Control Appointment at Lorenz-Böhler UKH...

Today I was having my control appointment at Lorenz-Böhler UKH. So I called at work that I would be coming in late. Then I headed to the S-Train station and...surprise, surprise...No S-Trains were going that day due to some construction work. So after thinking things trough and figuring out that there's no way that I can make it to appointment in time...I decided to take a cab instead. So I was only 5 minutes behind schedule, what wasn't too bad.
Again I didn't have to wait long and it turns out that everything is looking good and that I am not developing an compartmen hemorrhage. And I was very relieved about that. After my control appointment I took the bus and the subway to work.
But of course sitting all day with an recently insured leg wasn't exactly fun either. But you do what you have to. Bitting your teeth together and making it through the work day.
After work I went to the local police precinct and filed criminal charges against the owner of those farm animals. Later that evening I emailed my laywer a copy of the police report and ordered him to sue the famer for punitive damages.

Recovering from the Bull Attack...

When Gina and I got back from our hike. I just got out of my clothes and fed Gina. I cleaned my wounds up as good as I could. It was a little to early to put Bepanten on the cuts, since they weren't entire dry yet. But I did put Traumeel on the contusions.
I then ussed 2 of the pillows of my couch to rest my leg and that was actually quite comfy. I later ordered pizza, since I was in need of some comfort food. And after a couple of beer and some Star Trek I was feeling OK. Didn't think that it would be mucch of a problem. Of course I knew that these injuries would be hurting for a week at least. But other than that I thought it was OK. Boy, was I wrong.
I slept the night with my leg elevated on the couch. And when I looked the next morning my calf was quite swollen. But not too bad since I still could take Gina for a walk around the block. So I continued to relax. I did iron my business shirts. But as longer as the day went on the worse my calf got. In the afternoon it was about twice the size of my other calf and I had a hard time walking.

So a called a cab and went into the ER of Lorenz-Böhler hospital. Luckily I didn't have to wait long. Less than 20 minutes. They took x-rays. And turns out that nothing was broken. Just superficial scratches and some heavy contusions. And the only thing you can do is put ice on the swollen claf and put Bepanthen on the cuts to support the healing process. But they told me to come in the next moring for a check-up, just to make sure that I wasn't going to develp an compartment hemorrhage. This time I did take the S-Train back to my apartment.

Hiking Rax...

Today I was going to take Gina for a hike to Rax. When we got up in the morning the weather wasn't exactly good. It was really overcast and still wet from last nights rain. But it was supposed to clear up in the morning. So w were still hopeful.
After taking Gina for a quick morning stroll and having a quick bite to eat. We head to Vienna's central station and catch the train Wiener Neustadt. From there we took a local train to Payerbach and the bus to the staation of the Rax gondola. We didn't catch the first gondola. But were taking the second one. With their new ticket system everything took longer than usual. While heading up it started to rain again. Not heavy though. When we got out it was overcast and windy and actually anything but warm. But it had stopped raining. When headed out towards Ottohaus and the temps where around 14 C (55 F). But it was actually a great temperature for hiking. This was until we reached Ottohaus.
There it satrted to rain. But I wasn't going to give up that easily. So I put on my rain gear and we started hiking up Jakobskogel. But with the rain comming down and a the wind blowing with gusts up to 60 km/h (45 miles) you really get the rain hard in your face. Definitely nothing for weenies. Gina wan't particularly fond of the rain either. After we passed Jakoskogel about 1/2 hour after Ottohaus the rain stopped and we got some great views since the wind was driving the clouds over the edge of the mountain plateau. Yes of course we did get wet and dirty at the same time. But on the other hand we did see some mountain goeats very close buy and Gina got quite excited and really
wanted to chase after them. But that was not going to happen. So I let the mountain goeats pass and we continued on our hike at Preinerwandsteig. It's a great hiking trail that takes you all the time along the edge of the mountain plateau.

This was the first time in a very long time that I kept my rain jacket on during the entire hike, since the wind was blowing hard and it was quite chilly actually.
After about 2 hours we reached the "summit" of Preinerwand. After taking some pix and having a little snack we headed down to Neue Seehütte. We didn't stop there. At the intersection I debated about how to continue. The original plan was the hike down Göbel-Kühn Steig. But since it was only 11 am, I figured we could easly hike over to Ludwighaus and down to Preiner Gscheid.
Turns is this would proove to be a very big mistake. Hiking up Trinksteinsattel in the sun and without any breeze was hot and exhausting as usual. Once we had finished the ascend we headed towards Ludwighaus. That only went well for a very short time. There we our way got blocked by a herd of cattle. That usually isn't an issue. Except for that one bull who went after me a couple of times. I yelled a couple of times at him and it seemes that he was going to back off. I had already planned to remove myself from the situation and take an alternate route.

When the bull came back and tried to attack Gina. I protected her with my body and confronted the bull again. Again it looked like as if he were backing down and I slowly started to remove myself, when without any warning he attcked me trampled me down. Good thing that Gina was cowering in a one of the many tiny gullies. So nothing happened to her. I just got trampled really good. But it actually didn't hurt at that time. I yelled again at the bull and threw a few bolders at him. That made him back off for a short time. This gave me time enough to walk straight into a couple of outcroppings of maintain pines. And I know that cattle doesn't walk into them. After that I continued straight into the rocks. And with that we were pretty much out of danger.
I decided to head back down to Neue Seehütte and while hiking down I realized that stepping down was getting hard on harder on my claves, where the bull had trampled me. But we made it slowly down. I did have a beer at Neue Seehütte and Gina got to relax in the shade.
While heading back to the gondola we got to see a chopper ruscue life. Turns out that the had to pull a woman out with the chopper after she had gotten unconcious after having been attacked by the same bull, that Gina and I had been attacked. That was the point when I decided that I would be filing criminal charges against the owner of those animals. But watching a chopper rescue in the mountains is always amazing to watch.
After that we headed back to the gondola and took the gondola back down and headed back home. So this hike didn't quite turn out the way I had planned.

Monthly Tax Season....

It's time of the month again...that makes us accountants busy and sometimes stressed out. Especially when we have to prepare to send the report of the VAT (value added tax) to the government. It's always a partially stressfuld day when I have to do that. And having to deal with a new software didn't exactly help either.
I started with my check of all the accounts in question. After all you want to make certain that everything has been recorded properly. YOu don't look at every invoice, but you look over the accounts and do your cample tests. The point is to weed everything out that looks out of order. I found 2 such items and corrected them right away. And than there are those things that look out of order, but are actually correct.
Then I did a second pass over the accounts together with our tax guy through an online video conference. And everything seemd to be fine. Than I submitted the report online to the government. The only thing left to do was to record the payment in the online banking App. Once that was done I was quite relieved and the fact taht I was done by 11 am made me happy.
NExt up had to do the closing work of the cash register from yesterday, since I had gone home without doing that. Usually I wouldn't be doing that, but since I'm the only one who knows how to use that thing it wasn't a big deal. I did the closing work and everything went without a problem. Seems slowly I'm getting a hang of this new piece of software, but I'm still not an actual fan of having to do it that way. And my opinion about the whole policy of the government regard to cash registers is very known. I think that policy is a lot of administrative work and won't bring much, at least niot as much as the government is hoping for.
After that I recorded a couple of invoices that still have to be recorded in June. That was pretty much a fun work to do and you don't have to think too much, when doing that.
Next up was something that has to do with the year-end tax work in December. But we want to have done before we sill be switching our accounting software by Mid-July. So I had to go trough a buch on invoices and decide if that is a new product or an existing one. If it was a new product it needs to be "activated" and it will be written off over the actual life cycle of the product. Of course that can be a pain in the ass, but on the other hand it's something you don't get to do that often and for an accountant that can actually be a fun calculation. And yes, I do kinda enjoy that. The reason is mostly that you really have to use your brain and your knowledge and think things through on how that effects the expense to casho flow ratio.
And of course doing complicated work like that you can be pretty much certain that nobody is going to bother you. And at times I really enjoy doing complicated stuff like that. So all in all it was a fairly successful day and much different from yesterday.

A full, rich day...

That's the only way I can desribe today's day at work. I knew that we would have to prepare the cash register for real-live use. But before that could happen we had to help my co-worker who had fallen behind with the merchandise orders. Having to do it in a new system takes of course substantially longer, at least in the beginning. And she was with us in the business meeting with us and that didn't exactly help either.
So of course I offered to help her. The first couple of orders weree all standard and there were no problems with them. But as soon as it came to orders with mechandise discounts, I screwed up royally. The sales representative called me up and told me about the mistake. I immedialely realized my mistake. I was still with my head in the way we used to do it in the old syste, and the new system just workds differently. Since the orders had already gone to your logistics centre I tried to fix it with a shrot email. Than I realized that wasn't gonna solve the issue. So I canceld those 4 orders. Right in the middle when I was doing that, the logistic center called. the CFO gave the call to me and I told them, not to send out the merchandise and that that would be receiving a cancelation of the delivery notes and that they would be getting new delivery notes.
After that I cancelled all the delivery notes and redid them completely again. It goes without saying that this really increased my stress level substantially, although none of my co-worker would have been able to tell that. But in the end I succeeded fixing my screw-up.
Next I had to deal with paying outstanding vendor invoices. That was pretty much straingt forward. At least so I thought. But my old software just decided to quit on me while I was doing that and it took me about 15 minutes to get back to where I was. And than I had to do the entire thing of course over again. Didn't make me a happy camper. But in the end I succeeded. The entire thing had to be done today, since the CFO was going on a 2-day vacation the next day.
Up next was the cash register. The CFO had delegated the responsibility for all things regard the cash register itself and the implementation the new software to me. Not that I mind additional responsibilities, but having to do that within a couple hours...can be a little stressful. At first I recorded the previous month in the old software and it worked without a hitch. And I had accounted for the 1 cent difference in no time.
Next up was the opening balance in the new software. This was pretty much straingt forward. I entered it and saved the information. If the date should be flawed for some reason , I don't have the slightest clue on how to fix that. I was ready to lean back and go home. But the devil never sleeps, does he? Nope, he doesn't. What you know, a customer showes up at 5.10 pm and want's to buy merchandise. So we have to enter it in the new system. And nobody has even done a real-live test with it so far. And the support-hotline of the software has already gone home. I thought, great...just what I need. So I fire up the software and start entering the date. Luckily I had tested that during the test phase. But of course I didn't work the way I planned it. Than I realized that with that customer the price-list that has to be used hasn't been saved. But that was a very easy fix. From that point on it was pretty much straigtr forward. Until to the point where the payment had been recorded in the software. The most important thing is, that an invoice comes out of the printer, because that's a must-requirement of the government and the punishment for not doing so can be quite expensive. But nothing happens...at least at first. I thought...oh fuck, what I'm gonna do now...but than the printer started to print out the invoice. And than I remembered, that it took a little longer to print the invoice from the cash register over the WIFI connection. In the end it worked out without problems.
But that time I juset packed up and went home. I really didn't want to deal with any new problems that could be arising. While I was on my way home, Something about the opening balance of the cash register kept bothering me. Yes I did enter the value I was given my the CFO, but for some reason I dodn't think that was right. But I was mentally so dead at that time, that I couldn't think logically anymore. And there wouldn't have been anything I could have done anyways. So I tried to put it out of my hand...with rather less success. So I picked up a good bottle of red wine on my way home. That should definitely get me down from my stress level and should help me relax.

A day-long business meeting...

Well, today was our last business meeting with the guy from BMD. The system is already running live since July 1st. So far with fairly little trouble. But on the ohter hand right now only the side of the merchandise management is running live. The switch from our old accounting system to BMD will start in about 3 weeks from now.
But there still were quite a number of minor issues to address. And of course having worked live on the system, there had been quite some question as well. Most of the question were easyily onswered by the guy from BMD. But other issues that are a little more complex couldn't be solved right away. Especially when it comes to administration of inventory and how any change there will affect values in accounting that is quite difficult, since you have to think it trough on the side on the side of the merchandise administration, and than think it trough on the side of accounting. And only after that you can make the appropriate corrections. And it takes usually 2 or 3 guys to think that trough, since that is a very complex subject. And when doing a correction it's very often that it turns out that you made the correction in the wrong direction, then you've to reverse the change and make the appropriate change. And it was no different in that situation. But in the end we managed that make everything right.
In the end I did have a couple of minor issues with the system. It had mostly to do with software permissions. Of course there would have been a workaround, but that's not very effictive and can be a pain in the ass. But in the end I got the appropriate permission, except one. That will have to be addressed at a later point.
Next up were some questions about the electronic cash register, since that will be required by law. We had to change around the layout of the printout form. Than I had some questions about certain implications. The BMD guy answered most of my questions. But of course none of us had tried the cash register in real live. I did familiarize myself with it during the test phase, and it really isn't that difficult. But of course the test phase is no real-live testing. It will be interesting when we have to use that thing for the first time in real live. And most likely it will be up to me to deal with the cash register. The one thing that is certain, due to government regulations you can only make the opening balance in the cash register once. If anything should go wrong there, well there's no easy way to fix that. It's definitely gonna be interesting.

BMD is going live...

Well, today was the day that we'd be making the switch to BMD. And the new software was going live for the first time. We were omly 3 people in the office today. The CFO, my co-worker who deals usually with merchandiese orders and myself. Having been trough several software changes in my professional life, I was prepared for some rough time.
At first it was no problem at all and we bounced knowledge off each other to come to the reight solution. But the positive vibe didn't last for long. My coworker came ofer that she couldn't print out an inoice. When we checked her laptop it appeared that your software had crashed. So we restarted that thing again. To no avail. We still couldn't print the invocie. So we called tech support...and after going trough several calles, we learned that if something like that happens, the software puts into this order a lock-information, so that the whole process involved can't "run down" twice. That is quite essential actually. But of course having something like that happen to you, is a pain in the ass. But we learned that there was a very quick way to remove that lock-information and continue working on the order. We were very happy about that. And from that point on the mercahndise adminstration worked pretty much without any problems.