Catherine

Plus complete job security - you can't even be fired for being a totally incompetent loser (although most are OK, some are good, some are VERY good, and some are tolerable). Great pension and health benefits. Yeah, everyone in the country hates your guts (details, details) - but they don't know it's YOU, either!

That is a wee bit different from signatures, that's for sure!

Notary, Signature Guarantee, Medallion. As far as I'm concerned, they're all variations on a theme and I couldn't for the life of me tell you the differences and legal requirements without looking them each up at that moment. The only thing I know is that they have different requirements, serve similar but non-identical purposes, and you get them in different places for different fees. I do wish they'd consolidate to something that everyone would accept.

Don't know off-hand. There was a big presentation on this topic a year ago and if I get a chance I'll haul out my notes and see if there's anything useful.

I hope that you and the clients are all very happy! Congratulations.

Eric Green's TG Publising arm is having a one-day Black Friday sale on his fabulous representation reference books. FYI. https://tgpublish.com/?inf_contact_key=ad9450913f64fb38a9c01f87186c7b57680f8914173f9191b1c0223e68310bb1 Code: TGFRIDAY30

I sold off about 3/4 of my practice to some friends, for 33% of receipts per year for three years. We presented it as a merger, and in fact still work together on some clients. We share the web site and file portal and I still field general questions (cuz people still email me first) but copy them. For more complex problems I forward to them with a note to the client that I asked X to respond 'cuz I'm out of the office today. In general it has worked really well for all of us (me, them, and clients). But 40% for four years is too much.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family too , @Elrod - as well as the rest of my ATX Community family here!

I've had trouble with APC batteries on a couple of models. Last time I needed one, I got a CyberPower and that has been great. So far. Knock wood! Far less money than APC, too.

Thank you; I will look into the information you linked.

I have a really annoying problem since the last big update. I cannot use Windows Explorer to access ANY of my network storage device folders, unless they are mapped as network drives. Fortunately, I had *one* folder mapped, for quick access, and was able to copy the format using the other top-level folder names (which I was still able to see and access just FINE from my ancient W7 machine) and now I have access again. But I am not impressed. In fact... there's another network box that I rarely need to get to; I'd better look up those names and add those as drives, too. Grrr. I hate computers.

Isn't it sweet of them (NOT!) to let you know they respect your privacy?

Hi guys, Does anyone have a recommendation for a source on teaching S-Corporation balance sheets and the M-schedules? We want to teach our assistant (who can do the P&L portion really well) how to tackle the balance-sheets-that-don't issues. Our in-house candidates either pose very few issues (and so aren't good examples of where to forage) or are pretty complex (and not good to start with). Pointers to any resources would be appreciated. Thanks!

Yes, as QB ProAdvisor you get the new software available every year as part of the subscription. You also get access to ALL version of the desktop that you can use yourself (including Enterprise, I believe), discounts on desktop or QBO subscriptions to offer to clients (at cost, keeping the extra for yourself, or at your cost, to make sure those clients don't revert to bad spreadsheets), "priority" support (that used to be better than it is now) and more. There are free online courses on aspects of QB you are not as familiar with, and after taking specified sets of them you can be a certified QB advisor at different levels and listed as such on their own resources area. That never brought me in any clients, so I only bother to take units of specific interest to me.

This used to happen to me about once a year (but not quite so much volume). It was the email address itself that got sold (or whatever) rather than any compromise of my systems. Good grief it was a royal pain in the hindquarters. I was able to get most of it using filters; a large number came from specific countries (India? Bulgaria? - don't recall at this point) and eventually when I never bit any of the solicitations they petered out.

Thank you, Abby; that saves one of us from having to do it. Good joke; I was wondering myself how to twist one of those names but hadn't gotten around to it yet. You've also saved me that effort!

Hi, @MsTabbyKats - I've nothing further to add, but it's nice to hear from you. Hope that you are doing well.

And yet, if you look at ratings and service life, the larger drives still have a higher failure rate than smaller ones. It's getting better! A few years ago the 1Tb drives were unreliable. Now they are very reliable, and it's the 3-4Tb drives that have the higher failure rate. As they get better with drive architecture, the size of reliable drives keeps creeping up.

My husband warned that those extra-large drives are still subject to sudden failure. So I have them for my onsite backup (two, mirrored) but not in my computer.

It's not the slow internet; it's hard drive space and the total lack of need for either of those two versions yet. If I don't need a version clogging it up, I don't want it on the machine.

We have one where we only know that they have the (mailed-in; 2018) amended return because the check that was put in with it was finally cashed! Client mailed in early July; check was cashed about a week ago. Yikes!

So I need to ask them for the charity's contract or letter? Heaven help me!

Client gave a relatively small amount to an organization as a charitable gift annuity, and has in his notes that half is deductible. Is it standard for half the amount given to be a year-of-setup tax deduction? There are no docs from the charity (and would probably say "check with your tax professional" anyway). It's been a while since I've dealt with a fresh one of these, and my searches so far have given me all kinds of info on distributions, but nothing on year of donation other than vague "some is a deduction" wording. Am terrified of having to ask the client; he's got some dementia and I just this past weekend got (most of) the 2019 docs, and those only because his granddaughter has been working with him to get them in order. (Yes, I have written permission to talk to her - but she's a tax neophyte herself so it's almost as useless as asking him.)

I have QB back to 2015 installed on my older computer, and (so far) just 2019 on the new computer. I can download 2020 and 2021 any time I need them, but they're humongous files, so I won't bother until then. I make notes in the client file about their version, but YES it would be nice if the file name itself showed the version!

It depends on if the client needs to hit the 100% or 110% amount, too - so check that.