How’s this for a classic shot of the bassman on the Florida seaside. That’s me looking across the pond toward Europe. Something to note is the almost complete lack of tourists at the height of the season. It seems not even upgrading the sidewalks for the first time in forty years was enough to haul back the masses willing to spend $21 on a no-topping pizza.
Marion called. Let me tell you, some guys have all the luck. Did I mention her husband got his first job at 21 as a telemarketing assistant to plug tickets for some sports team. Actually, they had no openings but put him on a waiting list. Then they called him next day and installed him as head of the accounting department at $75,000 per year to start. He had never touched a set of books in his life. Now, ten years later, he has been “head-hunted” to a far better position in Colorado. Where the living costs half as much as in Seattle. Effective almost immediately, too. I’ll keep you informed for I like Colorado.At the shop, we are taking a closer look at a wireless print server. This is a good example of how training can cause such a different perspective that ordinary things get overlooked. We all assumed it was a wireless printer server, simply because that is what is was labeled, silly boys. As well, we all knew that to run a printer, you need a printer driver. This device, it transpires, claims that it will run any printer, even when the host computer is off. The device is wired to the computer via an Ethernet (RJ-45) cable. Then, other wireless units in the vicinity can use the printer. The commotion? We were educated enough to know there was supposed to be a difference between “Print” server and “Printer” server.
Quickbooks. It does have a payroll module, sort of. You have to dig for it. It is like you want to say to the AT&T salesman after the first half-hour, “Why wasn’t the cheapest plan the first thing you offered me?”
I spent a few hours examining each Quickbooks pane. That isn’t clear. I opened and looked at the panes, a process which required several hours in total. The instructions are typical computer-ese. It always goes the same, they over-explain the basics to death, half-touch on the middle area and don’t mention advanced usages. Plus, in a manner guaranteed to piss off anybody over 35, they never give any examples of complete start-to-finish transactions.
Worst feature? There appears to be no way you can set the Quickbooks system to a display (on-screen) the transaction in standard double-entry format before you commit it. You enter the data directly on a form, then it beeps and disappears. I want to review the transaction and each account affected before I hit that “Save” key.
Therefore I went to the Barn and flipped through two more 500+ page manuals on Quickbooks. Man, oh man, these software companies have a long way to go before they get anywhere near the fantasies they’ve got in their heads. Do these people like Quickbooks dream they have come anywhere near the realities of what real business people require? If you don’t roughly know whether you have enough inventory to take on the next order, is hiring people to calculate it for you going to help any? Quickbooks is based on some fictitious IRS model of the American business with an infinite amount of liquid startup capital. You know, the types who can comply and conform who don’t exist in real life.
Quickbooks, your head is screwed on backwards. Proprietors want something easy to use. Something that can meet legal minimum income tax requirements while using unskilled labor who understand that six bucks an hour equals two forty a week whether they like it or not. Accounting software (Quickbooks) is so neat how the very people who crank it out can most effectively distance themselves from the poor stiffs who have to use it. Quickbooks represents another of the far-sighted American management models which got the USA where we are today.
As I’ve said before (in 1991), you would be smarter to adapt your business to fit the software than to waste your time trying it the other way around.
Later. Concerning Quickbooks, I am not impressed. As my Epinions rating says, “Books? Yes. Quick? No.” You can read my reviews at your leisure. What is lacking most in Quickbooks and most other accounting software is a button you click to place the thing into a mode called “bare minimum legal tax requirements”.
So while I am at the Barn, this lady sitting next to me starts to take interest in what I am reading. Don’t think just the accounting manual. I was also reading things like tree house construction, some bass [guitar] music tablature, a collection of Irish jokes and set of instructions on how to use spices in your microwave to make your house smell great. Now, while I cannot see a foot ahead without glasses, my peripheral vision is fantastic and since she is of a certain age, I’m not going to say anything first. In the end, nothing happened, but guys, I don’t have much use for a fifty-year old lady without the confidence to initiate a conversation with a stranger. Particularly since she was obviously not there to read books.
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