Problems with accounting again

Meanwhile, sales, development, production and service were going quite well. We had enough liquidity and even made some profit at the end of the year. But the bookkeeping was still very time-consuming. Tina, my wife at the time, did the bookkeeping and I more or less got by with the inventory, the various financial statements, the VAT statements, the AHV statements and our auditor. It took me an enormous amount of time. To make matters worse, we had converted the sole proprietorship of Ing. Büro M. KYBURZ into KYBURZ AG. My head was spinning, and I would rather deal with the further development of the sales network and even more with the construction of new vehicles. I lamented my misfortune, and a friend of a friend had procured a friend: The youthful Michael Wenzin was at our door. He told me about some projects he was currently working on and that he could just take over the bookkeeping for my company. He could do that in no time at all. Another gift from heaven? Micha sounded convincing and I trusted him. He was very interested in the development of the dealer network and we had a lively discussion. I took him on a dealer tour, and we complemented each other wonderfully. Micha helped me to draft contracts and I negotiated them with the respective service and sales partners. It all went smoothly and we made progress. The next half-yearly closing was coming up. Micha reiterated that he had all the bookkeeping under control and that I should continue to build up the dealer network. To confirm this, he gave me a plane ticket to Copenhagen. An appointment with our new sales partner was coming up. This kind of cooperation gave me the relief I was looking for: I knew that the half-year accounts were in good hands and I could take care of the sales. After the year-end closing, which took place half a year later, I had some questions, which Micha answered with his easy-going manner. Questions also arose about the VAT statement, but everything went well. An AHV check was due. Again, Micha stepped in, and all questions could be answered adequately. A year later, the same situation again. My questions were not answered in such a way that I understood the core of the issue 100%, but rather the answers were rather meant to appease me. The next year-end closing came together with the same situation. We didn't have a tax audit this time and so there were no unanswered questions - except mine and, and by then the answers didn't convince me. Another year went by. We were already in our third year, with Micha responsible for my bookkeeping. As much as he made it possible for me to take care of the sales network, my distrust in the correct annual accounts remained. I asked Lukas Jenni. After all, he also had his own company, and surely he had a trustee? He checked the complete bookkeeping of the last few years and at a meeting he confirmed to me that there had been a huge mix-up. The closing entries of the sole proprietorship had not been done properly, the AG had not been started as a new company and the inventory entries were insufficient, not to mention the depreciation. He did not know what to do and did not feel up to the task. The only thing he could do was to call in a colleague who was much younger than he was and who also had more expertise. No sooner said than done. Thomas Frauenfelder appeared. He had just taken over a new trust company. It turned out that Thomas had gone to secondary school with my father and had learned the basics of arithmetic there. The plan was made. I wanted to change trustees. However, this turned out to be very difficult: Thomas was also completely overwhelmed with the mess that had developed over the last three years. There was only one solution: to flee forward. Fortunately, in the meantime it was already mid-December. I called the entire staff together and announced that this year we would close completely for a fortnight starting on 24 December. I planned a company holiday. Would they not be allowed to develop? No, I wanted complete peace and quiet. The team let me do it and I had my peace. Meanwhile, I had a completely different plan: Together with Tina, we took care of the bookkeeping. We evaluated a new accounting program, our new trustee set up the chart of accounts and gave us the opening entries of the new company we had founded 3 years ago. Tina and I worked through the full company holidays, including weekends. In the end, we had booked the whole 3 years all over again. We were dog-tired - and so was our dog, who had received far too little exercise during this time. But we were also very satisfied. Thomas Frauenfelder was able to do all the annual accounts again, correct the VAT, the tax and the AHV payments and the bookkeeping was back on track. Our dog, less so. He demanded from us the long walks he had missed. In retrospect, Micha Wenzin had helped me a lot in a decisive phase with his youthful carefree attitude and his brilliant ideas in building up the resellers network. Unfortunately, we had to put a lot of effort into the bookkeeping, which we had handed over to him. Since that date, I have kept the company closed over Christmas until the first week of the new year. It is simply good to really come to rest once a year. During this time, I always remember the extraordinary effort that Tina and our dog had to make to get the company back on track.

I learned in the process:
– Easy-going attitudes are important, just not in the accounting department.
– Sometimes it takes an extraordinary effort to get the company back on track.
– Company holidays over Christmas are set in my company.