I’ve never been accused of being an accountant. No on has ever hinted that they needed my advice around tax time. Balance my checkbook? Hah! I’m lucky if I can even find my checkbook. So imagine my reaction when I was bestowed with the prestigious title, ‘Credit Manager’ at my new job. Did I apply for this position? Nope. Did I have experience in this field? Nada. Did this company realize they were founding their demise? Probably – but hey! Who cares?! It’s my latest resume builder. (And no, I really didn’t ‘Win the Lottery’. But would YOU have read an article entitled, ‘Accounting 101’? That’s what I thought.)
So I am officially in charge of a company’s finances. You should have heard the groans and seen the eyes roll when my immediate family learned the latest scoop. ‘Do they realize what they’re doing?’ ‘Do they know you try to spend Canadian coins?’ ‘Are they aware that you think Monopoly money is real?’ And so the list goes on.
To make matters worse – I am not only Accounts Payable – but also Accounts Receivable. When clients call to tell me they can’t pay their bill, I give them a break. They don’t really need to pay their tab by the 15th. What’s a few months? Give ëem a break, I say! I just don’t understand why my vendors don’t have the same understanding with my payments to them. So they didn’t get their check on the 30th – of this month, that is. October, November – what’s the difference? They both fall in Autumn. Don’t I get a discount for trying? It’s not really my fault – they also put me in charge of checkwriting. Even I cringe at that one. My first check run was a total of 25 checks in the sum of nearly $27,000. Naturally, I didn’t get it right the first time. Or the second time. Or even the third time. Nearly 100 voided checks later, I was ready to submit my printed checks for signing. Of course – the checks went out 6 days late. In my book, that’s remarkable timing. In everyone else’s book – it stinks. I tried to change the date on the checks so I could claim they ‘got lost in the mail’. And I even tried the old ‘I won the Lottery, and the check is in the mail’ trick. Let me give you a small suggestion – don’t EVER try this trick at home, kids. It produces plenty of smoke and fire.
As I closed out my very first month in my new esteemed position, I wonder how I ever managed to get by without balancing my checkbook. I’m getting pretty savvy with techniques such as invoicing, balancing and payables. And I’m halfway through my reading of ‘Accounting for Dummies’. But the bottom line is – if I can’t do it – I bet H&R Block can. Can you say ‘Clearing Expense’?! Sure, I knew you could.
