The New Year Begins...

Happy New Year everyone!

I got into a fight with the county of India the other day. Well, I guess it wasn't with the whole country. It was with three different tech "specialists" that one of my companies pays $250 per year for 24 hour-a-day tech support for their financial software.

Let's backtrack a little bit. I recently got a new job as my old job decided that they didn't have the budget to keep me. However, they didn't not take into account that I pretty much ran the entire office and no one else knows how to do the things I did. So, now I come in on Saturdays and they pay me to do the bare minimum to keep the office going.

So that's where I was - in my old office on a Saturday. I had gotten some stuff done and remembered that I should probably get all of the giving statements for 2007 out to their donors as well as the W-9's. I went into Quickbooks Premier for Nonprofits, 2007 Edition and tried to figure out how to get that done. After a couple hours of poking through every menu item and exhausting the help section's relevance, I finally had to call technical support.

A man with an Indian (dots not feathers) accent answered the phone. I calmly explained the situation to him and he tried his darnedest to help me. The problem was he just couldn't understand what I wanted. The conversation went something like this:

Me: I can't figure out how to get contribution statements.

Him (with heavy Indian accent): What is a contribution statement?

Me: It's a somewhat respectable-looking piece of paper for every person who has given money to the organization this past fiscal year. It needs to have the company's info at the top, along with the person's legal name and address and a total for the year.

Him: Oh, I get it.

Over the next half hour he directs me through several different reports, all of which are completely wrong for my purposes. They are ALL itemized reports with that person's name and a listing of every single donation.

Me: This won't work at all. I don't want every single donation - I just need a total for the year.

Him: If you do this (tells me a procedure) it will just do the total.

Me: Yes, but then it's just the name and the total. IRS tax laws state that you need both the company and the person's address on it as well.

Him: Please explain "tax laws" to me.

At this point, I had pretty much had it with him already. So, when he asked me to explain everything about tax laws, I lost it. I seriously turned into some sort of mythical creature. My fingers curled up into clawed fists and a whispery, Gollom-like growl came from somewhere deep inside me saying "Get me someone else!" one syllable at a time.

Over the next hour and a half I spoke to both his supervisor and the floor manager, all the while getting more and more frustrated. I must have said "no, that's not at all what I need" about twenty-five times before the floor manager told me that it just couldn't be done.

Me: How can this software not do this?! The ability to print out non-profit financial statements is the sole purpose for purchasing non-profit financial software! What do you tell other people who call about this?

Him: I am sorry, but you are the only person to ever call about this.

Me: What?! How can that be?! So I'm either the only one to every buy your product, or none of the other billions of non-profit organizations out there ever needs to send out financial statements. Unfortunately, by law every non-profit has to send those statements out. There's got to be a way to do it!

Him: No.

Me: What country are you in right now?

Him (sheepishly): ...India.

Me: No offense, but is there a number you can give me where I can talk to an American. I need to talk to someone who understands what I need.

Him: The only thing you can do is to go to the website and sign up for an American to talk to you.

Me: Great. They must be in high demand.

Since I wouldn't be in the office until next Saturday (oh joy), I was assured that I could sign up for an American call-back whenever I needed it. I went through the online steps one by one filling in my info and my questions. I clicked "next", and to my dismay saw:

"Thank you. Someone will be getting back to you in under two hours."

Great. The tech guy couldn't even get that right. Well, it was already after 5:00 PM and I'd spent over seven hours there already. I decided to leave and try my luck again next week. I'll fill you in on how round two goes.