Accounting Stuff – BerthaBlog

Tax Season Almost Over!

Accounting Stuff, General Comments Off

Apr 132014

And I’m just about caught up with the work backlog, as well. Maybe next week I’ll be doing something other than working, eating, and sleeping.

Been searching the job boards for jobs using some kind of ERP, like Dynamics GP or SAS or NetSuite. Unfortunately the only jobs that seem to be advertised are for high-level consultants who are experts with the software and can set it up for a company and train people to use it.

Considering taking a class or something. Maybe if I can at least put “Took Intro to Dynamics GP” it’ll help get my foot in a door somewhere. ERP software looks a lot more interesting than Quickbooks, and it’s the kind of thing used by larger companies with more room for me to move up.

In the workplace, I suspect Queenie won’t be with us much longer. The beginning of the year, she took a course in tax preparation. When she sent around an e-mail to let us know she had completed the course (for which most of us sincerely congratulated her), The Boss sent a rather curt reply that it was great, and she was free to use her new knowledge on her own time, but she was not to offer or provide tax services for our company.

Nothing else was said about her tax prep skills. But I’m connected with her on LinkedIn, and a few weeks ago got a notice to congratulate her on her new job at H&R Block. (I did not mention this to anyone at work.) And she took all of last week off—the last full week before the big tax deadline here in the States. I strongly suspect that she spent last week working at H&R Block doing taxes, and if she’s smart she was also laying the groundwork to work there permanently.

So I’m curious to see what next week brings; I’m half expecting that she’s going to give two weeks’ notice, the Boss will take it personally and tell her to just go ahead and leave immediately, and New Girl will be suddenly responsible for all of Queenie’s payroll clients. In other words, I’m predicting another drama tsunami.

Popcorn, anyone?

Tax Season Begins

Accounting Stuff, General Comments Off

Jan 172014

We’ve been setting up SecondCo’s server so that it can more or less automate the invoicing.

This has been a much more complicated process than I expected it would be, apparently because our IT guy doesn’t make any effort to ensure SecondCo’s drivers are all current, so when I attempt to view it remotely via LogMeIn, the whole works goes kerflooey because the video drivers are too decrepit to do the job.

So this week I managed to do the invoicing from last week. I hope that Monday I’ll be able to do the invoicing from this week. In theory, the new setup will make the invoicing faster because it will be automated and I won’t need to enter everything manually. In practice, I haven’t been able to test this yet because I can’t stay connected to the remote computer.

However, today I did manage to stay connected long enough to do the W2/W3 forms for 2013. Which makes me happy, because it needed to be done and I hate getting behind.

Monday we have payroll. I also have my first wage garnishment. How exciting. I spent a fair amount of time today researching garnishment laws and requirements in my state, and how to set up a wage garnishment for an employee. I think I’ve got it covered. I sent an e-mail to the employee in question to alert her that her wages were being garnisheed. I set up the Quickbooks items so it would all be done automatically. I set up an Excel spreadsheet to double-check that Quickbooks was doing it right.

It’s kind of funny, really—this is the third or fourth time the state has sent me a garnishment notice, but up until now all the people involved had already been laid off. This is the first one that involved someone who was still working for SecondCo.

So now I know more than I want to about wage garnishment in my state. Yay me.

I Really Am Their IT Department

Accounting Stuff, Geek Wannabe, General Comments Off

Oct 302013

My LinkedIn profile title includes “accountant” and “IT support.”

I’m not even joking, I really am IT support at my company. I’ve been there long enough for my co-workers to realize that a) I can often fix their computer problems, and b) even when I can’t, I often know enough to quickly diagnose their computer problems and help them find a solution. So now when someone has computer problems, they come ask me about it. If I can’t fix it, then we call the tech support company.

Monday my office mate booted her computer and was greeted by a virus. You know the sort, the fake “Your computer is infected, click on this totally legitimate link to download our totally legitimate antivirus program” virus that won’t let you do anything else until you download their malware.

There are differing theories as to how it got there. Freda thinks the cleaning lady may have let her kids play on the computer over the weekend. I think the virus is on the server, and keeps re-infecting all the desktops. Alpha Geek thinks our IT guy never properly cleaned the virus the first time it showed up, and it’s been hibernating and re-appearing as a result. My money is on Alpha Geek.

Rather than call our IT guy, and pay him $150-200 to come out and remove the damn thing, they waited for me to return to return to work today and asked me to give it a shot. I did exactly the same thing the IT guy does: I Googled the virus and followed the directions for removal. Presto, her computer worked again.

Last week I also asked the boss if I could splurge and spend $30 on some RAM for my computer. It was on my desk this morning, so I popped it in. I’ve doubled my computer’s RAM; the improvement in its performance is noticeable.

The boss also asked me to see if I could install a check scanner for another computer in the office. (Easy enough, download drivers and run them.)

…and asked if I could set up some e-mail addresses for another company he just acquired.

I shit you not, I spent most of my day doing IT support, and maybe two hours doing the job for which I was originally hired.

Alpha Geek points out that people doing the kind of work I’ve been doing get paid a lot more than I’m getting paid. Well, yeah—I am looking for a new job. He thinks I should ask for a raise, that even if the boss says it’s not feasible, I’ll be putting the idea into his head that I should be getting more money. Alpha Geek feels that the boss could swing a higher wage for me if he thought he needed to.

Alpha Geek is probably right (he usually is), but I don’t think I have the political wherewithal to swing it. I know the boss has fired people with no warning in the past, and we can’t afford to lose my income right now. So I’m still working on the “find a new job” angle, because I don’t have a lot of faith in my ability to do the “convince boss to give me a raise” angle.

Personally I’d like to get into one of the bigger accounting packages, like Dynamics GP or SAP. Which would also require getting into a larger company that can afford such things, and would also be able to afford a nice luxy salary for me and some health benefits and a 401k.

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