Lancaster County charm

The lovely fall mornings we've been experiencing in Pennsylvania this week have added another level of contentment to my days. I've been enjoying the 45 minute drive to work, especially the part of my route that takes me through Lancaster County. It's a feast for the eyes, driving past roadside markets laden with late summer bounty and colorful fall decor! From all directions, children walk or bike by, carrying lunch pails and headed to school. Ambitious house wives have already hung their wash out. I may get lucky and pass a horse-drawn wagon load of pumpkins. That picture-perfect moment makes me smile! Something about the beautiful scenery soothes and settles me. 

 

I'm still amazed and extremely grateful when I compare these morning drives to the other times when I headed off in the opposite direction, dreading another day at work. Yes, a job IS just a job, and not the answer to happiness. Some days still feel long and repetitious, but I'm not waking up with a cloud over my head, trying to convince myself it's not that bad, and to think positive thoughts! It's hard to put into words what exactly was so toxic about the environment at my last job, but it definitely was a negative atmosphere. 

I don't think I've said a lot about what I do at Gehman Accounting, and a few people have asked. I'll try to give some details but still keep the confidentiality agreement I signed!😄

The large Mennonite and Amish population of Lancaster County offers some unique bookkeeping opportunities. Many of these people run their own businesses, without the aid of a computer, email, online banking, and so many other tools I never realized I take for granted. Imagine running a business that has several employees, buying supplies to make the product you sell, invoicing and receiving payments from customers, operating off multiple loans, and trying to keep track of everything using only a paper ledger and faulty human calculations. I'm only beginning to get a glimpse of what it takes to manage a business under those conditions. Making deposits, for example. There's no such thing as snapping a quick photo of the check with your smartphone and sending the deposit electronically. The physical check has to be taken to a physical bank, and you have to get there with the help of a driver or hitch up the horse. Unless you call the bank, you can't see your bank balance, and if you need to transfer funds, that's another phone call. To my Millennial way of thinking, it seems complex and cumbersome!

Some of our clients opt for on-site bookkeeping, where a Gehman Accounting bookkeeper comes to their place once a week (more or less) with a laptop and does data entry, pays bills, creates invoices, or whatever the client wants them to take care of. Others keep monthly ledgers and send them in to the office along with bank statements, credit card statements, and whatever else we need to do monthly bookkeeping after the fact. The transactions get entered into QuickBooks, statements reconciled, etc, and the client receives monthly reports. Other clients have online access, and email or upload all bookkeeping documents as they receive them, and we take care of it from there. There's no cut-and-dried structure as far as I can tell, and every client is different! 

I wasn't sure what my training would be like, and it's good I didn't have expectations. 😄 Basically, I'm assigned a case and try to figure it out. I ask lots of questions and some days it feels like putting a puzzle together! I can't really see the whole picture - what does the client buy/sell, what kind of business they have, how certain types of transactions are handled - and I have to do some searching to find the right pieces. But I like puzzles, and so far this role seems to be a good fit!