I catch my breath sometimes when I look at certain art. Van Gogh’s Starry Night does that to me every time. Some Degas and even Dr. Suess can stir my senses. What makes art Art for me? Well I could rattle off a lot of things that my art teacher in college taught me: Shapes, Shadows, Angles, Layers. But what drills down to me as Art is the beauty of how well it fits.

You could call it ambiance but that is not the right word tone for what I mean for Art. It’s really several ideas all wrapped up into the Art. Let me throw out some thoughts: Placement, Relation To, Space, Effect (as opposed to Cause). Here’s an example: If I hung Van Gogh’s Starry Night on a wooden pole in my front lawn it would soon lose its shape. The sun and moist air would bear down on it. The wind would whip it around. The trees and flowers around it would not appreciate the picture’s beauty for it is too different from their intrinsic beauty. And the neighbors would think I had money to burn for putting such a piece of art on a pole on my front lawn.

I say this all to build up to my idea that I think Accounting is a form of Art. I realize this is a bold statement but allow me to elaborate more in this blog and future blogs. Double-entry accounting, the formulaic process of debits and credits, was first invented by Benedetto Cortugli as a means to record trade. Frater Luca Bartolomes Pacioli took Cortugli’s ideas (giving him credit for it of course) and refined it to the double entry accounting method we know practice. How well Accounting fits in Relation to business, the Space it requires to grow and become Effective is more Artful to me than some of the strange placements of black strokes I’ve seen placed on white canvas.

In my next blog about this subject, I will endeavor to “paint” Accounting in such a way that perhaps you too will see the Art in it.

At least once a week I hear a vendor tell one of our clients, “Oh, just log on to our website, download the form, fill it out, and send it to us asap.” No directions, no human contact to walk you through the form process, nada. And God forbid someone come to the office, sit next to you and explain what you are signing How much time are these companies saving by having the customer do all the reading, education, and follow through? And yet the vendors still charge the same rates. Their fees have not gone down in relation to the lack of customer service. Just the opposite; fees have gone up and service has gone down. Here is today’s example:

Guidant Financial set up our client, John Smith Company (JSC) with a 401k plan back in 2010. The paperwork was half done and the sales person went on to the next prospect. A year and a half later, Guidant sends computer generated letters and emails telling John he has to do this and that and submit to Guidant. Meanwhile, Guidant has been charging $90 a month for an empty 401k plan. Now a May 15th deadline looms so I call Guidant and talk to a human who sends another email requesting completion of three forms, a log in project to complete another form, a request for a CPA to verify some financial info, and all this asap. Do you think John is going to get a rep to come down and explain these highly sophisticated, highly legal forms? Nope!

I would not stay in business one day if I instructed my clients to fill out my paperwork, log on to my website and download forms, all without a scrap of explanation what it all means.

To be fair to Guidant, I have yet to work with a 401k administrator I like. Mass Mutual, Nationwide, Paychex, and Principal are just as bad. I was just hoping Guidant was the exception instead of the norm.

Caveat: Don’t fall for the “log on” trick. Get a sales rep who will walk you through the process to its completion; make them earn their keep.

This is the final installment, Part IV, of Bob Jones’ headaches with Paychex and handling his payroll for Bob Jones Company (BJC).

Refreshing the story from February, Business-keepers Consulting (BKC) was hired by Bob Jones Company (BJC) to handle bookkeeping needs. BKC discovered that Paychex was not handling BJC’s Florida payroll tax issues and BJC received a FL notice for $2400.

In March Paychex made some concessions with BJC to fix the problem with FL and get FL to reduce the penalties down to $750.00 from $2400.00. Paychex still expects client to pay the $750.00. It was our recommendation that Paychex provide free payroll service for a year to make up for this gross negligence.

Moral of story: Just because you hire a payroll service to do their job doesn’t mean they will do it. They will always expect you to know the facts and be liable for any mistakes they make.

Is there a better payroll service out there? Yes; usually the smaller companies are better because they treat their employees better. It’s all about how much the employees care.

Does your payroll service care?

This is Part III of Bob Jones’ headaches with Paychex and handling his payroll for Bob Jones Company (BJC).

Resuming our episode, Bob hired Paychex to handle the payroll for his company, Bob Jones Company (BJC) several years ago. I left off my last blog with Paychex offering the Power of Attorney (POA) but still assuming BJC was filing its Florida (FL) tax returns manually since Paychex still didn’t bother to get BJC set up to file electronically. And BJC assumed Paychex was filing electronically.

Once I discovered this indifference on Paychex’s part, I help the client process the Power of Attorney (POA) form from Paychex, got the client to sign and send it back to Paychex in July 2011. I also had the client sign, cut checks and mail the FL tax returns that had not been mailed for two years along with the money for the taxes, which was only about $200 total.

Another quarter passes and the client assumes Paychex is filing the FL return. I check and sure enough Paychex had not filed the return electronically and said they have not received proof of the FL ID number. I follow up again with the client and he was unaware of this continued indifference with Paychex. I obtained a paper copy of the return from Paychex and helped the client process it manually.

In early January I discovered yet another FL quarterly return had not been electronically filed by Paychex because George still had not received proof of the FL ID and indifferently had not bothered to check with the client as to why there is a delay. I relentlessly insisted that Paychex call FL directly and ask for the proof. Paychex had the POA for over six months now, so why could George just call FL himself and get the ID? I did not have the POA, and I did not process the payroll so it was mute for me to call. On January 10, 2012, within an hour—an hour—Paychex had obtained the proof (that they had needed for two years) to now start filing the FL quarterly returns electronically.

This ended an eight month battle with Paychex’s indifference to their client’s payroll needs. The client had to pay a third party, BKC, to watch over Paychex’s cavalier attitude towards service and now FL wants $2400 in penalties. The taxes are already paid but FL charges $300 per quarter for each late filing and there were eight late filings (2 years’ worth of non-electronic filing) because the client was expected to file paper copies and wasn’t aware of this.

I have asked Paychex to pay the $2400 penalty; they still have not responded to this request.

What is your viewpoint on payroll services?

This is a cheesy form from Corporate Compliance Center. I am not an attorney and therefore do not claim to provide legal services. However, I do know that corporations are supposed to have annual stockholder meetings and take minutes documenting what was discussed at the meetings. Also, the state of California requires a Statement of Information be filed annually that discloses Officers and Directors and charges $25 to process this required statement.

There is a company out there called Corporate Compliance Center (CCC). The owners of this company have found a little, sneaky niche that is probably making them a fortune. They send out a form they created called Annual Minutes Compliance Notice to corporations. The form looks official and tells you some of the legal requirements of maintaining your corporation. It leads you to believe this form is in lieu of minutes at stockholders meetings and basically asks all the questions that the Statement of Information requires. Oh, and they charge you $150.00 to “process” your compliance and in return you get this cheesy “certificate” on some fancy paper with a two-bit seal.

The State of California has nothing to do with this company that calls themselves Corporate Compliance Center and yes, you still have to complete the annual Statement of Information. The fact that the form CCC sends is called Annual Minutes Compliance Notice and yet there are no minutes of the stockholder meeting is a tip off that this company, CCC, is in the business of being sneaky. I have included an image of this form from CCC for your reference. We recommend consulting with legal counsel about your corporation’s legal needs and not falling prey to CCC’s “compliance” gimmick.

Does your company receive other forms in the mail of which you are not sure of their validity?

Go Climb a Tree

This is part two of Bob Jones’ headaches with Paychex and handling his payroll for BJC.
Resuming our episode, Bob hired Paychex to handle the payroll for his company, Bob Jones Company (BJC) several years ago. BJC is a California corporation but has an employee in Florida (FL). When BJC added this FL employee to its existing payroll, no one at Paychex bothered to ask Bob to complete a form to apply for a Florida ID number (IDN). This IDN is typically requested from any state with which you have payroll. It ties your company name to a number so the state can keep track of your tax liability.

So now, the scene is set that BCJ thinks Paychex is handling the payroll tax return filing and payment for FL and Paychex is indifferent to whether or not it is being handled by the client. In walks Business-keepers Consulting (BKC) which was hired in May 2011 to get BJC accounting in order and maintain it on Quickbooks (QB). Upon reviewing the payroll, we discovered FL hasn’t been paid and now the tax notices are rolling in. Paychex states they cannot file a Florida IDN on behalf of the client and provides a Power of Attorney (POA) to give Paychex power to deal with Florida payroll issues. This suggestion of a POA for FL is two years after the Florida employee was hired and at no time is it mentioned that this POA could help them solve this FL ID issue. Paychex just realized they should have one on file.

What does this look like to an outsider peering in? Paychex calls our client every other week to run payroll. Every two weeks for two years (26 x 2), 52 times, the Paychex payroll representative, whom we will call George, called and asked for payroll but never once followed up and asked how the Florida IDN is coming along.

Have you had problems with Paychex’s indifference? How do you view customer service through the eyes of your customers?

I am going to write multiple blogs about Paychex that reflect my struggles with their payroll and 401k plan services over the last several years and in particular the last few months. I believe I am obligated to my readers to share my struggles about Paychex in order that others will not fall prey to their poor services.
Let me first start by saying that to state Paychex has poor customer services sounds trite. I think one word better describes Paychex’s attitude towards their clients: indifferent.

I welcome comments, ideas, and questions regarding these blog postings about Paychex. However, for the sake of my clients’ privacy I will use pseudonyms of the companies and the owners. I will also use pseudonyms of Paychex’s employees. I don’t necessarily blame the employees for their indifference. I believe that you learn by example and that Paychex’s attitude as a whole is emanates indifference. I also give a disclaimer that my clients do not endorse these blogs in any way, shape, or form.

I’m going to start with the Paychex error that cost the least amount of penalty for my client, whom I will call Bob Jones of BJ Company (BJC).

Bob Jones hired us in March 2011 to do BJC’s bookkeeping for 2010. Bob was using Paychex for his payroll service for a while. BJC has employees in California (CA) and Florida (FL). In May 2011, I discovered that Paychex was not electronically filing the FL returns for two years because they “didn’t have proof of the FL Identification Number.” Bob, meanwhile, thought all along that Paychex was filing the payroll tax returns with CA and FL. CA was being handled but FL was not. In all fairness to Paychex (and most of the other payroll services out there), Paychex was mailing the paper copy of the FL returns for two years to the client with generic instructions for Bob to sign and mail with a check for the taxes owed.

Bob is a very busy person, like all of our clients, and doesn’t open his mails that often since most of his important messages come through email or phone calls. Also, it has been our experience with clients that even when they do open payroll envelopes, the literature is not user-friendly, and it is easy to just put in a file and assume whatever it is, that the payroll service is handling it on their end.

A note to remember: When a payroll service sets up a new client, they usually get the new client to sign a Power of Attorney (POA) so they can legally handle the payroll on your behalf with the IRS, EDD, etc. This is standard procedure. Paychex only sent Bob the request for the POA for FL after I discovered that they were not filing the FL returns. They sent it on May 20th, 2011. Immediately, I made sure: A) the FL POA was signed by the client which enabled Paychex to handle any FL issues from then on, and B) helped the client complete, sign, and mail the FL form requesting an ID number be issued to BJC.

Meanwhile, I requested Paychex to email the two years’ worth of FL returns that had not been filed. I had the client sign, cut checks and mail the money in. The taxes only amounted to about $200 for two years.

That was at the end of May 2011. The FL issue was not resolved until this month, January 2012. I will write another blog installment soon about why it took Paychex eight more months to finally get BJC set up to electronically file the FL returns and how it cost the client $2400 in penalties due to Paychex’s indifference.

Common Area Maintenance (CAM) can be a nasty check to write check every month to your HOA. However, the common area is what keeps your community’s property value up. If HOAs just pay for the bare minimums and ignore required maintenance or put away money in reserves, the community can easily get behind and it is expensive to pull out from behind.

• It is important for a board to stay ahead of the decay and make it a guiding light to the rest of the members to keep the property value in the forefront. Here are some ideas to keep in mind when addressing CAM costs:
• Maintain a reserve study every other year. Even if your CC&Rs don’t require a study this often, the cost of staying informed of your community’s reserve needs is money well spent. It is also a useful tool to show the other members how and why the reserves need to be addressed.
• Get members involved: Ask neighbors to give their feedback.
• Have a town hall meeting. Don’t call it a board meeting because people shy away from that style venue.
• Incorporate the feedback into a master plan. Don’t just scribble some ideas on a piece of paper. The board needs to create a sound document that outlines the results of the feedback and provides the calculations behind the costs.

This is going to be a stream of conscience based on a webinar I recently sat through.

Added Lead Center: This is QB way of adding a CRM into the software. Now you can enter prospective names without adding them to your Customer list in Quickbooks. The Lead will also let you add phone numbers, notes, names.

Enhanced Excel exporting features. If you leave the excel report open and you make a change in Quickbooks, go back to Excel and click the Update and it will re-populate the data in Excel from the changes in Quickbooks. Big enhancement

Document storage attached to Quickbooks is free, as long as the document is stored locally on your system (and not in the cloud)

USPS has been added to Shipping Manager in Quickbooks. This feature books the info directly into the customer’s invoice. Easy for tracking your customer shipments. The Shipping Manager has been a feature in Quickbooks since 2007 and included Fedex and UPS. Now USPS is in the game.

There is a new tab for Transaction to Transaction Panel. When you open up an Invoice to a customer, you see the other invoices you have invoiced them earlier. The Transaction tab allows you to see all the transactions tied into that Invoices, such as estimates, Purchase Orders. Then it also allows you to add notes just for this invoice without eating up your Memo section.

There is now an Inventory Center in QuickBooks. You can add an image of the inventory item so your staff knows what the “widget” you are selling looks like.

You can send a QuickBooks period copy of the file. For example if you wanted to let someone see your company for one year you can select a copy of the file from 1/1/2010 to 12/31/2010. Very cool.

You can now condense a very large QuickBooks file by globally removing all data up to a certain date, then you have to load in your beginning balances in Balance sheet accounts. This is a major feature for QuickBooks Pro Advisors and accountants who need to make large QuickBooks files smaller.

QuickBooks Enterprise 2012 now can handle FIFO inventory. Too much to describe in this blog.

Enterprise 2012 with Enhanced Inventory: Lot Tracking and Serial Number options added. This too is too much to describe in this blog.

For more details on these features and more, here is the link the webinar I just sat through and you can sign up for the free repreat on 9/28. http://scalingnewheights.com/FreeWebinars.htm

Association living in planned communities can have many rewards, but sharing land with perfect strangers (at least when you first move in) can be like a slow drip, draining your reserve of patience. Creating a mediation team out of Board members and fellow residents can head off problems. Here are a few suggestions:
• Assign different people in the mediation team to different areas of concern so the residents of the HOA know who their go-to person is. For example, have someone on the team handle structure disputes, another person handle noise, and another parking.
• Create an informal meeting for a grievance outside of the monthly board meetings. Sometimes, bickering neighbors just need a third party (one board member on the mediation team) to hear each side out, without taking sides or making it a “board member” issue. If you include the grievance within the board meeting, it might make it too official and cause either party to feel the whole board is ganging up on the issue.
• Give action plans to resolve the grievances. If two neighbors are bickering over a parking space, through the mediation team member, determine steps to take to solve the parking issue amiably. Include a timeline for resolution.

Mediation: as to affect an agreement.