A miserable Weekend...

As if this work-week wouldn't have had too much excitement and stress. So I was really looking forward to a quiet and realxing weekend. Well the quiet part was the actual easy part when it comes to that particular weekend. But the relaxing part was going to be another story. Since it was going to be 100+ F and that's something that really doesn't happen that often in Vienna. So since I didn't have an aircondition and didn't pay the 400 bucks for a portable aircondition, there was only one thing to do....Just spend all day long on the couch with the fan going and don't move. That way I could deal with the heat. Took Daisy out at 4.30 am on Saturday and it was already almost 90 F. So I knew it was going to be a miserable weekend. Turns out that it wasn't that bad at least not till 3 pm. At that point the apartment has been really heated up. Daisy was just panting and I really did feel bad for her. But there really isn't anything I could do about that. I went into the kitchen to fix my a meat-noodle salad. Only takes 5 minutes, but that was long enough that I could watch myself sweating...and I really hate it.
But it just shows you that as long as you don't move I can deal with the heat. But it certainly isn't any fun. Sunday wasn't much better. Fortunately that heatwave was going to be over by Sunday night. When the temperature dropped into the 70's and I was very happy about that. Hopefully the weather forecast will turn out to be right and it's going to be a much cooler week. Of course as soon as the next weekend arrives the promised us another heatwave of the same magnitide. Can't say that I'm looking forward to that.

Fixing an Accounting Nightmare...

Those of you who read my Blog regularly probably remember that I was having quite an accounting nightmare at my hand regarding this years tax paperwork. Good thing that the Austrian Tax Guys were on vacation for the past 2 weeks so that gave me a little room to breathe. Well that was until I looked at the tax paperwork for the German Sub-Company and realized that I was dealing exactly with the same issues. So I talked it over with the German Tax Guys and the agreed just to disregard the wrong Opening Balance Values. That gave me some time to deal with the issues. It was quite clear that it has to be dealt with otherwise the opening values will never ever be correct. And that means tha we will never ever be albe to lock any business year. And anyone who does anything in the accounting software can screw up already balance business yerars. So the only way was to fix the errors in 2 business years.
Here's in a nutshell what has happened. When entering the values for the opening balance the software enters the opening values in first business year that has not yet been locked. The software does not question if the can be right nor does it does it ask you if you really want to enter the opening values in that specific business year unless you specifically tell the software to enter the opening value in different business year than the first unlocked year. So what happend is that we ended up with entering the opening blance for 2012 into the business year of 2011. No we did have twice the opening blance in 2011 and were missing the opening blanace in 2012. But nobody really realized that, since I'm not really interested in openen values during the year. Those are of interest when I prepare the tax paperwork. And the "fun" of fixing that problem fell to me. Apparently I'm the one who knows the most about the software and has the nerves to start methodically working through that disaster. That's definitely one of the downsides of being an Main-Accountant.
First thing I did is to export the blanace of 2010 into Excel and than imort the data of the official tax paperwork. And then I checked if everything was balanced. It was a reflief to come to the comclusion that this was the case. There was no amount "hanging" on any of the Blanace Transfer Accounts. That told me that I "only" had to correct 2 business years.
Next up was the business year 2011. I exported the balance into Excel and imported the of the official tax paper work. I already knew that this would not be balanced. I even knew what the difference had to be. But somehow it was not going to be that easy. Here's the reason. The difference between what had been entered as Opening Balance and what the Opening Balance should have been according to the official tax paper work has to be exactly the amount that's "hanging" on the Transfer Banlance Account. But that just wasn't the case. So I did what every good accountant does. I kept my calm and controlled one position after the next one until I found the difference. I corrected those errors manually and now the differences were equal. I was happy about that. That meant that I only had to correct the opening blanace for 2011 and that no further action was necessary. Once that was done I checked the blance of the Accounting Software against the official Tax Paperwork and it matched up perfectly. No Difference in any of the Amounts and the Balance Transfer Account was balanced.
After that I moved on to the Business Year 2012. Used the exact same "Battle Plan" and it worked equally well. And yes I was very happy about it as this was really a very nice ending to my work week. Finally the Blanace issues in one Sub-Company are resolved. Next week I will have to deal with those differences in the second Sub-Company.

More Househunting...

Today I left work a little early to continue with the Househunt. I left work around 4 pm to meet up with a real estate agent in Vienn's 10th district. Well the 10th district is not exactly my cup of tea to begin with, but there are certainly areas in the 10th that are OK and that I could live with. Wasn't sure if this apartment would be in such an area and there's only one way to find that out and that's by taking a look at it. I knew that the apartment was near to the parks and recreation areas of Wienerberg and that would defintely be a plus for Daisy. But the apartment is also located between 2 busy roads, what probably makes it a little more noisy than I would like it.
The apartment was located right next to Wienerberg City and that was another plus in my book. The apartment itself was OK. Nothing that would have me knocked off my socks. It's one of those more modern apartments with an average setup, but for some reason it didn't seem to work for me as well as the one apartment I looked at in the 5th district. On the plus side you couldn't hear any traffic noise in the apartment. So it must have a fairly decent sound insulation. OK, as soon as you open the windows you would have to dealt with the traffic noise and that's a big minus especially during summer.
When I walked back to the bus I took a more detailed look at the neigborhood. While Wienerberg City is fine, the neighborhood right across the street is just not my cup of tea. It's that kind of neighborhood that's not exactly desireable as far as I'm concerned. High percentage of public housing, low income families, a too high percentage of foreign citizens and a high percentage of people being out of work. That's not exactly my favorite target neighborhood I want to move into. So I probably won't be putting that apartment on my short list.
But I will keep you guys posted on the househunting progress.

Househunting so far...

This week I had another round of Househunting. Let me bring up to speed. There is currently in my price range a limited number of apartments available in Vienna. Of those apartments only a small number allow dogs or don't want to put entire ludicrous conditons into the retnal agreement. And then there of course is the fact that I have my own set of conditions. The apartment has to have an elevator, it should be 3rd floor and above and the setup of the apartment has to work with my current lifestyle. Big kitchen in a separate room is a waste of space as far as I'm concerned. Just doesn't work for me. So I've been checking the rental apartment sections for month now and there are pretty much the same apartments to choose from. The apartments in Vienna's 6th and 7th district are different, for those you pretty much have to make an offer on the spot or they're gone. So it has been somewhat of a furstrating experience.
This week I took a another look at the one apartment in Vienna's 5th district and I still like the place from the setup and the fact that it does have a outdoor living space. The downside is the fact that it is fairly close to a major road. But considering that you barely can hear any noise and I really could see myself living there. I didn't make an offer on the spot, since I was still waiting to hear back from a couple of other places.
Today I did take a look at an apartment in Vienna's 4th district. The 4th in general is considered a little better than the 5th district. I got their early and it gave me time to walk a little around in the neighborhood. Again one of the bigger roads is close by. Actually the entrance to the building is right on the major road. And it's not that far from the apartment that I was recently looking at in the 5th district. This apartment is fairly quiet since it goes to the inside of the building. But that's where the positive things end. First of all it's located on the 1st floor. So you don't get the amount of sunlight I was looking for. You don't have any outdoor living space. Although it's a nice and new apartment the setup just doesn't work for me. Too many odd angles and I really couldn't see myself living there.
I regularly come back to the apartment in the 5th district that seems at the moment to be working best for me and Daisy. Still haven't made a decision yet, since I'm going to see anothe apartment next week up at Wienerberg, although I'm not a fan of the 10th district at all. But it all depends on the apartment I guess.
But I've set a date. By the beginning of August I will decide what apartment I'm going for. Since I plan on moving by the middle of September. I will definitely keep you guys posted.

A lake in the Apartment...

Since the summer has finally arrived in Vienna and the temps are in the upper 80's to mid 90's it's also the when I sleep with all windows open and the fan running from the time I get back from work until I leave for work again. Living in a penthouse-style apartment means that I have 2 skylights. for most part I do like them...not so much when it rains, since you can't really use them.
So last night I went to bed with all windows open and there was no indication at all that the weather might change during the night. I did hear Daisy come and join me at some point, but that's not that unususal since she has been doing that a lot lately. I did hear some noise, but thought it was coming from the trainstation that isn't too far away. And yes I was still half asleep. But as the night went on I clearly heard some dripping sound. At first I thought it was Daisy cleaning herself. But after a while I looked down and Daisy was sleeping like a log. So I went to investigate. Turns out it had started rainging during the night. Nothing big just your average summer rain. And due to the open skylights there was a puddle in the bathroom and in kitchen. So at 3.30 am I jupmed into action. Closed all the windows and started mopping up the big puddle in the kitchen. And the Shamwow's really came in handy here. They were definitely worth every single sent.
Next up was the bathroom. Again the Shamwow's really did their job. But the shower rug was completely soaked. So I just put it into the shower since at that time of the night I couldn't do anything about it anyways. After that I went back to bed and got some more sleep. After taking Daiys out for her morning walk I decided to just put the shower rug into the washer and put it into the spin circle. Having never done that before the washer first washed the rug for a couple of minutes and the put it into spin mode. Turns out that was not such a bad thing after all since I got all dog hair out of the rug and the rug was pretty much dry. Now I know how the get rid of the dog hair in the future...since Daisy just loves that rug.

When it rains it pours...

You know the old saying "when it rains, it pours"? The same can be said about this years prep work for the tax papers. As if things wouldn't be already difficult enough by themselves...no...on top of that our software is making things even more difficult, by being what can only be described as stubburn and counterproductive.
When I was prepping the paperwork an account called "Misc. Balance Transfer" struck me as particularly odd. This acount is not supposed to be there and there's not suposed to be any amount on that account. Expecially not several hundred grand. But even when I looked into the details I couldn't figure out where that thing really came from. Of course it was clear to me that it could only come from a inblance between Debit and Credit Side. But that really doesn't help a lot. Neiter did that what the software guys told me. What the were telling me is something that I was aware of to begin with. When one of the tax guys what at the office we spent hours looking for that inbalance when it started to hit me what must have happened. When we entered the value for the opening balance we accidentally entered it in the wrong busness year. By the time we did that the previous business year was still open and so teh system automaticlly puts the opening blance into the first open business year, reagardless if it belongs there or not. The only way to avoid that is to either close the old business year first or specifically tell the software to put this opening balance into a different business year.
That's definitely somehting that I hate about our acounting software, since there are quite a number of traps in it. And it always takes hours to figure out what has happened. But all that still doesn't solve the problem. I will have no other choice than to delete all the wrong opening balance entries. Good thing I have an rough idea with that date they had been made. But before I can start deleting entries I have to make sure that the difference between what the opening balance should have been and what the opening blance of the previous business year currently is...is exactly the amount that is right now on the "Misc. Balance Transfer Account". Once I'm certain of that I will have the somewhat questionable fun of making the changes, so that we start the business year that we're currently preparing the tax work for starts with the right opening balance.
That's definitely on of the situations when I hate being an accountant and being quite good at my job, otherwise I would have never ever noticed the problem in the first place.It's bad enough having to do that in 1 sub-company, but I will have to do that in 2. And to give me even way more fun than that alone, it will fall to me closing up all business years in all sub-companies, since it seems that I'm the only one who knows enough about the software to do that. So it will be another 3 or 4 weeks at least until I'll be able to say "the business year finally starts with the right opening balance". So at times accounting can be somewhat of frustrating.