Why this Pod?
Hello again, and welcome to a ‘very personal’ episode. I’m Paul Rosenblum.
Some people have asked me why this podcast exists. Why am I putting all of this information on the internet for people to listen to without charging a fee and without sponsorship? It’s costing me money for hosting, editing, music rights, etc. every month and it’s more work than I thought it was going to be writing and recording episodes. So, why am I doing it? I’m already a full-time bookkeeper with my own practice and put in my 30 years of working in this field and a few years beyond the accepted retirement age in America and now when I’m not doing bookkeeping, I’m working on the next episode here. So, why?
The answer is simple. For me, if you listened to episode 12, I discovered bookkeeping and accounting when I was around 40. My ‘final career’ started much later than most. I embraced it, got very lucky meeting accountants who taught me things that I didn’t learn in my bookkeeping certification class at NYU, and I was able to absorb it all. After half my life was over, the universe was finally good to me. My ‘natural career’ fell into place, I met the right people, I got some luck getting into teaching, and I got married to the love of my life for the first time when I was 50. Now that I’m living a pretty good ‘imperfect’ life (what life is perfect), it’s time to pay it forward.
When I was teaching QuickBooks desktop in computer schools around NYC for all of those years, as I learned more about tax-based accounting, I incorporated that information into my QuickBooks classes. If anyone has ever taken a QuickBooks class online or in person, did your instructor ever talk about taxes and how that dictates how the data should be entered in QuickBooks? Even if you can take a Microsoft Word class and learn every function in that software, it doesn’t mean that you’ll be a good writer. But if you learn every function of QuickBooks, it doesn’t mean that you will be a good bookkeeper unless you have some bookkeeping and some tax knowledge. So, I became passionate about trying to teach students what they needed to know to use QuickBooks correctly. I thought long and hard about how to work that information into an 8-hour QuickBooks class without following the training manual page by page like most computer trainers did and still do.
I remembered that when I went to college, and got a part time job a year or two later, one spring a friend said to me ‘Have you gone to the post office to pick up your tax forms yet’? And I said to myself -- ‘What is he talking about’? Paying taxes wasn’t taught in grade school, junior high (Middle School, as it’s called today), or High School. It wasn’t talked about in my family, but I now understand why my father was in an especially bad mood in April when the weather started to get nice again and everyone else was in better moods.
I started to think and ask the question as to why public schools in the United States don’t teach taxes to students before they leave home and go to college or go right to a job to start their adulthood and work life. They teach about Congress and the Senate and the Presidency being 3 different parts of government, not about the funding of the government, which is the taxpayer. You would think that since the public school’s core curriculum is put together by the Federal Government and individual local curriculums by the State Government, these things would be discussed in great detail so that students would be prepared to go into the job world. Nope. As far as I know, even now (and if I’m wrong, please email or voicemail me at the website) taxes are still not taught in public schools.
After all the help that I got from accountants who mentored me, it was time for me to pay the universe back. So, I taught QuickBooks in a different way in a classroom for many years and made a reputation for myself and at the same time, dealt with management not loving it, since I wasn’t following the training manual page by page, chapter by chapter. I also hated the term ‘Computer Trainer’ or ‘QuickBooks Trainer’, because I considered myself a ‘teacher’ and took it as seriously as any licensed professor did and still does today. And now, when the bookkeeping practice has run itself for the past several years to the point that I am doing bookkeeping over 50+ hours a week (just ask my wife), again, it’s time to pay it forward. Not that I can continue this forever without monetizing in some form, I personally get enjoyment out of taking my knowledge of bookkeeping and taxes and running a business and transmitting to you in a medium that I’ve always wanted to be in ever since I started college and had a weekly radio show on the college station (which was very successful – a weekly jazz show where each week I was zoning in on one artist, like Ed Beach did in NYC on WRVR – (you can google that, he was a legend and got me through childhood in many ways)
I have been asking for all of you to email or voicemail ideas of subjects that you’d like me to record episodes on right in line as to the reason why I have started this podcast. This is ‘your’ podcast, really, and I just share it with you. So, feedback is greatly appreciated.
The other reason why I have put this pod together is because as technology changes, bookkeeping isn’t done the way it used to be. Accounting software lets you download bank transactions, even without entering a reference number of a transaction, or even the Vendor’s name in the appropriate field. I am trying to convey here the ‘correct and complete’ way to do bookkeeping by not using shortcuts, and quick fixes and just downloading numbers into a database to give to your accountant. The final bookkeeping product needs to ‘look’ good as well as be accurate.
As far as running a business, there are so many clients who I have had over a period of years who focus in on sales, and making money, that they forget about several things like -- The ‘Art’ of running a business, and nurturing that business, and all the paperwork for the state and the federal government that can’t be ignored or forgotten, how to handle sales tax so that you have the money to pay when it’s due, without paying penalties and interest, really understanding Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable and how to handle those important parts of making your company run smoothly, and how to handle clients, since customer service has been lost over the past 20 or so years (at least in this country).
I have the passion and need to disseminate this information somewhere in some medium before it gets forgotten and disappears down the abyss of antiquated business practices.
Yes, I am working on a YouTube channel, and eventually, will have some bookkeeping courses that you can sign up for very affordably that won’t crush your budget, but this pod and anything else that I share with you comes from me personally as a first priority, and eventually secondly, to make some money because as I get older, I will have to cut down on the bookkeeping practice and social security and savings doesn’t necessarily pay the bills.
I really hope that you are enjoying all the episodes, as I see by the subscribership and the downloads that you are, and I really appreciate it from the bottom of my heart.
Call me crazy (I’m used to it), but hopefully in a good way and I hope that you all can benefit from this podcast if you are a business owner or a bookkeeper and I can help you run your businesses better.
My producer, Steph from Coffeelike Media has been a very important part of this pod since its re-launch in May 2023. She has helped me steer these episodes in a direction to better benefit you. So, thank you to her, as always.
Now, I’m putting on my bookkeeping hat because the October 15th deadline is coming very soon and still have some work to do – then I start working on year end.
Actually, today is Sunday, so I’m taking the rest of the day off!
Until next time, I will continue to be a very busy--- and tired .. Paul Rosenblum