February 22, 2011

Giving Bills The Finger

So I just sent off all my tax documents to my accountant. This is phenomenally early, considering that it’s only February, and the financial year doesn’t end until June. Except that the tax is for last year, and my accountant has been hassling me for them for months. So in fact I am completely useless.

I hate preparing my tax. I hate collating information. I hate going through files, finding details, and writing them down. I hate filling out forms. I hate paying bills. I hate doing anything that involves inputting data (unless the data is a Tweet or Facebook update, in which case I could do it all day).

And I can’t keep up with all the data to be inputted, just to maintain a functional 21st century Western lifestyle. Paperwork comes in at an extraordinary rate, and I lose track of it all the time. With five people in the house, there's a lot of data input, and when I forget, I can make some colossal mistakes.

I’m not just talking about having the phone cut off because I forgot to pay the bill, though that has certainly happened, and oh, how I laughed at my silly error (using ‘laugh’ in the sense of ‘wept when I found I was unable to make a call’). In the past few years I have also:

- Forgotten to transfer money into my husband’s account before a business trip so he found himself overseas and penniless;

- Forgotten to re-register my car so I found myself booked and shamed by two gleeful looking police officers, and fined about a billion dollars;

- Forgotten to renew my daughter’s passport and found myself panic stricken in line behind seventy five others at 5pm on a Friday afternoon;

- Forgotten to lodge insurance claims, which led to all sorts of problems, I can assure you;

- Forgotten to sign school permission slips, which leads to very cross teachers and extremely embarrassed kids;

- Forgotten to invoice for work I’ve done, which is just plain stupid;

- Forgotten to pay parking fines, which, as I’ve discovered, leads to even more fines;

- Forgotten to leave feedback on ebay purchases, which leads to very agitated sellers;

- Forgotten to bank two birthday cheques from my grandmother, which really hurt her feelings.

I don’t want to have to fill out forms anymore. In fact, I would quite cheerfully give up some freedom and privacy to never have to input data again. I’d be more than happy to have a microchip inserted in my finger – hey, inserted in my forehead! – into which every detail of my life could be programmed, including money in, money out, and money owed. The government could just take what is theirs from my online account after calculating their share, my creditors could do the same, and I could give up record keeping forever. It sounds like heaven.

Either that, or I could find a full time bookkeeper to live with me. As long as he pays himself. After all, the last thing I need is an employee. Too much paperwork.

24 comments:

  1. You are certainly not alone there ... I just sent my tax to my accountant this week ... admin not one of my strong points let's just say.

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  2. My secret shame: I hate leaving Ebay feedback. I paid you. Isn't that enough? I never do it. It's mean, right? Normally I'm nice. Ish.

    I have a scientist husband. He is a form-loving, graph-happy spreadsheeter. So we have a mortgage that is going downwards and the car rego is paid. But I have handed over all responsibility for any kind of bill or administration and should he die suddenly (dog forbid) I can't think how I could possibly manage any of it again...

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  3. thanks for the reminder - where did that last fin year go ?

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  4. I have lovely kikki K files on my desk winking at me and bulging with forms that need filing and filling. I need a PA who can cook, clean and answer emails so I have more time to tweet.

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  5. For a moment there I thought I had written that post, but realised it wasn't on my blog. I fear we share the same disdain of mundane paperwork. I like to bring things in from the mailbox and leave them in the envelope on a table for as long as possible - sometimes up to a month. Sigh. Can I share your bookkeeper?

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  6. Urgh! I hate paperwork. I recently sent off our tax to our accountant too. I was impressed that it was only January and not March like last year. My accountant wasn't. :)

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  7. I think I have a phobia of paperwork. I'm sure forms send me into a cold sweat. I can't bring myself to even read the school newsletter. Worst thing about this is I work in admin and have lots of paperwork to deal with every day.

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  8. I have done all of these things. Including sending off my shoebox full of receipts to my poor, overworked accountant just yesterday. I have been considering getting a bookkeeper, but I can't find a live-in one who will work for, basically, free. Sad.

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  9. The trick ladies was to marry an accountant - yay me. This has prevented me serving significant jail time because I would have never lodged a tax return, had the required documentation to generally bank etc or pay the parking, speeding, illegal right turn fines.

    However, when it comes to those school permission slips I am mother of the year because it's those small people that really strike fear in my heart. Lx

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  10. I am a freak. I like paperwork. I like having my bills in date order, ready to be paid. I like managing the bank accounts.

    I have just registered for an ABN and can't wait to start sending invoices, and getting payments just so that I input the details in a shiny, brand new, specially created spreadsheet.

    But I do have a year's worth of filing to be sorted and put away

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  11. Funny. I alternate between being super organised and super forgetful, very odd.
    But just wait until a parent has to move into an aged care complex; you will BEG to be committed to the dementia ward ahead of them to avoid filling out all the forms. You ain't seen nothin yet lady....
    What was I saying again?

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  12. I have also been in trouble in similar scenarios. I particularly despise the feeling that hours of my life are being lost in fruitless bureaucratic nit-pickery. Chip me now!

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  13. I am afraid I am like Macsnorky. Actually, I don't love paperwork, but I do love every surface of my house to be so clean at all times that it would shame the Spray and Wipe Lady. Hence, I file/sort/respond to eveything the minute it comes in, and I keep all my receipts nicely organised. In my Filofax. ;)

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  14. Amen sister.

    *stares at pile of paperwork/bills/fines and only barely holds back the sobs*

    That is all.

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  15. Hey, I'll come and be your live in bookkeeper. I do that for a living. I'm tidy, fast and accurate. Not in my own life mind you, I am fucking hopeless when it comes to me personally. Or for my husband as is evidenced by letting his drivers licence & public liability insurance lapse. Last time I looked he had two perfectly good hands, but he's probably using them for something else I'm a bit shit at. xx

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  16. I'm like macsnorky and Kylie - super organised. Our accountant congratulates me every year on my record keeping and I feel quietly proud of myself each time. I alphabetise most things and have a spreadsheet for everything else.

    What's that you say? I need a life? Well, maybe... ;)

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  17. Kerri, didn't you also forget to check for lurking constables, when answering your mobile recently ?.....;-)

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  18. What I enjoy most about paperwork is the End of Financial Year slash Christmas - New Year sorting binge I go through. A huge overhaul and effort is made, by me, to organise everything and then I lose total interest... for 6 months. The one I love is forever confused as to whether we are just pinning it to the fridge and hoping it will find it's own way, or filing it neatly away. Honestly, I drive myself - and him - mental.

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  19. This just confirms it, we must never let our husband meet.

    Speeding fines - yes
    unpaid phone - took 2 days to get it back but I blamed the phone company
    unregistered car - yes, snap with the police charge
    unbanked cheques - yup
    passports - no one would ever leave that in my hands
    forgotten to invoice, forgotten to transfer - oh yes


    So glad its not just me.

    Kx

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  20. my idea of filing is to leave everything in a pile covered in coffee cups until it is too late to do anything with the bits of paper so i can throw them all out … bugger, BAS is due. now where are those credit card statements?

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  21. I know someone else has already said this, but "Amen to that". God! I've now got three schools to keep up with, plus business stuff and household stuff, and it's a total nightmare. I wish my husband would just say "Give it to me", but no matter how much I beg, he never says that and somehow he manages to sleep at night. While I hope I haven't forgotten something important. My son was refused a drum lesson on Wed because I hadn't paid the semesters fees. Bugger bugger bugger

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  22. I know someone else has already said this, but "Amen to that". God! I've now got three schools to keep up with, plus business stuff and household stuff, and it's a total nightmare. I wish my husband would just say "Give it to me", but no matter how much I beg, he never says that and somehow he manages to sleep at night. While I hope I haven't forgotten something important. My son was refused a drum lesson on Wed because I hadn't paid the semesters fees. Bugger bugger bugger

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  23. I think I have a phobia of paperwork. I'm sure forms send me into a cold sweat. I can't bring myself to even read the school newsletter. Worst thing about this is I work in admin and have lots of paperwork to deal with every day.

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  24. thanks for the reminder - where did that last fin year go ?

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