Well, today was finally the day that I was going to sign the Lease. For that to happen I had to leave work early, since the appointment was at 4 pm. I left at 3 pm what would have given me enought time to get to Vienna's 1st District, where the branch office to the company managing the building is located. But we all know that things quite often don't work the way as you plan them. And this was just another example. The bus that I had to catch in order to make my appointment didn't come. That's not the firsts time that happens with that particular bus line. So I called a cab instead. I knew that way I would make the appointment, but it would cost me about 20 bucks. But, that's just one of those things that you just have to do. Luckily the cab arrived within 3 minutes and I did make it to my appointment with about 10 minutes to spare. I signed the lease and the addendum allowing me to have dogs at the apartment was part of the Lease. I paid the real estates agent's comission and then I headed with a representative of the company managing the building over for a walk -trough. Everything was as it's supposed to be and as I remembered it. The only thing that hasn't been dealt with is the heater and they've already set up an appointment to have that fixed without costing me a single dime. I don't have to take care of the utilities as that will be done as well by the company managing the apartment. The only thing left to do is for me to switch over my internet provider to the new place and yes the most important thing is to pull off the move.
Still, the new place feels a little smaller as my current one, although they have the same size. But the setup of the nex place just works way better for my current lifestyle. And a big plus is the outdoor living space. OK, it really doesn't have any view but a patio is definitely a plus in my book.
On my way home I called the moving company and booked the moving team for September 16th. Since I don't have any plans of moving a 200 lb washer by myself. And since the offer a fixed rate I had them move the rest of the furniture and the boxes as well. I will be packing all my stuff, but I won't be carrying it down 4 flights of stairs.
Monday, August 26, 2013
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Appointment with my Bank...
Since the troubles with the lease seemed to be dealt with I had to have an appointment with my bank. The trouble is the thing with the security deposit. This has to be at the company managing the building in order to be able to sign the lease. Usually you would just transfer it by online banking. The problem is that the accounting for this building is done in Graz and the branch office in Vienna doesn't have any access to the accounting data. Besides that it would have been a too short time for the deposit to be recorded properly. So your only choice is to make a cash deposit at the bank of the recepient. The thing they want is an official signature from the bank, that the money has been put into their account.
So today I went to the headquarters of my bank and withdrew in cash the security deposit for the new place and the commision for the real estate agent. Withdrawing 5 Grand from your checking account really hurts. Then I went a branch office of the recipients bank and made a cash deposit into their account. Now that has been dealt with there is nothing standing in the way of signing the Lease on the coming Monday.
So today I went to the headquarters of my bank and withdrew in cash the security deposit for the new place and the commision for the real estate agent. Withdrawing 5 Grand from your checking account really hurts. Then I went a branch office of the recipients bank and made a cash deposit into their account. Now that has been dealt with there is nothing standing in the way of signing the Lease on the coming Monday.
Monday, August 19, 2013
Troubles with the Lease...
Today I got a draft of the lease for the new place. Most of it is pretty standard and there really isn't much to it. But there was however one section that definitely wasn't quite the way I wanted and needed it to be. It's the section of keeping animals. While it is standard that you are allowed to keep animls that are being kept in cages dogs and cats are a different thing. That's something that doesn't fall under that clause. And I definitely wanted to have that spelled out in the lease otherweise I was not going to sign it. That I was goign to be allowed to have cats and dogs was something the real eastate agent had promised to me.
So I called the people responsible for the contract. Of course the woman who dealt with this particular contract wasn't available right away. But she did call me back later in the day and we talked it over and she assured me that in the final draft. I made it quite clear that I wouldn't sign this contract unless that is spelled out and that I can not be held responsible if costs should arise because the contract has to be redone. She told me that would be no problem and that the only thing I had to do is to get the security doposit to them in time. So that means that I will be signing the lease for the new place on August 26th.
So I called the people responsible for the contract. Of course the woman who dealt with this particular contract wasn't available right away. But she did call me back later in the day and we talked it over and she assured me that in the final draft. I made it quite clear that I wouldn't sign this contract unless that is spelled out and that I can not be held responsible if costs should arise because the contract has to be redone. She told me that would be no problem and that the only thing I had to do is to get the security doposit to them in time. So that means that I will be signing the lease for the new place on August 26th.
Friday, August 16, 2013
The packing that didn't quite happen...
Since I got the word, that I had gotten the new place in Vienna's 5th district I thought it would b e a good idea to get a head start in the packing. I had gotten several moving boxes on my way home from work. But first I had to make head or tails what can be packed and what has to stay out for the moment. I did pack one box with small kitchen appliances that I'm very unlikely to use during the next few weeks. The next thing was that a lot of my clothes can be packed. But when I looked through them I realized that some of it had been sitting in the closet for about 1 year and it really could use some washing before going into boxes. On top of that the clothes that I don't wear regularly will have to stay in boxes for some times, because I won't ge having a closet space for them right away. So I started with the washing...and that's quite a time consuming process. Although this was a 4-day weekend for me I spent most of the time doing load after load of laundry. So the packing didn't actually quite happen. But I did come up with a "battle plan" in which order things are going to be packed and I figured out what expenses are going to be paid cash or by ATM and what is going to be paid by credit card just in order to have a little financial safety net. After all having to pay for the security deposit, the real eastate agent's comission, fees for the contract my savings is gonna take a very big hit. And it will have to take the hit about 10 days earlier than I would like to. But when all is said and done I will still have about 1 Grand at my disposal. If you're being used to having a savings account with about 7 or 8 Grand...that's not too much, but definitely something I can handle. So certain things in the new apartment will have priority, while others will have to be put in the back burner for now.
I got the Place...
Today I got a call from the real eastate guys that I got the place. I was quite excited as you can imagine. This place will make it for Daisy so much easier. No more walking up and down 4 flights of stairs 3 or 4 times a day. The building I'm moving into has an elevator. Once again it's an apartment on the 4th floor and the setup of the apartment itself works way better for my current lifestyle than the apartment I'm currently living in. The new place is about the same size and it does have a coverd balcony. It's not one of these tiny things that doesn't do you any good to begin with but an outdoor living space of a useable size. Yes the rent is about 100 bucks more of what I'm paying now...but that's just one of the things we do for our furry companions.
So it was a good thing that I picked up some moving boxes at a local hardware store on my way home from work on Wednesday. This beeing a 4-Day Weekend for me gives me time to get the packing started. I will have about 4 weeks before the actual move is gonna happen. So hopefully it won't be getting too stressful.
During the next week I should be getting a draft of the lease and we probably will pick an appointment to sign the lease.
So it was a good thing that I picked up some moving boxes at a local hardware store on my way home from work on Wednesday. This beeing a 4-Day Weekend for me gives me time to get the packing started. I will have about 4 weeks before the actual move is gonna happen. So hopefully it won't be getting too stressful.
During the next week I should be getting a draft of the lease and we probably will pick an appointment to sign the lease.
Friday, August 9, 2013
Round 3 with the Tax Guys...
Today was round 3 with the tax guys. And I knew from the beginning that they would be digging out a ton of stuff. On the other hand it is their job to do that. The point here is not to blame someone, but to point out what's going wrong during the year, what could be done better and how to avoid mistakes like that.
With that being said, I keep a perspective about what they dig out. If that what they find is under 10% of the entries during the year, that would be a normal quote for accounting mistakes. And I woudldn't worry too much about it. But then of course there are those mistakes that are kind embarassing. Payments with missing invoices, invoices numbered wrong or not put in the folders in numerical order, those are unnecessary mistakes. When it comes to some of the accounting errors they are partly due to interpretation. We see it one way and the tax guys see it another way. In the end we have to find common ground and figure out a way how to avoid that in the future. And then there are those things that are clearly worng, because the exenses have been recorded on the wrong accounts and some have been put in the wrong class. Those are the things I was not particularly happy about. Mistakes like that can happen, but it should have occured to my co-worker who prepped that paperwork, that here seems to be something out of order. But he didn't see that and that's actually an embarassment. And it's a given fact if a tax guy findes a couple of unnecessary things than they start to look way more carefully than they would be doing otherwise.
When the tax guys were talking to me, I do agree with them that things like that should not be happening and I try to figure out a way how we could avoid that in the future. Most of the corrections were be given to me, since it is pretty much second nature for me to make those changes. It is immediately clear to me what needs to be done and I've corrected that in no time. My co-worker on the other hand seems to take al long time. It's not quite clear to him what needs to be done. He seems to be slightly confused when he has to correct the amount including the tax, the amount with no tax and when the whole tax needs to be changed and when he just has to record a tax correction. At first it was not quite clear to me why he has problems with that. But it seems to be the way those kids learn accounting these days. They all learn it now on computers and therefore they are missing part of the understanding. I learned accounting on paper and therefore it is clear to me what accounts are being touched when they are recorded, regardless if I physically see them during the process or not. Therefore my understanding of the matter is different as when someone never ever had to do that on paper. And then of course I've been involved with accounting for almost 25 years and I've worked it from many different angles, therefore you have and entirely different understanding of the matter. My co-worker was already so down, that the tax guys and I agreed that I should be doing most of the corrections, otherwise he might think he can't do anything right and might just throw down the towel and quit. The thing I didn't tell my co-worker is that fact that he didn't balance the transfer accounts and that the didn't even attempt to balance the open positions on the liability side and on the outstanding debts. From a accounting point of view it's pretty much a mess. But I didn't tell him that, I figured once we're done with this years tax paperwork I will sit down with him and try to explain to him the proper way to deal with those during the business year and what prep-work has to be done before the tax guys get their hands on it.
Shortly before the work day ended we had a talk about accounting. Turns out that he thought with having attended 5 years of Merchants-Academy he just would sit down do some accounting and it would all be right. And it came as a complete surprise to him that he actually knows very little about the way acoutning is being done in a real company and in real life. And he was really completly down and depressed and he might have realized that he being 22 and coming right from school and having to deal with our somewhat complicated system accountingwise, might not exactly what you call a happy fit. I've known that for some time, but it's not my place to point that out. What I told him is that he needs to give himself time to learn how accounting is being done in real life and that doesn't happen over night. I do hope that I talked him out of quiting, since there were situations during that day when I wasn't sure if he's gonna stay or quit.
With that being said, I keep a perspective about what they dig out. If that what they find is under 10% of the entries during the year, that would be a normal quote for accounting mistakes. And I woudldn't worry too much about it. But then of course there are those mistakes that are kind embarassing. Payments with missing invoices, invoices numbered wrong or not put in the folders in numerical order, those are unnecessary mistakes. When it comes to some of the accounting errors they are partly due to interpretation. We see it one way and the tax guys see it another way. In the end we have to find common ground and figure out a way how to avoid that in the future. And then there are those things that are clearly worng, because the exenses have been recorded on the wrong accounts and some have been put in the wrong class. Those are the things I was not particularly happy about. Mistakes like that can happen, but it should have occured to my co-worker who prepped that paperwork, that here seems to be something out of order. But he didn't see that and that's actually an embarassment. And it's a given fact if a tax guy findes a couple of unnecessary things than they start to look way more carefully than they would be doing otherwise.
When the tax guys were talking to me, I do agree with them that things like that should not be happening and I try to figure out a way how we could avoid that in the future. Most of the corrections were be given to me, since it is pretty much second nature for me to make those changes. It is immediately clear to me what needs to be done and I've corrected that in no time. My co-worker on the other hand seems to take al long time. It's not quite clear to him what needs to be done. He seems to be slightly confused when he has to correct the amount including the tax, the amount with no tax and when the whole tax needs to be changed and when he just has to record a tax correction. At first it was not quite clear to me why he has problems with that. But it seems to be the way those kids learn accounting these days. They all learn it now on computers and therefore they are missing part of the understanding. I learned accounting on paper and therefore it is clear to me what accounts are being touched when they are recorded, regardless if I physically see them during the process or not. Therefore my understanding of the matter is different as when someone never ever had to do that on paper. And then of course I've been involved with accounting for almost 25 years and I've worked it from many different angles, therefore you have and entirely different understanding of the matter. My co-worker was already so down, that the tax guys and I agreed that I should be doing most of the corrections, otherwise he might think he can't do anything right and might just throw down the towel and quit. The thing I didn't tell my co-worker is that fact that he didn't balance the transfer accounts and that the didn't even attempt to balance the open positions on the liability side and on the outstanding debts. From a accounting point of view it's pretty much a mess. But I didn't tell him that, I figured once we're done with this years tax paperwork I will sit down with him and try to explain to him the proper way to deal with those during the business year and what prep-work has to be done before the tax guys get their hands on it.
Shortly before the work day ended we had a talk about accounting. Turns out that he thought with having attended 5 years of Merchants-Academy he just would sit down do some accounting and it would all be right. And it came as a complete surprise to him that he actually knows very little about the way acoutning is being done in a real company and in real life. And he was really completly down and depressed and he might have realized that he being 22 and coming right from school and having to deal with our somewhat complicated system accountingwise, might not exactly what you call a happy fit. I've known that for some time, but it's not my place to point that out. What I told him is that he needs to give himself time to learn how accounting is being done in real life and that doesn't happen over night. I do hope that I talked him out of quiting, since there were situations during that day when I wasn't sure if he's gonna stay or quit.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Meeting with the Tax Guys...
Toaday was the day that I had the meeting with the tax guys. So it was a good thing that I had fixed the accounting nightmare in the Austrian Sub-Company as well. At least for the most part. I was still having an difference of about 80 Grand, but at least it was the difference that I was supposed to have, since I hadn't made those corrections when the official tax paperwork came back. The reason therefore was that it wasn't quite apparent to me what single positions the tax guys had changened. I only knew that they had changed to amount of the liability accounts and I really don't want to makes changes directly in the liability accounts, since that can screw up the amounts and control sum in your accounting software roally.
So I used the same approach to coorrect the problem than I did when adressing the problem in the German Sub-Company. If you want to read more about that just check out the Blog Post: "Fixing and Accounting Nightmare". Luckly I have a great working relation ship with our tax guys.So we talked over the problem right when she got here. I even could explain where the difference came from. And she was fine that I didn't feel comfy to address the issue on my own and so we dealt with the issue together. So we entered the corrections accordingly and we were both sure that now the problem was solved. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that the problem on the Blanace Transfer Account still existed. Neither of us could explain that. So we went back to look things through again. What we didn't realize at the moment is, that when we made the correctins in the previous business year that this would also change the opening values of the business year we're currently working on. It didn't even occur to both of us, since we were that focused on the difference. So I made the necessary correctins in the opening values...and voila...finally the opening values were correct.
I was very happy with that outcome. As far as I'm involved witht the tax work of the Austrian Sub-Company...well that should be it. The rest has to do with what has happened during the year and that's something that my co-worker has to talk over with the tax guys. And we will see if the tax guys are going to say anything to the boss about the my co-workers performance. Let me put it that way, while I do like my co-worker as a person I don't think that he and accounting are a really good match.
So I used the same approach to coorrect the problem than I did when adressing the problem in the German Sub-Company. If you want to read more about that just check out the Blog Post: "Fixing and Accounting Nightmare". Luckly I have a great working relation ship with our tax guys.So we talked over the problem right when she got here. I even could explain where the difference came from. And she was fine that I didn't feel comfy to address the issue on my own and so we dealt with the issue together. So we entered the corrections accordingly and we were both sure that now the problem was solved. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that the problem on the Blanace Transfer Account still existed. Neither of us could explain that. So we went back to look things through again. What we didn't realize at the moment is, that when we made the correctins in the previous business year that this would also change the opening values of the business year we're currently working on. It didn't even occur to both of us, since we were that focused on the difference. So I made the necessary correctins in the opening values...and voila...finally the opening values were correct.
I was very happy with that outcome. As far as I'm involved witht the tax work of the Austrian Sub-Company...well that should be it. The rest has to do with what has happened during the year and that's something that my co-worker has to talk over with the tax guys. And we will see if the tax guys are going to say anything to the boss about the my co-workers performance. Let me put it that way, while I do like my co-worker as a person I don't think that he and accounting are a really good match.
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