My husband started a company a year and a half ago with a partner. I have sworn up and down since then that I will have nothing to do with their book keeping. I have stood my ground all this time in a show of disdain for their disregard for what my accountant calls “usual and customary accounting practices”. Our dining room table is covered up with paperwork that my incredibly brilliant husband doesn’t know what to do with. He sorts through it, moves it around, stacks it back up and throws away a single piece of paper every two weeks or so.
He and his partner, who lives on the west coast, each have a series of checks from the checkbook and they each write checks. There is no running total. There is no balancing of the checkbook each month. They don’t know whether they are coming or going. It makes me crazy and my husband frustrated and angry. I have told our mutual accountant to stop contacting me about what documents they need. She continues to ignore that request. I have bitched to all my friends about how I had to teach myself some accounting skills when I opened Babette’s and they should give it a try. I have tried to hire a bookkeeper for them. But still my husband moves the piles around and pulls his hair out.
I finally couldn’t stand it anymore and yesterday I broke down and agreed to help. I had to insist that my husband not go up to lake Hartwell and play with his buddies and instead plow through the papers with me. We tracked down information for nineteen independent contractors. He got on the phone with his partner and wrote down each check the partner had written. I recreated his company in my accounting software and entered all the checks, balanced the checkbook, created a P&L.
I had to keep reminding myself of the times he has cleaned Babette’s parking lot, cleaned gutters, mopped up water from broken pipes, answered burglar alarms at 2:00 am and nailed plywood up against broken windows.
It’s done.