Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

It's always something, isn't it? I'm getting excited about my trip to see friends. I'm also counting on the income from my second job to help "pay" for part of the trip and to help me budget for it. I did some figure juggling last week and it looked like I could swing this trip by creative budgeting of my two jobs and only a slight dip into my income tax refund. I'd like to NOT use my tax refund unless I really have to and pop ALL of it into my E Fund. The tax refund is my "back up funding" for the trip. Except that I may not be getting a pay check until I leave for the trip or while I'm away.

Seems the person at the barn who is supposed to help with the book keeping upped, quit and never updated the payroll log or the Accounts Payable books. The books are in a bit of mess, deposits credited to wrong accounts, checks not written, invoices not sent out, and bills stacking up. I get paid once a month and was expecting a check last week. I did not get it and the staff that gets paid twice a month all said their checks were incorrect; some paid far too much, some not at all. I feel like its Deja Vu all over again.

At my primary job we had a similar thing happen, but just with our petty cash account. That time I was the one who had to go back into 16 months of checking account statements and reconcile the reports. No money was missing, just lazy book keeping and me spending a lot of time re-organizing the reports in Quicken at one third the price of our office CPA firm.

The person at the barn who was supposed to be the part time "office manager" seemed to have some sort of a breakdown/meltdown. The trainer I work for had an "attack" so to speak. I can't blame him, but you know, it's not my responsibility to do this work and I'm a little annoyed that my pay is going to be delayed up to two weeks, especially since I only get paid once a month. My boss did call a staff meeting to tell the staff that the payroll cycle would be "out of sync" for a week or two (more like two), but all hours would be properly credited and paid out. He asked that we be patient, he apologized for the errors on staff pay, he explained that the mix up was temporary, the barn was not going broke, he just need to get the book keeping on track and this issue would not be repeated.

His wife is actually very good at this sort of thing and has agreed to take a few vacation days to help sort this out. In fact, she used to do the billing until she got a job in the private sector to take advantage of perks like employer paid health care and a 401K. The biggest problem is many of the clients have not been billed for services rendered for two months. This means two months of bills will be going out with an apologetic letter for the late billing while still essentially asking for prompt payment. It means the trainer and his wife have been making phone calls asking for duplicate invoices and payment histories to make sure that their vendors have been paid properly and explaining that their book keeper quit without updating the files.

I can see where he is coming from, before he can pay staff and vendors, you need cash in hand. I don't have first hand knowledge of the barns cash flow, but probably if they were to pay all the invoices and payroll, it would dramatically decrease. I do know that they do have cash, but they want to make sure they have enough cash in the account.

Sigh, this is supposed to be a temporary glitch, but I really would have liked to have had the cash in hand this week. I wanted to put the money in my acccount and be able to board the plane with a free and clear mind. I'm hoping I get it next week. Two steps forward, one step back.