My boss is constantly misunderstanding the financial state of our company and I often don't really feel like his daughter, our Sec./Treas. really knows what she's doing most of the time. In fact, it's come to light this year that she barely did anything she should have as far as correctly marking transactions in Quickbooks (we use Premier Ed. 2011). So, our books are basically wrecked and we STILL have an accoutant trying to sort out last year's records, who even told her she should be reconciling it every day with her online bank account, not intending to do it monthly then not actually getting to it all year.

I don't claim to know how to run a business properly, but I'd like to be able to have a realistic idea of what is going on so I can better explain it to them. When I pull an A/P Aging Report for my boss, he tends to OVERLOOK the large 90+ days debt bucket and say "oh, this looks good! These Current and 1-30 totals went down, so to me, that means we don't have new debt!"

To ME, that means that anything that actually didn't get paid yet has shifted over into the next "bucket," and we don't have much new in the 1-30 buckets because we have destroyed our credit accounts with vendors (who are sitting in the 90+ bucket) and CAN'T order materials to show open, current invoices for... and what we HAVE been able to order has been almost entirely via wire transfers, credit cards, etc. so stuff was paid up front and again doesn't show on the report.

I need a really simple, clear way to be able to pull reports for and explain things. I'm not terribly good at reading them myself, especially when I know things are missing (we don't run payroll through quickbooks, so even though I would think payroll entries should still be shown under Salaries for more accurate reports, these still have not been recorded for the year. I am beginning to wonder if I should ask for the responsibility, but I didn't really want to get that deeply into the HR end of things.)

Any help would be sooooo appreciated. Even if it's just to help me figure out how to dumb things down for ALL of us who don't quite know what we're doing. ;)

I can sympathize with the scenario you've painted in this and in your other post; I've seen similar situations far too many times.

Your posts suggest that rather than there being two or three specific things that need to be fixed or tweaked, the real answer is more a matter of a broad overhaul of accounting procedures, inventory and billing procedures, and reporting issues.

If so, it's logical to look first to the company's accountant. You mentioned that the accountant is elbow-deep in trying to straighten out last year's mess, but s/he should also be working with you to develop better bookkeeping methodologies and internal reports for going-forward purposes. Otherwise, s/he'll just be back next year, sorting out this year's mess. (If there's a company to come back to; a dubious prospect if that AP aging schedule continues to deteriorate.)

On a separate note, if your spreadsheet skills are somewhat advanced (specifically, with respect to array formulas and built-in database functions), you could probably significantly automate a good deal of your inventory and/or billing work, with Excel or any other similar SS package. It sounds like this would represent a nice step forward from how it's presently being handled, in terms of both efficiency and accuracy. Before you take that plunge, though, get your accountant's take on the matter; it might be that it'd be more cost-effective to leverage QB's built-in capabilities for this.

In the meantime (with respect to the AP aging report and your boss's rose-tinted goggles), your analysis of the declining situation with the vendors, and not his, is the correct one. You may just have to take a firmer hand and not allow him to continue to overlook the crumbling story being told so clearly by the reports. If the company's still in operation twelve months from now, he'll have you to thank.

Thank you so much for your answer, and your sympathy. :) This has been a major struggle for me and if I didn't honestly care so much about the people I work with/for... well, I wouldn't be here asking for help, I'd have found a different job a long time ago. I'm honestly surprised the company is still floundering along... apparently there have been struggles all along, though the past year or so have been really bad.

I believe you are right and that I should try to talk with our accountant... he's already told me a few things that I hadn't known, that have helped cut back on some of my time. I think part of my problem is that I feel so overwhelmed with all that I have to do and that none of it is efficient, but I fall into the vicious trap of just not having time to revamp the whole system after taking time to learn everything... so I piecemeal it together as I come up with things, and just make it work. I actually told the Sec/Treas yesterday after posting my question that I wanted to work with the accountant so at least MY end of things are straight, and maybe I can pick up some things to keep an eye out on the stuff she should be doing too.

My spreadsheet skills are not too bad. I don't know much about the array/database functions, but at least you've given me a starting point. I'll definitely check with the accountant, and we are also going to make some IT changes here fairly soon... there's talk of some kind of database for all this, so maybe that will make things a bit easier.

It's a very, very difficult position for me to be in because my boss (and his rosy glasses) is continually making excuses for his daughter to not do her job because of all the stress she has... but a good half of her stress could have been alleviated by actually doing a few hours of work each week instead of her running off to Europe for vacation during one of our most disastrous quarters. And I'm sorry for her marital issues, but... :( I know... there's nothing anyone can do about that, I just needed to vent. It bothers me a lot. If it were me, I think I would be worried about the state of the company instead of, for instance, getting late fees and overdraft charges all over the place due to negligent money management and transfers between accounts. It's frustrating, and I constantly feel like "Well, it must be nice to be able to place your collapsing business behind your personal issues and vacations." :(

Thank you again--you've helped me cool down a lot, and I appreciate it. Venting helps!

~ tmk