Today is the 15th. In my world that means payroll. The 1st and the 15th are payroll, no matter the day of the week or holiday status- since our clinic is open nights, weekends and holidays (it's an animal emergency clinic) I figure the employees need to get paid on time whether or not they can take their checks to the bank right then.
It's a little thing that comes from my years as being lower down on the food chain.
Because now I'm about 4 links up from the bottom.
Another 796 to go...
Anyway, payroll takes about 30 minutes, give or take. This depends on if everyone remembered to use the time clock to clock in, then I don't have to manually add up hours. Also if there's no holiday involved, because then I have to separate regular from holiday and re-add. Whatever. Less than an hour, absolutely.
I tell folks I'll have payroll out by 3pm.
So I got here about 1:45- shoulda been no problem.
Plenty of time.
(let me insert that Joe was going to come into town, take me to late lunch and then to Home Depot to get some porch supplies for Ward and Alec to get started on tomorrow. I had told him I wasn't sure of when I'd be ready- I'd CALL HIM TO TELL HIM WHEN TO COME IN)
Logged onto Quickbooks (hereafter referred to as "the devil").
A little notice popped up- one I've seen a few times in the last month, reminding me that I've got till April 25th to renew my payroll services and till June 1st to update to "the devil" 2013 as my "the devil" 2010 will no longer be supported after that.
Plenty of time.
Got my timecards in order and proceeded to enter the first employee's info.
Strange. There were no taxes taken out.
A new little notice popped up saying, "We're sorry- your payroll subscription expired 3/13/13". That's that thing they were telling me I had till April 25th to renew. And they took out taxes both on 3/15 AND 4/1.
So I "click(ed) here for more info"
Said I needed up upgrade to Quickbooks 2013 to continue.
So I did.
For $199.
Said, "This download will take approximately 2 hours".
Fucktabulous.
So I did some filing and some banking and other work-related stuff while waiting.
(Roughly 1/4 of the way through this- Joe showed up. He figured he'd just come on in and wait the few minutes it would be till I was ready. Fool.)
Two hours later, I was done. It said, "Please backup your files onto an external media before proceeding".
OK- smart. It takes me about 3 minutes to do the bookkeeper's backup every month.
45 minutes later...
"Congratulations! Now click "next" to install "the devil" 2013 onto your computer. This may take up to 20 minutes".
Seriously.
(At this point, Joe turned off his truck, which had been running right outside my office window. No stress or pressure THERE.)
"Welcome to "the devil" 2013! Do you want to see all the new ways we have made your life easier?"
No. No I did not. I had seen enough.
I opened the program, found the payroll stuff and entered the first employee's information.
There were no taxes taken out.
A little notice popped up saying, "We're sorry- your payroll subscription expired 3/13/13".
Oh, hell no.
(Joe made the almost-fatal mistake of poking his head in and asking me "How much longer, honey?")
So I called customer support, and waited on hold for 10 minutes after running the pressing numbers gauntlet.
Seems the credit card on file was declined. On accounta it was expired. So I gave them the new expiration date and asked how much this was going to be. $400.
I told him good luck with that.
Because even though there was plenty of money in the account, I'd just spent $199 upgrading to "the devil" 2013 and there's a limit of $500 day charges on a debit card and it was now 6:15pm and no one was at the bank to raise the limit for me.
The bold lettering indicates where I was perhaps speaking more loudly than usual into the phone.
So I took out my own damn debit card and paid the $400 so I could run the damn payroll.
And we got lunch at 7:45pm.
And it was delicious.
On the way home, I'll be getting a bottle of wine.
And a straw.
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