Catherine

We know how to try, at least!

It's pretty chilly here, too. Five Farenheit this morning; up to about 15; down again to 7 currently. Close to or below zero tonight and about 12 - 15 tomorrow, they say. My office never got above 64 and by my main desk the thermometer said 58. I wore two wool sweaters all day plus had the little space heater blowing straight on me.

I charge $15 per 1099. For W-2s I charge an hourly fee and it varies significantly. Did I do the 941s so I know they're in order? Or did the client do them (one set, last year, cost the client a couple hundred bucks for me to amend four quarters before I could touch the W-2s)? There is a minimum fee of $30 or so as it takes a half hour to set up the printer, collate everything, stuff envelopes, go through the Accu-Wage rigamarole, put it all back at the end, et cetera.

I am not surprised at all by these results.

I have always customized my letters first thing (with the occasional tweak needed later). The thought of having to customize each and every letter is appalling. I may do my letters separately, and insert a printed pdf in the client copy before I print. At least my word processing program will save several standard letters. More work for me, in the name of "improving" the software. Grrr. There are REASONS, CCH, that we want to customize master letters.

I have heard of significant problems with Square. Apparently it's OK for those with need for only the occasional credit card transaction, but here is the bottom-line deal-killer for me: Square has NO customer service telephone and a long history of NOT returning emails. If _they_ think something is odd, and with NO warning to you, they will hold your money until they deem fit to release it -- and you have NO way to stop them, or to contact them with guaranteed response, or to get your funds released. There are tales of monies being held for months. So beware -- if you have the occasional client trying to pay by card it should be fine. If folks are willing to go on-line, _you_ can have a PayPal account linked from your site where people can pay you even if they do not have a PayPal account. If lots of clients pay by card (or you want them to), Square might not be the best choice for you. Catherine

A bazillion years ago I did the typing up of hospital pathology reports on the weekends. FIVE carbon copies in those rip-top forms. Every typing mistake needed SIX corrections (original and five copies). Boy, my typing was better back then. Also gave me one of my very-best-ever stories: one day I was SO utterly tired. All alone in the office, the hum of the ventilation, the drone of the doctor's voice in the dictaphone headset... oh, man, trying to stay awake was just about impossible. My head dipped, I woke up with a start, and found THREE reports that -- to this day -- I do NOT remember typing, all finished and neatly in the "done" pile. LOL!!

I have a Pardini SP .22 for competition; it is very nice and we are good friends. Only problem it has is every couple years the recoil spring needs replacing - my first sign is that it won't pick up the 2nd round in sustained fire. And it is fussy about ammo; lots of .22 is just a bit too long to fee properly so I now use Eley Sport. Used to use Aguila Subsonic but that's gotten hard to find and expensive. My husband's SP is a later model and not nearly so fussy about ammo. (My husband is also a Doug.) What do you shoot?

It is also a tool of tyrants to pass voluminous, complex laws with multiple revisions specifically to ensure that _everyone_ can be found guilty of _some_ law. Then anyone who makes trouble (=disagrees) can "legally" be imprisoned. All that needs to be done is to find some obscure law or regulation that the person broke. The CFR is now over 150,000 pages. You can extrapolate for yourselves.

Yup; it's here:

Time also to re-read the Jeff MacNelly 1976 form 1040 cartoon I posted here last year (or the year before?). Should still be an uploaded file under my name in the member area. "Requested by the Dept. of Agriculture: How many talking chickens do you own? Do any of them play the oboe?"

Yes they do, you can still buy it, and I use it every week! Our pistol match scoresheets get filled out in duplicate (with carbon paper); one set for each team captain.

Eli -- nice couple of rifles there!

Just ducky, as I edit ALL client letters. Fortunately, so far all I've been using is the Payroll program.

time for me to check, too... doggone it all, I live too clean a life. need to cuss somebody out or something. will have to consider who, and when, and how. :wub:

I don't get one. My online backup encrypts the files HERE, before they are transmitted, and I am the only source of the key. Anyone who pulls data off those servers will just get gobbledygook and I think that covers it. If anyone knows differently, please let me know!

To you, too, Elrod -- and everyone else as well! Great flash graphic, too.

My best clients get those forms -- and a $25 discount on next year's return for every paying referral. One caution: do NOT give those forms to folks who are pains to deal with, slow to pay, or other problems - the friends they send you will be the same or worse!

Just teasing, KC!! :P

Sounds like KC spent a bit too much time (or possibly sipped a bit too much "preferred adult beverage") whilst decorating her festive non-denominational holiday shrub!

No way. Ever. I am not interested in entering a bidding war for clients who will then expect top-notch service for cut-rate pricing (and despite their site's words to the contrary, that is what it will devolve to). I've told people over and again over the years, "You can get your taxes done cheap, or you can get them done right. Your choice, but you only get to pick ONE." I will also note that, over the years, the _only_ people who have "stiffed" me are ones to whom I gave a super-deep discount because of some temporary but legitimate reason/sob story or other.

To all of my friends and colleagues here -- Merry Christmas! May you have time for family and friends, favorite foods and old stories, joy an contentment. Catherine

Brian Sacks is very funny!

I had been using a Kodak i1120 that scanned straight to OCR-able pdf, which I then tweaked as needed with Acrobat 9 with the "Tic, Tie, and Calculate add-on for accountants). That got fried in a power surge (despite being on a strip) and it's just been replaced with a Fuji ScanSnap1500 - again, goes straight to OCR-able pdf. It came with all kinds of file management software but all I do is pick between pdf (for files) and jpeg (for online check deposits). I use Adobe Acrobat X (that came with the Fuji) and will need to buy a new TTC license or transfer the old one. Not sure how much help this is but it's what I do.

CAF unit is going to be closed 26 Dec - 02 Jan, including e-services. If you need stuff that week, grab it soon. Read this on another forum and can snag details from there if folks are interested. Catherine