About time...
Things finally started going right again yesterday!
For starters, I got a phone-call from one of the head parts-people at Stens Canada. Stens, and their Canadian branch, are major after-market parts suppliers for small engines and other machines, and they're also the official distributors for Kawasaki and LCT engines. Somewhere along the way, the folks that I have to deal with dropped the ball, and although I was officially registered, I didn't have access to my Stens account. When I sent them an Email about it, I got a reply saying "You don't really need it, it will just tell you what you ordered, and you can do that through us." I thought that was pretty lame, but at the time I left it alone.
When I found out that Sears switched (again) to using LCT Engines on their snow-blowers, and that Stens was the LCT distributor, I double-checked everything and sent another Email to someone a little higher-up in the chain. This time I got results, and the fore-mentioned head parts-guy called me yesterday to give me my account information (Log-In ID and password), explain where and how to find the information I'd likely need, and to apologize for the mix-up! It wasn't his fault, but it was nice to get an apology regardless, and it greatly increases my confidence in the company.
Secondly, trixstir managed to find the missing USB key, and (of course!) that was the one with the oh-so-critical file on it! She says she found it buried under a stack of papers on my desk in the bedroom; I searched that blasted desk, even taking everything off of it to make sure I hadn't buried the darn key. Somehow, I must have missed it. In any case, once I was able to get that file and restore the working file in Quickbooks, I was able to get on with entering the data. I've entered the advertising information, and all of the "Daily Receipts" from 2009. Now there's all the rest of the stuff to enter; things like the Monthly Statements from various suppliers, bank and credit-card statements, and of great importance, the INCOME information! The scary part is seeing the expenses going up and up and up... I've been carrying a lot of the bowling-alley's debt on my personal credit-card, and I think that by the time I'm finished entering all the data, the bowling-alley will owe me enough to completely pay off my Mastercard! The catch is that the bowling-alley doesn't have that kind of cash, so what I need to do is get a business LOC, and pay my personal credit-card off from that, and have the bowling-alley carry its own debt separately.
Third, the storm that was supposed to hit here didn't, mostly. There was some high wind to be sure, but the large amounts of snowfall never happened, so it's all OK for the moment. It's cold, and it's going to get colder, but at least we're not snowed-in (yet)... The animals are all fine, at least the ones that are smart enough to get inside when it snows. That would be the cats and the horses; the dog seems to prefer being outside, even though he's got a perfectly good dog-house to go into. He'll only go in if the weather is truly atrocious, otherwise he sits (or lays) out there getting rained and/or snowed on. Stupid dog...
For starters, I got a phone-call from one of the head parts-people at Stens Canada. Stens, and their Canadian branch, are major after-market parts suppliers for small engines and other machines, and they're also the official distributors for Kawasaki and LCT engines. Somewhere along the way, the folks that I have to deal with dropped the ball, and although I was officially registered, I didn't have access to my Stens account. When I sent them an Email about it, I got a reply saying "You don't really need it, it will just tell you what you ordered, and you can do that through us." I thought that was pretty lame, but at the time I left it alone.
When I found out that Sears switched (again) to using LCT Engines on their snow-blowers, and that Stens was the LCT distributor, I double-checked everything and sent another Email to someone a little higher-up in the chain. This time I got results, and the fore-mentioned head parts-guy called me yesterday to give me my account information (Log-In ID and password), explain where and how to find the information I'd likely need, and to apologize for the mix-up! It wasn't his fault, but it was nice to get an apology regardless, and it greatly increases my confidence in the company.
Secondly, trixstir managed to find the missing USB key, and (of course!) that was the one with the oh-so-critical file on it! She says she found it buried under a stack of papers on my desk in the bedroom; I searched that blasted desk, even taking everything off of it to make sure I hadn't buried the darn key. Somehow, I must have missed it. In any case, once I was able to get that file and restore the working file in Quickbooks, I was able to get on with entering the data. I've entered the advertising information, and all of the "Daily Receipts" from 2009. Now there's all the rest of the stuff to enter; things like the Monthly Statements from various suppliers, bank and credit-card statements, and of great importance, the INCOME information! The scary part is seeing the expenses going up and up and up... I've been carrying a lot of the bowling-alley's debt on my personal credit-card, and I think that by the time I'm finished entering all the data, the bowling-alley will owe me enough to completely pay off my Mastercard! The catch is that the bowling-alley doesn't have that kind of cash, so what I need to do is get a business LOC, and pay my personal credit-card off from that, and have the bowling-alley carry its own debt separately.
Third, the storm that was supposed to hit here didn't, mostly. There was some high wind to be sure, but the large amounts of snowfall never happened, so it's all OK for the moment. It's cold, and it's going to get colder, but at least we're not snowed-in (yet)... The animals are all fine, at least the ones that are smart enough to get inside when it snows. That would be the cats and the horses; the dog seems to prefer being outside, even though he's got a perfectly good dog-house to go into. He'll only go in if the weather is truly atrocious, otherwise he sits (or lays) out there getting rained and/or snowed on. Stupid dog...