Catherine

Hope you have a VERY :bday:

I was at a client's office; one of the workers came in from an errand and told us to put the radio on. The client had worked in the twin towers up until just a few years earlier. I remember agonizing over whether to go grab my girls out of school -- the principal's office said they were not allowing ANY TV or radio in the building that day. So I had some time to figure out what I was going to tell them. "To the shores of Tripoli" -- there was a hiatus for quite a while, but starting up again with the first attack on the towers in 1993, there have been attacks on U.S. interests every few years, culminating in 9/11. Don't for a minute think they wouldn't do it again tomorrow if they could manage it.

Hope you have a VERY dinner!

Hope you have a VERY :bday:

Hi folks -- tried this on another forum and got nothing; folks mainly seemed slap-happy with the long weekend coming up (at that time). Here's one that I'd like advice on how to handle. The way the client has done this in past years has been a convoluted, confusing morass, but weren't ready to have someone else look at it. They've now asked me to take a look and see if anything can be done to make this clearer/easier. There may simply be no good way to do it in QuickBooks, and I've found nothing in the Intuit forums that would help. Let's see if I can explain the situation clearly. My client sells consulting services and proprietary software to companies in the US and around the world. The company has a "sister company" (for lack of a better term; they work together but are separate entities) in the UK. To keep them separate, I'll use Company A (American) and Company B (British). Each company has its' own QB files which are -not- shared. A sells products and services to US companies; issues invoices and gets paid. B does the same but to non-US companies. When B sells a product/service (for which they send invoices to and receive payments from their customers), they "buy" this product from A at half-price. They also "bill" A for services rendered to complete the sale and supply the product. These two transactions roughly cancel each other out in terms of magnitude. B also bills A for work done for US customers (A does almost no work for non-US customers). This would really be easier if I could put up my little chart with boxes and arrows. Sigh. A gets no cash from sales to B. B gets no cash from A for services/products sold. There are cash transactions when services are rendered by B for A's customers - invoices are sent by B and paid by A. There are also corrections for currency fluctuations (sometimes over a year goes by before the dust settles). All the non-US sales are tracked in Excel and eventually all is accounted for and any payments due (which can be in either direction) are made. Both A and B have then been using general journal entries, customer/vendor duos, and other awkward techniques to keep track in QB. One result for A is a long list of pseudo-"bills to pay" that show up on A/P and pseudo-"invoices due" that show up on A/R. An additional fillip is that the folks at B don't like to do accounting so their spreadsheets are usually a couple months out of date at least. And the folks at A go nuts with the spreadsheet so they delay in trying to figure out what B has done. Does anyone have any ideas on how I can approach this? We can start with whatever other information folks need in order to make sense of it. I know my head was spinning when A was trying to explain what they were doing. And QB's awkward handling of multi-currency transactions isn't going to help matters. Hope everyone enjoyed their long weekend. Catherine

May you have a VERY :bday:

Hope you have a VERY :bday:

Hope you have a VERY :bday:

May you have a VERY :bday:

Have a VERY :bday:

Congratulations Deb!!!! Now raise your rates! :lol:

I don't use proseries myself, but have used it at the office of a colleague whom I have helped on many an occasion. Proseries always drove me nuts with its' worksheet-based format, especially with the odd numbering scheme. Drake's worksheets are much more logical -- they follow the number of the form. I could never navigate in proseries without lots of effort and frustration. ATX by comparison is a breeze to navigate -- start on the form and use the jump-to bunnies to get wherever you need to go. The tabs for different forms/schedules can be put on the side (like in proseries) or on top, as you prefer. And ATX is less money for more forms and a complete package -- no buying separate licenses for business, for fiduciary, for each state, etc. Hope this helps.

have a VERY :bday:

I used to do the double-pocket folders and part of me still thinks that someday I'll go back to them. But I've been using the Tenenz ATX-compatible folders for the last several years in part because of the cutouts that show the year and name. During tax season it got to be a pain to keep printing out labels (yes, I know, I could get them all ready in early January and ignore the ones who don't return). But I like the hidden-staple top, I like how professional it looks all put together, and I've been happy with their service. My clients like them, too (although most liked the double pocket folders, as well). But samingeorgia you also have my sympathies on the aggravating non-service you've been put through. It always amazes me how companies pine for more business and then won't take very standard, easy steps to keep the business they already have. Catherine

Well, there is no way to stop some people from being stupid, and there never has been. There are laws on the books in -every- state already about distracted/negligent drivers. We don't need new, item-specific laws. You may ban cell phone talk -- or text messaging, or name the specific item you think is stupid (and with which I will most likely agree!). That won't stop the idiot putting on her mascara while driving on the highway. Or the nincompoop reading the morning paper (or sales quota report) in stop-and-go traffic. Or the person trying to eat their morning cereal with milk from a bowl with a spoon. The bozo adding granola to his yogurt at 75mph. Those are all actual examples that I have either seen in person or have read the news reports (mainly post-accident). So it's not new laws, rather it is the enforcement of the existing "negligent driver" statutes. With immediate and definite penalties. Mascara in your hand? Lose your license for 90 days. Open yogurt? Ditto. No recourse, no exceptions. (Obviously those don't apply to passengers, just drivers.) But people will still do stupid things and some of them will die. And some of them will kill innocents around them, and that is really and truly sad (one of my college pals never came back for sophomore year; hit -walking on the sidewalk- by a drunk who didn't realize he wasn't on the road). It was that way back in the days of horse-and-buggy, and even in the days of ox-drawn wagons. Some things don't change. And more unenforced or unenforceable laws won't do it. Drive (even walk!) defensively, and always assume the people around you are drunk, high, or just deranged. Chances are you won't be far off with at least some of them.

Hope you have a VERY :bday:

Have a VERY :bday:

Perhaps you should see the 4-page Massachusetts health care form. Plus worksheets to figure penalties. That do NOT auto-calculate in ATX but have to be done by hand and over-ridden on each and every line. Folks don't have to try to stick us with their penalties for the results to be onerous for us as tax preparers. Just putting the IRS (MassDOR) in charge of ensuring compliance and the headaches will start. Ask me how I know this...

Have a WONDERFULLY :bday:

Congratulations, michaelmars!! Catherine

Have a WONDERFULLY :bday:

Have a VERY :bday:

And we have a close family friend who would be dead today in either Britain or Canada. He had kidney cancer and it was pretty far advanced and had metastasized in several places by the time it was found. In EITHER the UK or Canada, he would have been told to go home and get his affairs in order. Instead, in the US, he was able to to get a new treatment. Much of the cost was NOT covered by insurance but they started treatment anyway -- and the family held fundraisers. The treatment worked for him. He is alive, well, there is no evidence of disease three years later, and he has become a national expert on what they now term "e-patient" protocols and has been asked to speak at large medical conventions. I'll stick with the current US system, thank you very much. There is no access to care issue. There is an insurance reimbursement issue. And more regulation will NOT cure that but rather make it worse. Additionally, it will RESTRICT access to care, causing a whole slew of new, real, serious, problems. Catherine

Hope you have a VERY :bday:

And some people don't own their own homes. Is a permanent place to live ALSO a fundamental right? Some people don't own a car. If they cannot afford one, should one be provided for them by the government? Where does it end? Flat screen TV's? The right to keep and bear a washer/dryer set? How much can or SHOULD the government do? The founders wanted the government to do the LEAST amount possible. Individuals, states, and then PRIVATE groups were to do the rest. Because inevitably a government that starts interfering with private actions ends with tyranny.