“There's a traditional definition of a shyster: a lawyer who, when the law is against him, pounds on the facts; when the facts are against him, pounds on the law; and when both the facts and the law are against him, pounds on the table. The SCO Group's continuing attempts to increase its market value at the expense of free software developers, distributors and users through outlandish legal theories and unsubstantiated factual claims show that the old saying hasn't lost its relevance. “

If you are into SCO watching this article is a bash… oops I mean blast.

I got a nice comment from someone who offered to provide me some help with importing the lists (Accounts, Customers, Vendors) and their balances into QB. Getting Accounts, Customers, and Vendors into QuickBooks is the easy part. That reminded me that I needed to write a progress report to remind my of my thought process but where I have been. I'm getting to old to remember everything and sure do not want to invent this wheel twice.

Strategy

Since this is a small project my strategy is to bulk load the data and see what problems show up. So I used Peachtree to create spreadsheets of the customers and vendors.

What's Done

1. I created a new company file with a  UCOA Chart of Accounts recommended by Intuit.
2. I imported the customers using an Excel spreadsheet.
3. I imported the vendors using an Excel spreadsheet.
4. I imported the item list from HfHI.
5. I manually entered the three estimates.
6. I manually entered the three employees.

Work that still remains

1. Import bills
2. Import bill-payments
3. Link bills to bill-payments
4. Manually enter payroll checks.
5. Import or manually enter miscellanous general ledger entries

The biggest number of transactions is in bills and bill-payments. I have been evaluating an Excel addin by Big Red Consulting. It sounds like it should do the job but it gave me a problem with the imported lists. Since I will have to re-code a bunch of transactions I really want to be confident that the data validation is working correctly. I understand that QB is not very nice if your data is not clean. Since it does not look like a big job I am looking at coding up my own spreadsheet and macro for the two transaction types.

I met with the treasurer for our local Habitat for Humanity affiliate and we agreed that we needed to migrate to QuickBooks before the year end. He wanted a plan and a schedule and I volunteered to create one after I completed a little more research. Before I can create a project plan I thought I would write a goals and benefits statement so I can make sure I focus on the right stuff.

Project Goals and Benefits

The primary goal is to improve the financial reporting and the way we implement our financial policies. Habitat for Humanity International(HfHI) recommends using QuickBooks and has created a variety of helpful documents on using QuickBooks to manage a local affiliates finances. They also recommend using their chart of accounts. The combination of HfHI recommending and supporting QuickBooks makes a pretty persuasive case for change if you are having any problems. HfHI recommends a chart of accounts that is slightly different than the Unified Chart of Accounts(UCOA) recommended by Intuit. I believe the Quickbooks builtin reports probably work best with the UCOA. A slight modification of the UCOA accounts to accommodate the needs of HfH accounting would probably be the best plan. According to information I have read on the information on the Nation Center Charitable Statistics site and it appears likely that this will be the best way to file tax returns electonically.

Problems with Peachtree, Habitrax, and implementing existing financial policies

Despite having several years experience using Peachtree this local affiliate appears to be using it as an expensive checkbook. Peachtree has reports but no one is using them. The financial and management reporting is practically non-existent. Habitrax is a program provided by HfHI to serve as a subsidiary ledger to track donations and mortgages. With the current version of QuickBooks donation tracking is probably best accomplished in QuickBooks. Mortgage and escrows are a mess. There appears to be too many Excel spreadsheets and manual files necessary to keep this system running and to overcome deficiencies.

Thomas Szasz. “Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults.” [Quotes of the Day]

This quote made me think of Erma Bombeck's book, The Grass Is Always Greener over the Septic Tank.