Well maybe just a wrap-up for NOW. Maybe I’ll bang on this drum more, later. I don’t know enough about John’s business to argue with him further. 400 journal entries a year sounds like <10 a week to me, which is less than an hour a week. But if an hour a week is more […]
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Do Your Own Books – Wrap Up
02-Jan-13I’m working on a couple of tech interview questions and I’m looking to test them on people — ideally, people who do tech hiring and project management work. So if you want to read my tech interview questions and give me feedback on whether they’ll help me find the people I’m looking for, please comment […]
How to do tiny-business payroll quickly; calculate once a year and then spend five minutes a month writing checks. Also: Newton’s method applied to payroll deductions!
In response to my earlier post, John writes: That works for single owner /employee businesses, but I’ve found it gets harder as you scale up. (either more owners or more employees). Aren’t payroll checks their own nightmare? It does get harder as you scale up. This is “Sam’s business advice – tiny business edition”: when […]
Do Your Own Books – You Are Responsible
30-Dec-12You’re responsible for paying your taxes. Seems simple, right? Nobody else can be responsible, so it has to be you. Unfortunately this means you better stay on top of how much you’ve made and how much you owe. The nice folks at the IRS and CRA (Canada Revenue Agency) — and in my experience, they’re […]
More Cthulhu-mas Hymns
29-Dec-12To the tune of “Joy to the World” At the End of the World, Cthulhu will rise From sunken R’lyeh And he will eat all of us (And he will eat all of us) He’ll eat us up every one (He’ll eat us up every one) And if you are lucky, he’ll eat you first […]
Do Your Own Books
29-Dec-12If you are self-employed or run a tiny business, you will have to ensure a certain amount of bookkeeping gets done. The traditional approach is to stuff everything into a folder or envelope (bank statements, Staples receipts, check stubs, deposit slips..) and give it, sheepishly, to your hired bookkeeper/accountant at the end of the year. […]
Eat the Frog
28-Dec-12“If you eat a frog, first thing in the morning, nothing you do that day could be less pleasant than that.” This is supposed to be motivational? Motivation is a weird thing. You decide you want to do something, and yet you find yourself not getting it done. So there grows an entire industry devoted […]
Sysadmin Haiku
16-Dec-12Yo, OS Vendors — I hate you all equally; Satan knows his own.
War on Drugs Over – Drugs Win
15-Dec-12News like this makes me glad I don’t bank with HSBC… Even if you actively collude with the people at the very top of the international narcotics trade, your punishment will be far smaller than that of the person at the very bottom of the world drug pyramid. You will be treated with more deference […]