Mid December last year I decided I didn't want to be responsible for more trees chopped down, more greenhouse gases released all in the name of a Christmas card mailout, when most of those cards were going to get binned during the first week in January.  But just doing a zero cost email campaign in lieu of Christmas cards seemed very cheap!

After discussions with my partner and my team the solution we hit upon was to figure out how much we would have spent on Christmas cards and donate that sum to a charity of which we all approved.  After lots of discussion we settled on one in the area of childhood cancer.

So this year we are doing it again.  This year (for reasons I won't go into, but which have significance for a number of people involved in the decision) we have settled on MS Australia.  It is a great cause & one which I am delighted to support - and if anyone else wants to contribute to this organisation you will find their details at www.msaustralia.org.au

I am looking forward to the Christmas break which I will be spending with some members of my family (whilst also thinking of and missing some others). 

I hope you all have an enjoyable and hopfully special Christmas.

News from my desk in Ouagadougou

My first week in Ouaga has disappeared in a flash, every day a new experience and something new to learn. The weather seems to be getting hotter with very little relief.  Although one exception was Thursday morning when I woke up during the early hours by the sound of thunder followed by pouring rain.  I opened the windows to the most beautiful freshness…everything was cool and bright.  But apart from the following day when it was distinctly cooler, the heat is inescapable even during the night which means using the air-con and/or fans.

Things in the office have also been interesting with each day passing without having spent much quality training time with the staff.  Of course politics always plays a part and as an outsider I have no idea what’s going on.  I keep in touch with my boss via SKYPE and when we discuss the various questions which arise in relation to how we can adapt Xero to provide the required local information Rhys can go on-line and look at the company I’m working with to see first-hand the situation.  Thankfully Xero is very adaptable so for example when a supplier invoice requires both VAT at 18% and WHT at 5%, Xero handles it well and the in-house accountant is very happy with the resulting invoice which can be printed and attached to the cheque.

Yes, everything is paid via a handwritten cheque here in Ouaga…that is unless it’s paid with cash of course.

An African weekend

My stay at Le Karite has been made more enjoyable with the company of Telse, a German woman who has lived and worked in various African countries for 10 years.  Telse has bought a car which means we can have a look around Ouaga.  Saturday night we decided to go into the centre of town to find the live music venue in a park somewhere that one of my local colleagues had recommended.   This is definitely the climate to eat and relax outside and we took advantage of the beautiful balmy night to order wood-fired pizza and a kir (French aperatif  of sauvignon blanc and crème de cassis).

Monday

Started in the office late on Monday morning as I was feeling a bit poorly, but I had contacted the accountant and by the time I arrived she was in the process of reconciling the Petty Cash account in Xero.  At the same time Judicael, her assistant, was preparing upload files for other various Advances.  Things seemed to be progressing well and it seemed beneficial that I wasn’t there the whole day.

By the time I arrived Sidonie had questions for me so we worked through a variety of things including creating bank rules in Xero, adding more details to transactions whilst in the process of reconciliation, creating new general ledger account numbers and generating bank reconciliation reports.  All really easy to do, and covered in just an hour or two of training.

Being in the same office as Sidonie and Judicael created a much more relaxed working environment and they love to joke and laugh about things as they work. It becomes more fun and due to the slow internet connection it doesn’t really interrupt the work.  I think this is pretty common in Africa and quite different to some of the offices I’ve worked in in Sydney.

And now to my last day in Ouaga - unfortunately my last dinner at le Karite Bleu was low-risk (tummy still not too good), so no Dorade, or Merou or the Capitaine which are all beautiful fish served BBQ’d with a sauce.  It’s plain white rice with some peas for me followed by peppermint tea.  But it was so lovely eating outside with Telse in the tropical garden after having enjoyed a magnificent full moon rising earlier in the evening.

Flying back to Sydney tomorrow, from where Viridity will continue to support this client on Xero.  It really is amazing to see how well Xero copes with what is a large and complex business – the owners love it, as they can keep on top of their business whether they are in the office, elsewhere in Burkina Faso, or (as at present) back in Aus. 

Not every new client comes with a trip to such a wonderful destination, so this one really was a bonus.  So much of the work we do with clients on Xero we can do remotely, but sometimes nothing beats getting on site, and I know this trip has laid the foundation for working with the client ongoing.  And best of all the cost of the trip (in both time and money) has been validated by getting such great feedback from the client, who is delighted with the work we have done. 

Now if we could just find a new client who needs onsite training in Paris  . . . .

I try to not just add things to this blog because they are funny - it is after all supposed to be a business related website, and if you want comedy there are lots of sites dedicated to such things.  But every now and then I come across something that is both funny and (in a very general sense) relevant to what we do.  So here is a quick (2 mins 53 secs) look from the lighter side at some of the trials of technology.

Over the past couple of months there have been some well documented problems with the ATO website, today (Monday) has been especially dire, with numerous time outs, crashes and other errors.

We all have bad days of course, but it is how we respond to those days that is most important.  As the ATO's BAS Portal crashed (again and again) I kept getting this screen:




I phoned the 1300 number, spent a long time on hold, when I did get through the person I spoke to was unhelpful and evasive (apparently the problems were not down to the ATO, the "website was down") and when she figured I had had my alloted 30 seconds she hung up!

So I tried the email address.  It bounced.  I promise you - and if you doubt me please try it.

A little while later the error message changed, giving me a new 1300 number (1300 650 129 since you were wondering).  I phoned.  This time I got a recorded message telling me the number I had dialled was no longer in service.  The message did try to redirect me to a new number but by this stage it was time to go home.

Maybe tomorrow will be a better day!

I just read a tweet that was very obviously wrong, and then saw it re-tweeted several times.  Paste the tweet into Google and you will get 135,000 hits - all for something that is WRONG!  The tweet stated that in October 2010 there will be 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays – which is true.  But the tweet then went on to say that this would not happen again for 823 years.

This struck me as highly improbable.  All that needs to happen to get 5 Fridays, etc in a month is for the month in question to have 31 days, and the 1^st of a month to fall on a Friday.  Just for October this should recur every 5 or 6 years (on average), given that the calendar “advances” by 1 day a year ( except for leap years when it advances by 2 days).

 My 14 year old is up with this, the first thing he told me on Wednesday morning, the day of his 14^th birthday was that his 15^th birthday would be on a Thursday.  With a little prompting he was able to tell me his 16^th would jump forward to a Saturday because 2012 is a leap year.

So I decided to check out the "823 year" claim - I keyed October 1^st 2010 into Excel and formatted it to show the day (Friday), then in the next row down keyed October 1^st 2011 (which is a Saturday).  I copied this down for 20 odd rows and what do you know?  In 2021 October the 1^st is a Friday - then again in 2027, and then 2032.  At which point I got bored, but pretty sure they keep on coming (I know there are other easier ways of proving this, but just wanted to keep it simple)!

In fact if you aren’t particular about October, but just want any month with 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays you get one most years: 2010 acutally has 2 (January as well as October), 2011 has July, 2013 gets March and so the list goes on.

So why does rubbish like this once quoted on the internet keep getting repeated, re-blogged and re-tweeted?  I am not particularly smart (although I don't think I am particularly dumb either), so how come I just looked at it and thought “what a crock”, and then spent 30 seconds checking it out, whilst so many other smart people happily re-tweeted, re-blogged, forwarded as emails, etc?

Come on people, critically challenge what you see on the internet (except for things I write which you can take as gospel).  Just because it’s been tweeted a hundred times doesn’t make it true!