Welcome to DiVITA Speaks!!

Angels Among Us

By Chloe DiVita

Wow. Three months can go by SO quickly! Let's see...where the heck have I been?

Well, I got through tax season busyness, and then quarter end rush, and then it was May. I've also spent some of my copious spare time working on my latest project, as well as teaching dance classes at the Louisville Dance Center. It's nearly recital time, so dance routines are high priority right now!!

The other high priority item is continuing to invest my time and efforts into the Beleighve Legacy Foundation. Visit the site and check out the details! I'll also talk about it more as time moves forward and more progress is made.

Last, as many of you know, Leigh passed away last summer from brain cancer. To help raise funds for brain tumor research and support I will be walking in the Angel Adventure Walk in Denver on June 9th. It will be my first time, but definitely not my last. My goal is to raise $1500. I'm really not sure if I will get there, but I'm going to try!! If you would like to sponsor me you can do so by visiting here. Any donation is greatly appreciated and going to a very a good cause. A cause that is so close to my heart.

Thanks for tuning in here. I should be around more frequently through the summer, and I will have many new and exciting things to share!

Isn't it amazing how time flies!

By Chloe DiVita

In my world these first few months of the year are the busiest, and I'm finding they are the hardest to make some time to blog. Since this blog has yet to reach it's first birthday, this is the first 1st quarter I have attempted to work and blog.

January is filled with year end payroll reporting (all those lovely reports most people prefer to just not understand), plus W-2s, 1099s, and all the reconciliation that goes into preparing them. Then comes February. My time turns to focus on year end adjustments and producing financial statements so my clients can get there tax returns done. This always flows into March, and even April sometimes. And during this time the day to day stuff seems to always be as busy as it can be, or maybe that's just my perception as I usually feel slightly overwhelmed by my workload.

It's that overwhelming pile of "to do" items that keeps me working late into the night. Although, recently, my body has not been enjoying my late night work schedule. I've found myself struggling to keep my eyes open as the 22nd hour passes me by. How much can I accomplish half asleep?! Don't worry, I know the answer is nothing, and as I reach that point I usually curl up in my recliner and let the TV drift me off to sleep.

I suppose the point of this post is to let you all know that I have not forgotten about the blogging world. I am not ignoring this blog, and I have every intention of trying to make more time to post. I have taken some time to read a few of the blogs I used to frequent daily, only the frequency has turned to weekly, or even bi-weekly. But, I have found some interesting conversation going on. I also feel I have some input to provide on the subjects, like the generation gap discussion over at Lipsticking, or the working women discussion over at Working Solo. So many interesting things being discussed right now, and me with a clogged schedule - not to mention a clogged brain!

Please stay tuned. I will be back soon!

Are You A Good Listener?

By Benecia Beyer

Today's employees want to be asked for feedback and they want to be heard. This is according to a survey conducted of 2,000 employees across multiple generations. One quarter of "Generation X" employees (born between 1965 and 1979) considered it very important to get feedback from their  boss at least once a week, if not every day.  Only 11% of "Traditionalists" (born between 1928 and 1945) desired that level of communication. Clearly, times have changed and so have employee attitudes. Here are some tips for becoming a better listener.

• Fix Your Gaze
  When you speak with someone, maintain eye contact with that person. How many times have you been talking to someone who glances over your shoulder as if they are looking for someone more interesting? It doesn't leave you with a positive impression, does it? Fix your gaze on the person speaking.
• Ask Question in Response To A Questions
  By doing this you show respect and a genuine interest in the well-being of the other person. Just as eye contact makes people feel important, asking questions makes them feel as though their opinions count. In a business setting, ask questions that move the conversation forward and that give you another opportunity to listen to the speaker. And don't interrupt when your question is being answered!
• Incorporate Feedback
  Solicit opinions and then take action based on that feedback, if appropriate. The more you ask for opinions, the more comfortable people feel offering it.
• Be Available For Tough Questions
  When people know that you are available for the tough questions too and that you invite them instead of shrink away from them - they have all the more respect for you.

You just might be surprised at just how much more successful you are when you listen more and speak less.

IRS Sales Tax Calculator

By Benecia Beyer

The IRS is providing a new online tool to help individual taxpayers determine whether they might benefit by electing to deduct their state and local sales taxes. It's an interactive tool on the IRS government website that is designed to help make it easier for taxpayers to figure their taxes. (Did you know that the IRS is trying hard to reduce the taxpayer burden - that's an official quote from the IRS website !)

Taxpayers who itemize their deductions on Schedule A of the Form 1040 have the option of deducting the amount of state and local sales tax paid instead of deducting their state and local income taxes paid. Taxpayers can not take a deduction for both sales and income tax.

A new tax law enacted in late December reinstated the optional deduction for state and local sales taxes. Because of this late enactment date, the IRS previously announced that it would not begin processing returns claiming the sales tax deduction until Feb. 3.

To use the Sales Tax Calculator, taxpayers input their adjusted gross income, number of exemptions and zip code. The IRS estimates most taxpayers will get an answer in less than five minutes using the new tool.

The calculator is annonymous. Taxpayers do not need to enter their name or any other identifying information. To calculate what your sales tax deduction would be, you can use either the actual amounts paid or use sales tax tables that allow you to factor in the exact sales paid on certain specified items, such as a car, boat or material to build a house.

Here's the link to try it out !

Productivity Boost

By Benecia Beyer

Looking for a new way to boost productivity for less than $500?  Toss on a second monitor to your PC and your productivity goes way up while your job strain goes down. As much as 30% increase for certain applications.

While multi-monitor computing used to be pricey and the industry standard used to be for high-end, data intensive businesses -- getting a decent flat LCD monitor costs less than $300 and video cards run half of that. So a second display is a real option for even the most frugal business. Or you could use a portable monitor output doubler (a device that splits the monitor feed into two signals, one for each monitor) for under $200 (displayed in the picture).

The effect of multi-monitors on your computing life is immediate and stunning: the second monitor extends the desktop across both screens. So your mouse -- and all things controlled by it --  simply flies from one monitor to the other. No clicks needed.

Every task is easier and faster. Every task. Will all users capture 30% improvement in productivity? No -- it depends on your applications. But -- and this is a huge "but" -- you will be less tired at the end of the day and your eyes and wrists will greatly appreciate the benefits of the increased ease of use and less lower click load. (Surely someone "out there" has figured out how much the average user clicks on their mouse on a daily basis!)

Setting up dual-monitor PC's can be a pain. You are routing two monitor feeds from one computer -- you must master "Display Settings" in the control panel of your PC. It's not really that big a deal -- but many otherwise intelligent people have gotten pretty darn cranky getting multi-monitors to work. So be patient. And know your patience will be rewarded.

Emergency! Emergency!

By Chloe DiVita

I should be starting the New Year off by wishing everyone well, but since I’m a bit at late at that I’m going to jump right in to one of my pet peeves. (But I really do hope everyone is jumping into 2007 with a fresh new outlook!)

One of my bigger pet peeves is the abuse of the red exclamation meaning “high importance” when sending emails. I do believe there are times when it is appropriate to use the exclamation. Say if there is something that needs urgent attention, immediate action, or ignoring it could result in major consequences. If that’s the case, by all means use it.

But, if you are simply providing information - even if it’s important information - if your work day (or the recipient’s work day) is not going to explode by not immediately reading and reacting to the email, then it’s not an emergency. It doesn’t warrant the red exclamation.

The main issue I find with the abuse is that the individuals who choose to use it over and over when it doesn’t seem appropriate end up crying wolf. So, if you abuse it, you end up negating its purpose anyway. There are a few individuals I work with who I don’t flinch when I see the little red exclamation attached to the email because experience has shown me that it rarely is an emergency.

I know I’m not the only one who feels this way because I’ve had several conversations about it. If you think you might be an abuser, it’s not too late to change!

Quickbooks Customer Master File

By Benecia Beyer

In beginning a new process for one of our clients with Quickbooks -- I thought we had hit a brick wall. We were transitioning to sending all invoices and statements to the client via email and also allow the customer to go online and pay the invoice directly.

I was forced to look at the size of the customer master data file as we would be synching Quickbooks on a daily basis using Billing Solutions. Wow - was I surprised to learn there were over 6300 customers in the customer master data file. (Do you know how many are in your file? With Quickbooks open, hit F2 - on the right hand side of the screen you will see List Information).

In researching how to reduce the size of this file I quickly realized two things:
1. Quickbooks never, ever - ever allows you to delete a customer record as long as there is a transaction attached to it.
2. Quickbooks Pro (the version my client is using) has a limit of 14,500 customer names. That's it. And when you reach that limit -- you're stuck (or you could upgrade to Enterprise- but do you have an extra $3,000 or more just hanging around?)

I spent considerable time researching and exploring the paths that others before me had tried to resolve this problem. There seemed to be two valid options and they were both from third party vendors. I tried both and was so overwhelming impressed with the "fix" that Mark Robinson from The Energy Grid came up with -- that I just had to share it with everyone.

Mark has this other great website for Handicapped Pets - the true reason why his Quickbooks Customer file was growing by leaps and bounds as his company could post as much as 20 orders a day. You do the math: 20 orders a day x 365 days x 2 years = 14600.

So Mark has spent considerable time and effort into resolving this particular problem within Quickbooks and has created a website just for this problem: Quickbooks Pro 14500 Club.  The concept behind the program is simple: to mark customers as inactive (the ones that no longer do business with you) and then merge those into one particular customer file. You will still retain all the invoices, payments and transactions that were attached to the customer (so your P&L's and Balance Sheets are correct) but now they are merged into one customer record instead of thousands.

I must admit, I was skeptical at first, but contacted Mark and asked for the program. I got an immediate repsonse and the program and the next day, I had the time to dig in and play with the program.

As my client still used Quickbooks Pro 2005, I knew it might not work as Mark had specifically written the program for 2006. But -- my client needed an upgrade anyhow, so when I interfaced the program with Quickbooks Pro 2007, it worked just fine -- except it seemed to "hang" on a particular screen and required my input. I didn't think this was how the program worked -- and emailed Mark with my question. Within minutes he responded that he would be more than happy to work with me and we set a time for a phone call.

I shared with him our company's delight in LogMeIn, (see previous post by Chloe) and he signed up immediately so that I could give him access to my computer screen so he could see first hand, how the program worked. As he watched the program run, he agreed that it was getting "stuck" at a certain point and wondered what the 2007 version was doing different than the 2006 version. He had me explore a couple of options and after fixing a setting in "preferences" the program flew on it's own wings -- and was merging customer files without any intervention from me. It was a miracle !

I can't begin to tell you how refreshing it was to experience such incredible support and a genuine desire to help from another person in business who had experienced some of the same difficulties and frustrations that I did. I don't think Mark is going to become a millionare with this program he wrote -- but all the same, he went the extra length with me in making sure it worked. I do appreciate that.

Mark, it was a real pleasure doing business with you ! Thank you.