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.

Mark Twain. “My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.” [Quotes of the Day]

“It's been a long couple of weeks, what with the end of the ReUSEIT! contest and setting up the judging booths and finding enough old discarded punch ballot voting machines (after several trips to Florida), but the day is here at last: it's time to announce the winners of the ReUSEIT Contest“

A contest to redesign one of the plainest websites out there. I know he is the usability guru but any of the top 10 redesigns would be a more pleasant experience than his current design. All of these redesigns came up quickly for me and I am on dial-up.

A List Apart 164 (double issue). In this week's issue of A List Apart, for people who make websites: RETOOLING SLASHDOT WITH WEB STANDARDS, by Daniel M. Frommel. A look at the markup behind Slashdot.org that demonstrates how simple — and cost-effective — the switch to a standards-compliant Slashdot could be. Plus JAVASCRIPT IMAGE REPLACEMENT by Christian Heilmann. Perhaps it's time to consider the ups and downs of a JavaScript-based alternative to the Fahrner Image Replacement technique. This version uses plain vanilla XHTML with no special IDs or CSS tricks. [Jeffrey Zeldman Presents: The Daily Report]

Two nice and interesting articles about improving web usability.

yesterday.

Letter to Bush

London's Guardian yesterday published a series of open letters to the president from various Englishmen and Americans. Many were hostile–the Guardian is a left-wing paper–but we like this one from novelist Frederick Forsyth (ellipsis in original)

You will find yourself assailed on every hand by some pretty pretentious characters collectively known as the British left. They traditionally believe they have a monopoly on morality and that your recent actions preclude you from the club. You opposed and destroyed the world's most blood-encrusted dictator. This is quite unforgivable.

I beg you to take no notice. The British left intermittently erupts like a pustule upon the buttock of a rather good country. Seventy years ago it opposed mobilisation against Adolf Hitler and worshipped the other genocide, Josef Stalin.

It has marched for Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Andropov. It has slobbered over Ceausescu and Mugabe. It has demonstrated against everything and everyone American for a century. Broadly speaking, it hates your country first, mine second.

Eleven years ago something dreadful happened. Maggie was ousted, Ronald retired, the Berlin wall fell and Gorby abolished communism. All the left's idols fell and its demons retired. For a decade there was nothing really to hate. But thank the Lord for his limitless mercy. Now they can applaud Saddam, Bin Laden, Kim Jong-Il . . . and hate a God-fearing Texan. So hallelujah and have a good time.

Frederick Forsythe
Novelist

[The Braden Files]

Why Caldera Released Unix: A Brief History by Ian F. Darwin — In January, Caldera, the latest owners of the “official” Unix source code, released some of the older versions of Unix under an open source license. Ian Darwin gives the history behind this.

I found this article referenced in the Register. I completely forgot that Caldera set free the old “Unix” and that Linux was created to get around the legal dispute between AT&T, UC, and BSD. If my mind serves me well, the conflict between UC and AT&T centered over each side deriving improved code and how much it looked like the original code. I think they eliminated the copied code as part of the original agreement. I believe that UC/BSD created most of the network communications code that we still use today and that you had to add it to your AT&T unix if you wanted networking. I am not sure what this says about the SCO lawsuits but in my mind it considerably narrows the scope. When you look at the EOLAS and SCO conflicts from a technical standpoint, you have to question whether software patents and copyrights serve the public good. Their technical contributions have been minor but their damage has been great. The issue of derived software code will continue to haunt us as an easy way for lawyers to make money.

“Mourners at a chapel of rest in Belgium were shocked when a mobile phone started ringing inside the coffin. Relatives of Marc Marchal have now lodged a complaint against the undertaker, says Gazet van Antwerpen. Mr Marchal, 32, from Rochefort, died instantly when his motorcycle crashed into a tractor between Rochefort and Saint-Hubert. Because the body was badly mutilated, the undertaker suggested the family say their final farewell with the body already in the coffin. They were all gathered around the coffin at the undertaker's premises on the evening before the funeral when the phone started ringing. Some members of the family were so startled they ran outside while the undertaker had to reopen the coffin to empty the dead man's pockets. The relatives want police to charge the undertaker who they say cannot have prepared the body properly. Story filed: 09:48 Tuesday 18th November 2003“