Sunday Night Chit Chat

Ok, so I don't actually know how to do any linking crap-a-lacka, but here is my Sunday Night Chit Chat answers....

Reading: My current book is Condoleeza Rice's autobiography. I think she's really interesting and a super genius...

Watching: My brother has the remote, so we're flipping between the ProBowl and Taken.

Listening to: Baby Einstein that my nephew's watching on my mom's laptop... That stuff is baby crack!! I don't get it..

Cooking/Baking: We're having pork chops, rice and butternut squash for dinner, its getting ready to come out of the oven. No baking here... If I were to bake it, I would eat it...

Happy you accomplished this week: I'm happy I got all of the W-2s done without going crazy, I've got a set I haven't released yet, because I'm going on-site tomorrow to verify my numbers are correct... Long story, but its not a good idea to "void" a payroll check using a journal entry... One: because it will make your payroll reports give you bad numbers and Two: because you will drive your accountant crazy when she's trying to figure out what you done.

Looking forward to next week: Being completely done with payroll tax returns and actually starting and completing a few corporate returns. Tax season is upon us!!

Thankful for today: Thankful I got to meet a friend for lunch. Hadn't seen her since I was in the hospital. We decided that we might have to make it a regular habit. So today I'm thankful for old friends. :)

Happy Monday!!

This posting regularly thing is hard...

So I probably didn't pick the best time of year to start a blog of my own... Especially since this January has been the busiest I've ever had in the seven tax seasons I've been working. A co-worker took a different job this year and so I've inherited several clients to take care of from her, plus we prepared all of the payroll tax returns for a client that usually did their own and I picked up two new clients in December this year that needed extensive help in preparing theirs. It will all get done, it always does, but man I'm tired of tying out W-2s and 941s and chasing down ID numbers for 1099s. I'm actually looking forward to getting organized and starting in on corporate returns.

I think I've already got 5 corporate returns in my office that I can prepare, two are already asking when I'll have them done... I just want to be able to say, I'll get to your crap when I get a chance to come up for air!! I've just been politely trying to stall and saying "about 2 weeks," now hopefully I can make that...

So in a nutshell, I haven't blogged because I'm not doing anything except working. I can't really talk too much about the exciting parts of my work because of confidentiality concerns, but I'll leave you with this tidbit... Let's just say, if your paid preparer comes to your house and prepares your tax return in the back of her minivan, you might want to run in the opposite direction... You get what you pay for!!

I also want to take an informal survey, if you read this, leave a comment on whether you prepare your own return or pay to have it prepared and do you file as soon as you can or are you a procrastinator?

Have I ever told you about how much I hate payroll taxes?

So its January, which means its W-2 season... I hate processing W-2's!! Everyone thinks payroll is so simple, but here's the thing, it has to be right... You have to know what your totals should be instead of relying on what prints out of your system... I won't bore you with the details, because it's not that exciting, it's just been a pain in my a** for the last two weeks and won't be over until January 31, actually before that, as that's the day that clients have to be able to mail their 941's on that day.

I spent 4 hours today at a client trying process their regular payroll and waiting for tech support to call us back with a system problem with their w-2's. They have a ginormous, super expensive software that works great for their engineers and guys in the shop, but the accounting portion is just sort of thrown in as an afterthought, so the logic to create journal entries, reports, processes, etc that I need is usually a** backward. So as I was halfway through their payroll today, I found an error in part of the payroll, not affecting the actual numbers, but the file to upload to the bank for direct deposit was wrong. Because of that I had to void the whole thing and start over, but I needed tech support to help me do that... Let's just say there's quite a wait this time of year. So I spent 4 hours there and basically netted nothing accomplished. However, I think my problems are all fixed, so I should be able to re-do the payroll and print the W-2's tomorrow before lunch, let's hope anyway!!

I'm not really sure why I decided to start a blog right before tax season, since I'll essentially have no life except work for the next three and a half months... So you might hear a lot of b****y tax season stories for a while.

By the way, I've already had two clients their tax returns were coming... Uh, yeah, how about I get my payroll stuff done first... Not to mention, I can't even finish your return until you get me all of the stuff I request every quarter!!

So now all I've done is complain, so I'll wrap this up. Anyone have any questions for me?

Last weekend of freedom, sort of...

Woo hoo!! People acknowledged my existence!! I've been trying to talk myself into starting my own blog and coming out from the anonymous shadows for years. So, hopefully I'll be committed to writing regular posts.

This weekend, one of my best friends from college got married, this is probably the last wedding I'll be in for a while... Thank goodness. I've decided I hate weddings, well, except for the cake... It's a lot of work for an hour ceremony. In fact the rehearsal on Friday night was three times longer than the actual wedding, lol. However, I'm not surprised at all that the rehearsal for this wedding was as detailed as it was, knowing the bride as well as I do. :)

Overall it was a beautiful ceremony and the reception was fun. Although I'm pretty sure the ball of my right foot is bruised from walking around in heels yesterday. I thought the shoes I'd bought were comfortable - just not cushioned enough to withstand walking around on them all day long. The altar at the church was very hard, my feet were throbbing by the end. I was hardly paying attention to the ceremony - I was too busy concentrating on not locking my knees so I wouldn't pass out and alternating taking the pressure off of each foot so I could make it back up the aisle, lol...

Then on to the reception, after waiting for the bride and groom to get back to the church from their joy ride in the limo - R wanted a 15-20 minute ride with just her and her new husband to celebrate by themselves, which was an excellent idea. However, no one was counting on the fact that there would be increased traffic from the KU basketball game that had just ended, so they were gone almost an hour...

Funny story from the reception... our table had just all gotten settled after going through the buffet line and were all eating, when the maid of honor (another friend from college) started saying "whoa, Whoa, WHOA!!" The other bridesmaid sitting to my left had put her napkin up at the top of her plate when we got up to go through the line and as we sat down to eat - it got moved a little close to one of the candles on the table. So I looked over to see this napkin looking more like a torch than a pretty napkin fan, lol. I picked it up (don't ask me why that was my first instinct, lol) and initially tried to blow on it, lol. That was useless so I'm now holding an ever-growing torch and I panic for just a second as one of the other maids's husband had already pointed out the room capacity was most likely over fire-code... Luckily the next thought I had was to plunk it into my water glass, crisis averted. :) Here's the photos I took to document the occasion...

The offending candle and glass together for the photo op...

Anyway, that was my fun for the evening. I'm exhausted and as soon as I finish this post I'm heading to bed. I've got a busy day ahead of my after missing Friday. Its regular payroll week for me (I'm in charge of the payroll processing for two clients and they both happen to be on Monday and Tuesday of the same week) and I'm also trying to scramble to get 1099's and W-2's done for multiple clients. I hate payroll returns... Depending on how this week goes, I may work this Saturday, which I would really like to not do yet... As soon as I work my first Saturday, I'll work every Saturday until April 15th...

I'm curious how this tax season will go anyway, as I'm still struggling with stamina after my embolism incident in August... I'll tell that story some day soon... I'm pretty exhausted at the end of the week now and I'm not really working any overtime... So hopefully, I will adjust like usual... Time will tell...

Ok, I feel like this is a super long story about nothing and I still need to unpack my suitcase - which is mostly my entire bathroom - getting ready for a wedding is hard work!!

Starting Out...

So here is the obligatory dumb first entry. If you've found my blog, it is probably because I have been blog stalking you... :)

I've finally decided to start my own because I'm not afraid to put myself out there anymore. If I make some new friends, then that's just a bonus... :)

I'm a single, 28 year old, CPA in Kansas. So yes, I do taxes and no I will not do your return... :) But I may answer an easy question or two...

I like reading a variety of blogs, but am especially attached to the frugal blogs right now... I'm working on paying down debt from college - student loans and credit cards - and reading about other people's progress keeps me motivated.

If you've got any questions, ask away!!