Hitting the Books
Ballhype’s finances are pretty basic: no revenue, no payroll, and few expenses. But we still need to make sure that we’re keeping track of everything so I downloaded QuickBooks Simple Start Free Starter Edition. I worked at Intuit for years and am a big fan of their products, and so I’m happy to use Simple Start and even happier that it’s free. It supports up to 20 customers and then prompts you to upgrade once you get larger. We won’t be counting customers in the sense that retailers or agencies do, so we should be able to use this for some time.
Today I logged in for the second time to enter the Comcast bill for cable internet services, and was reminded to register the product. Normally I ignore these messages but this one said that it would eventually be required so I figured I may as well get it over with. What I didn’t realize, however, was that once you start the process, you’re forced to call the customer support line to complete product registration. I really don’t like having to sit on hold - it wasn’t for very long, and the rep was friendly and competent, but I still felt tricked into picking up the phone. Sometimes you just don’t feel like talking on the phone to anyone, friend or stranger. It doesn’t mean you’re in a bad mood, but I could tell that I was forcing myself to be nicer on the phone than I felt like being, out of loyalty to Intuit. Fortunately, the anticipated upsell (hey, I was in marketing too) didn’t last very long.
Rep: how many customers do you have?
Me: none.
Rep: ohhhkaayyy… (mousing to correct screen that gets him to the “unlikely prospect” response)…hold on while I get your new license number.
Nine years ago I started out in finance doing the monthly close for the Intel Inside program, which involved accounting for and accruing hundreds of millions of dollars to help pay for all of those stickers and tv and print ads by computer manufacturers. Ballhype record-keeping should be a cake walk in comparison, and if it ever gets complex enough to be a dreaded task, that will be a good thing.
Posted by Erin 
27.Apr.07
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