Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Working together in business - part 2

In another post I talking about the challenges of working with your spouse. I mentioned that we were unable to resolve an issue around QuickBooks. My wife has an accounting background but really is computer challenged. In China she did all her accounting manually - even using an abacus when she first started in the 90's (this was not unusual for Communist countries - when I went to Russia in 1997 there were no computers and the Court Reporter sowed our documents together because there were no staplers).

I made several veiled threats to hire an accountant if she would not enter the data - that really made her mad and it had become a big source of conflict in our marriage. Finally this weekend I just decided to do it myself, even though I am clueless about accounting. Fortunately, my wife could not bear to see me screwing up the accounts and she decided to sit in front of the computer and start entering the data. Even though she had taken a QuickBooks course, she struggled trying to understand the software. I was able to help her in this respect and over the course of the weekend we were able to make substantial progress. She gained some confidence in her ability to use the software which was really the hangup in not entering the data.

Sometimes when working with a spouse it is not immediately obvious why the other is not doing something or doing it differently than you desire. The solution might not be obvious but fortunately, if you are committed to each other and the business, you can find a way to resolve the issue.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

05/29/07
At least that's a start; you're also going to need a CPA and a lawyer, as you're going to have (hopefully) closings and other legal matters, plus if you persuade people to invest IRA holdings or other retirement monies, you're going to get sued at some point. You need people to represent your interest only. Yes, you can do it, but it's false economy.A CPA can save you thousands of tax dollars.

Paul said...

Unfortunately, I have already been sued back in the early 80's over a real estate transaction. After a year the Realtor found my disclosure statement and had proof that the buyer had seen it. But it cost me lots to fight it.