Life ~~ a bridge and the movie ~~

This is a beautiful place, I asked " is it as beautiful as seen in the movie? ", the answer is " en~ not quite as I imaged~"

Maybe about more than 10 years ago, this movie was so heated in my home city, people loved to talk about it, they would love to see such scenery when they have given the chance. 

So we were here that day, as the other visitors, we took two quick photos to prove that we were been here. 

What would you say about if you were here too?

Work or Life ~~ why exchange rate will not affect these accounts ~~

I learned another big trick via the MAY month-end reconciliations.

First of all, of course, it wasn't balance, so I need to work out the variance. By digging enough, I realized that funding moving was booked into error accounts. At first glance, several payments in a different date should be withdrawn from a minor CAD account, but the entries showing that they were moved out from a major USD account in error. That means the adjusting entry needs to consider the exchange rate variance! That could be a very complicated re class booking for me. What a ****!

When I discussed the adjusting entry with my mentor, Mr. Smith, he suddenly realized something, and we went into the lines to check the original error bookings. Lucky enough, whoever booked the error entry, the currency that she applied was CAD! Even the funding was from a USD account, but since she booked them under CAD, that means aligning with SAP local currency, the currency exchange rate issue was avoided. Per my mentor, our SAP is set up in CAD as document currency, so whenever there is USD booking entry, it will automatically transfer the USD amount into CAD amount and show two different amounts for the same line item. That means if any amount booking as CAD, the system just showing the same amount, will not auto transferring. 

Thanks so much for the brainstorming, we resolved the error by just one re class entry in CAD. 

Work or Life ~~ a software called Quadrate - Workbench ~~ Tricks that I learned

When there are more than 50 records in a single invoice or payment need to be processed via SAP, it is a headache to input them one by one manually.

That's why a software called Quadrate were exist to solve this problem as a data porter. I am one of the few guys in the team were given this access right to process those invoice batch uploading for payment.

Since this was not my first time in handling this tool, after a few minutes of refreshment, I had to hands on the real tasks. It's almost month end, I must ensure that all the billing files are uploaded before the 1st day of the month.

Well, never assume some thing is easy or very hard, I forgot to remind myself. The situation looked good at first several files. The tool transferred the data into SAP smoothly, and turn into real lines of billing for statement. When I began to relax, suddenly a file was stuck, no matter how I format the numbers into the required length and number format, Workbench never take the order, and showed error in uploading.

After consulting my mentor, Mr. Smith, I came to know that Quadrate is not straight forward as I thought, there are certain "rules" that I need to know before running the tool.

For example, with the same batch, if any two lines, are pointing to the same dealer code (invoice#) and the $amounts are opposite each other, means for the same dealer code, the billing amount is actually returned as 0, Quadrate then can not identify both line item, and showed error. Then I need to manually change split the invoice into two different invoices, change the invoice number is the way to make Quadrate understand that I am uploading two different invoices, instead of one.

Another trick was, when the first line item in the invoices is a negative amount, Quadrate will not take in either. I need to manually moved the item to next line.

Maybe there are more tricks hidden somewhere just I never met yet. Hopefully, Mr. Smith still remember how to handle those and share with me.

Work or life ~~ Taxation Season ~~ busy busy

For most of the people in my current field, I think you will also agree that April is the most busy month during the whole year.

I think most of my peers not only busy at work, but also help with Tax filing. Sometimes not limited to only family members, that could include close friends and referrals.

My partner Cecilia and me also experienced the same situation. Tax filing is already her full time job and most of time she works from home. Whenever there is a potential client for us to work together, such as a basic calculation of expenses and revenue, basic financial statement analysis needed etc. I would probably step in to do this part. It's time consuming but I practiced a lot from these activities. Such as how to complete the schedule of CCA, line up the expenses in a table, and link the expenses and income data to my income statement and balance sheet. These stuff are never new to me, just the actual cases make most the points senses now to me. Then my friend will work on the data and draft her tax filling plan for the client.

In the whole month, Monday to Friday, I worked 8 am to 5 pm for my own full time job, and then after work. I immediate throw myself into the tax preparation calculation. And in the weekend, we meet each other to exchange the data and deal with inquiries.

I did not recall how's summer comes to the town, how's the weather suddenly changed to warm and nice season. For me, my mind are full of numbers and formulators.