June 2006

It is six months since I found out about the theft that my account manager was carrying out. There has been no update from the Chicago Financial Crimes Detective. He hasn’t returned my calls. It is probably too small a crime to handle as top priority. I keep calling. In the meantime, I have still not been reimbursed by my insurance company. They are dragging their feet (The Hartford). The red tape is exhaustive. The insurance was called Employee Dishonesty Insurance, and it was not enough (25K) to cover the damage of the theft, but I would, at least, like to have that money.

Since I had to fire my accountant (the one who had not been reconciling the accounts for six months or-the-theft-would-have-been-discovered-earlier one), I was prowling for a new accountant. I ended up hiring a dear and professional friend of mine, Kirsten Dixner Young. She is a professional of the First Order. I think that all of this nonsense has been worth it just to hire her. She is cleaning things up, and promises to whip me into place with a new and improved bookkeeping and accounting system. I am pretty excited to have her on my team.

The vendors were really quite accommodating and helpful during the cashflow problems. As long as I communicated to them I was able to reduce the amounts of my payments (but not miss one) until I could meet a new goal. I had dreaded the vendors response to my plight. It was my error. I think they have all been through some difficult times or had other businesses go through difficult times. As long as I continued to communicate and pay something I was staying on good terms. It is, in fact, what we expect from people who owe us money here at UHI; we treat them the same way. It just feels good to have someone take responsibility, commit to pay, and stick to it. At the very least, the accounting is easier and there isn’t a need to refer to collections.

The “Clean Up The Company” Theme continues!