@scottalanmiller said in Why QuickBooks Is Not a Business Tool:

Yes, but none of that tells you anything. You did that with accountants and all it does is tell someone that they use them, you know it doesn't tell them if the accountant is even minimally qualified.

You lost me here. So would you go to Xero's advisor directory and try to find on in Texas because if they are using Xero they must be competent and if they are in Texas they must be more accountant for my money? Then what do I do? Ask them questions about accounting, of which I know little?

@scottalanmiller said in Why QuickBooks Is Not a Business Tool:

This is the same challenge that companies have finding you. How do they find you? (Are you in the yellow pages?) How do they vet you to see if you are good at IT?

So far almost every single one of my clients have come through a referral. When they interview me, I run some of my current clients until I find someone they know. I make sure their reference is on the proposal when it goes out.

@scottalanmiller said in Why QuickBooks Is Not a Business Tool:

I've had the same CPA for twenty years.

Do you have the same CPA as NTG?

OK, so how do I find an accountant that is not using QuickBooks if the only people I personally know are all these hobby business owners? I could probably run down the yellow pages (do they still exist?) and call them up and ask them if they use something other than QuickBooks, but I don't even know what questions I would ask them to see if they are competent in accounting.

@scottalanmiller said in Why QuickBooks Is Not a Business Tool:

That's "unless a device is offline", though.

For the times when we show up on site to do something that we could do remotely, I write that off as marketing. I've seen it happen where IT does everything remotely and the customer doesn't realize they are doing stuff in the back ground. The monthly reports get deleted before they are read. Next thing you know another provider swoops in and takes the client.

@scottalanmiller said in Why QuickBooks Is Not a Business Tool:

A local provider charges more and delivers less because the customer feels compelled to stay local.

That's not true in my business. I'm charging less than the guys an hour away because when I do have to install something, I don't have to charge drive time and the client doesn't have to pay me drive time. In addition, I have come in behind some really incompetent providers. In those cases the client gets more and pays less.

@dashrender said in Why QuickBooks Is Not a Business Tool:

Why are you driving at all? Unless a device is offline.

To prevent my job from getting shipped to India... When a computer doesn't boot, or one boots and then immediately blue screens like happened today, we send someone. Clients are willing to pay a premium for this. I also recycle their old gear. I noticed that other companies don't do that and clients don't know how to destroy drives or handle Ewaste.

@scottalanmiller said in Why QuickBooks Is Not a Business Tool:

Accounting, like IT, has no advantage to being local to you. But getting accounting right, just like getting IT right, is critical for your business.

I disagree with this. I have a great business going because I focus on a geographic area. Most of my clients are with 5 minutes of each other. I offer no per trip charges or mileage charges. My business is growing at the rate I want it to. I can charge what the guys from cities an hour away charge and clients still choose me because it costs less for them when they don't have to pay for mileage. It's also very easy to socially network a geographic area and pick up new clients that way.

@scottalanmiller said in Why QuickBooks Is Not a Business Tool:

ANd you consider those other people "professionals"? Why? What made those six people good references if they are using QB?
I have a feeling you are self selecting your answers. You use QB, you talk to people who use QB, you select a town that uses QB.... some combination of those things might be leading you to more QB answers. If you switch to Xero, talk to actual businesses rather than professionals (a professional person is not the same as a business, very different things, businesses hire professionals, professionals often work in businesses, but a professional's personal non-business accounting does not reflect good business practice.)

You're right. I must be talking to the wrong people. Who is NTG's accountant and who did they have before that?

@dashrender said in Why QuickBooks Is Not a Business Tool:

Why do they need to be in that town? Can't you use an accountant who lives in NYC? not that you want to, fees would be to high.

My point is even in a town of 20,000 people, it's not easy to find an accountant not using QuickBooks. They are the 800lb gorilla.

@scottalanmiller Can you tell me how I find a competent accountant in Auburn, NY that doesn't use QuickBooks? I've talked to six accountants that were recommended by other professionals and they all insist on it. BTW - who is your accountant now and what to do they use? What about your accountant before that?

On the flip side of things I can't even convince my own accountant to use something else. What choices do I have? In a small town you may not be able to find an accountant that is willing to consider something else.

It is correct that I can't replace the device since it's a DSL modem as well as router. Also looking at this page, it's not clear to me if Fritz box is intentionally blocking VoIP ports, or if it's a side effect of them offering the service.
https://en.avm.de/service/fritzbox/fritzbox-7390/knowledge-base/publication/show/28_Cannot-make-outgoing-calls-over-Internet/

It's a DSL router, so even if I had an ER, it wouldn't help. I was able to log in to the thing and am now increasing my German vocabulary as I look for port filtering.

Cabled in to see if I could get in to the local router (I was over wifi) and now some sites work, but Zoiper still doesn't. I knew I should have packed an EdgeRouter...

I'm trying to connect to a few sites in the US and am getting blocked.

Screen Connect: So far I can get to the Screen Connect website, but when I try to connect to a host, I get the error: Error: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it.

my server in vultr: I can get console on the server by going to the vultr website. When I try to connect to my spiceworks install, I get the error: ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED I can ping it with ping times coming in at the 100ms mark.

Zoiper: I'm getting the error: SIP 408 - request timeout
Trying to register

another spiceworks server not in vultr: same "ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED" error.

Seems like my local router might be blocking some ports. I'm trying to think of a way to test that since ping works where ICMP is enabled, ping works, so I can't tracert to see which side the problem is on. I'm going to try to get access to the local router.

You don't have randsomware attack on the list?

@coliver Thanks. Nothing in AD. Is there anything else that can be used instead of MBAM to manage the keys?

I inherited a network where a few of the workstations are BitLockered. I searched the server and can't seem to find central management. The server is running Server 2008 Standard. I can't even find a group policy related to BitLocker. What should I be looking for to see if it's centrally managed? If they aren't centrally managed, is there something I can load on Server Essentials 2016 to manage them? I looked at MBAM, but doesn't look like it will run on Server Essentials.

@BRRABill said in Why BitLocker with USB key on a server?:

My point is the if @Mike-Davis took that USB key out, what issues would it really cause? In reality, very few.

I'm a MSP, so I'm not onsite. 3:00 AM automatic update server reboot would cause problems in the morning.