catalog
Every Empath Learn seat has all three catalogs. Each tab shows a sample, HR and hiring first.
Empath Courses for Your Back Office
Hiring, finance and procurement training written for MSPs, plus courses for your learning manager and a QuickBooks Online series from Intuit.
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Hiring For Great Teams, Empath. Why profitability depends on hiring, and a plan for a scalable team. 43 minutes.
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Beyond Bookkeeping: Financial Maturity for MSPs, Empath. Using financial data to measure profitability, manage cash flow and track KPIs. 55 minutes.
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Finance Mastery: P&L Basics, Empath. Revenue, cost of goods sold and operating expenses on an MSP's P&L. 116 minutes.
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Intuit QuickBooks Online Tutorial, Empath. More than 150 short videos from Intuit on invoices, bills, bank transactions and payroll. 755 minutes.
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Purchasing Without Panic: A Step-by-Step Procurement System for MSPs, Empath. Moving from reactive buying to a planned rhythm inside your PSA. 16 minutes.
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The Perfect Purchase Order, Empath. Why purchase orders break down, and how to structure their statuses. 12 minutes.
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Risky Business: Vendor Management for MSPs, Empath. Assessing and managing vendor risk from onboarding to termination. 80 minutes.
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So, You're a Learning Manager?, Empath. Turning training into business results by focusing on what people actually do. 40 minutes.
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Writing Quizzes That Work, Empath. Low-stakes knowledge checks that help people remember the right thing. 44 minutes.
Microsoft Learn for Excel, Power BI and Business Central
Microsoft's own training in the same Empath Learn seat: overviews of four current Excel and Power BI certifications, and a Business Central learning path. Microsoft awards the certifications.
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Microsoft Office Specialist: Excel for Accounting Associate, Microsoft. Excel for financial data, calculations and reports, for bookkeepers and accounting staff.
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Microsoft Office Specialist: Excel for Business Finance Associate, Microsoft. Managing and forecasting financial data in Excel for financial analysis.
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Microsoft Office Specialist: Excel Expert (Microsoft 365 Apps), Microsoft. Advanced Excel, including custom business templates and amortization tables.
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Microsoft Certified: Power BI Data Analyst Associate, Microsoft. Preparing, modeling and visualizing data in Power BI for business reports.
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Configure financials in Business Central, Microsoft. A learning path on the general ledger, chart of accounts and financial reports in Dynamics 365 Business Central. 666 minutes.
Curated Collection Courses on HR, Finance and Excel
HR, finance and Excel courses from BizLibrary Productions, Skillsoft and others, some tagged for SHRM, HRCI or NASBA CPE credit. Several include AI roleplays with instant, personal feedback (what went well and what to change).
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HR Law, BizLibrary Productions. Eleven lessons on federal HR law, including FMLA, the ADA and Title VII. 159 minutes.
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The Interviewing Process, BizLibrary Productions. Seven parts, from job requirements and competencies to interview questions. 46 minutes.
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Virtual Interviewing for Managers, BizLibrary Productions. Running a remote interview process, with an AI roleplay to practice on. 35 minutes.
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Boosting Employee Retention, BizLibrary Productions. The costs and causes of turnover, and how to keep high performers. 53 minutes.
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Leveraging AI in Human Resources, Skillsoft. How generative AI is changing HR work, and the ethical risks to manage. 23 minutes.
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How to Terminate Someone with Poise, Prositions. Planning and running a termination meeting with dignity and clarity. 15 minutes.
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A Harassment-Free Workplace for Supervisors (California), BizLibrary Productions. Prevention, reporting and investigation for supervisors, with an AI roleplay. Other states have their own editions. 125 minutes.
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Finance for Everyone Toolkit, BizLibrary Productions. An accounting basics course for non-finance staff, with budgeting and common finance terms. 159 minutes.
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Payroll Basics: Who, What, When, and How, BizLibrary Productions. A short lesson on overtime exemptions, pay frequency and withholding. 8 minutes.
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Mastering QuickBooks Online, Bigger Brains. Customers, vendors, invoices, bills and online payments in QuickBooks Online. 206 minutes.
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Analyzing and forecasting data in Excel 365 (2024), Skillsoft. What-if analysis, Goal Seek and forecasting tools in Excel 365. 59 minutes.
The full course list has more than 1,500 compliance and HR courses, 2,500+ business skills courses and over 1,500 software and productivity courses. See every title in the course list.
Can I Build My Own Pathway for Operations, HR and Finance?
Yes. A pathway is a set of courses you assign together, from any catalog in your seat, such as Hiring For Great Teams beside HR Law.
Empath's ready-made templates are for T1 techs and account managers, so this one you build. Add your own SOPs, such as purchase approvals, as your own courses in Empath. See how lessons, courses and pathways fit together.
New-Hire Basics Everyone at Your MSP Takes
Whatever the role, new hires can start with these four.
- New MSP Employee 101: The Essentials for Everyone, Empath. How the MSP business model works, and the terms MSP staff use. 87 minutes.
- Time Tracking: What Every MSP Employee Needs to Know, Empath. Why accurate time entries matter for profit and client satisfaction. 31 minutes.
- Introduction to Security Awareness, Empath. Why people are the weak link in security, and how MSPs run security awareness training. 58 minutes.
- AI Fluency, Empath. How to work with AI in everyday tasks, with videos from Anthropic. 69 minutes.
For more onboarding courses, see new-hire training for MSPs.
Which Courses Fit the Rest of Your Team?
Your back office works with your owners and leadership team on the numbers and with your service managers on hiring. A new hire in any role can start with the onboarding courses for MSP staff.
For the subjects behind the job, browse HR compliance training, business skills courses and Excel and software training, or see how AI roleplays work in the Curated Collection. If you run training, read about the learning manager role. Or go back to the Empath course catalog.
Questions About HR, Finance and Operations Training
Short answers for MSP owners and the back-office staff they train.
What training does HR need?
Empath Learn helps MSP HR staff train for hiring and interviewing, employment law such as FMLA and the ADA, harassment prevention and terminations. Start with Empath's Hiring For Great Teams, then HR Law and The Interviewing Process from the Curated Collection. Staff can practice interviews in an AI roleplay. The employer still chooses the courses that match its responsibilities.
What are the best HR training programs?
The best HR training programs cover employment law, hiring and the people side of the job, and show who finished what. Empath Learn has more than 200 HR and employment law courses and lessons, Empath's own hiring course for MSPs and courses tagged for SHRM and HRCI credit.
Do courses carry SHRM or HRCI credit?
Some Curated Collection courses in Empath are tagged by their publisher for SHRM and HRCI recertification credit, such as HR Law, The Interviewing Process and Boosting Employee Retention. A few Skillsoft courses are tagged for NASBA CPE. The credit details are the publisher's, so confirm them before you claim the credit.
What does a learning manager do?
A learning manager turns training into business results: choosing and assigning courses, setting due dates and checking who has finished. Empath's course So, You're a Learning Manager? teaches the role, and five more Empath learning and development training courses cover quizzes, tests and building short courses.
Is HR training included in Empath Learn?
Yes, HR training is included in every Empath Learn seat, on every plan, and so are the finance and Excel courses on this page. The seat covers Empath's own courses, Microsoft Learn and the Curated Collection with its AI roleplays, plus live streams and the tools to build your own courses. For plan costs, see empathmsp.com/pricing.
How do I assign a pathway to my back-office team?
In Empath, you assign a pathway with a due date, and assigning it assigns every course in it. The Learning Progress dashboard then shows who has finished, filtered by group, course, pathway or live stream. It needs at least the Manager role.