Posts by Robert Thomas11

What an absolute disaster! And here I was thinking I finally had the hang of this—I even had my Social Security number ready to go and everything, but still, nothing is working! Total nightmare. Let me know if you manage to get through, Lili p.!!!

Could someone please walk me through the process of filing my GFI via the IRS website? What are the specific steps involved—once I have completed the forms on the official pages, what comes next? Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!

feralcobra46 said:If they consider themselves professionals, they should already know these basics—these are trivialities, frankly laughable. If they take the hint the first time without being told, sure, you can overlook the error. But if they insist on being dense? Then you can be certain they are cutting corners everywhere else. They’re playing games with their employees, they’re playing games with you, and they’re likely playing games with the government—in ways you aren't even privy to. The fact that they aren't even trying to hide their incompetence is just proof enough of how protected they are. I speak from experience.

P.S. I don't know the scale of this employer, but when I say "protected," I mean they have friends in high places—either at the local municipal level or within the federal political machine.

Yes, they are simply foolish. Just plain dim—and clearly, they are cutting corners too.

Kimberly Harris6 said:Precisely. I tried explaining it to my own crew, but it just goes in one ear and out the other—except for one person. She actually listened, took it seriously, and now we work together perfectly. I set up a spreadsheet to recap monthly hours so we can process payroll accurately. Since they "manage" their own logs, those hours need to be totaled at the end of the month and sent to me for processing. If an auditor shows up and looks at the payroll, they're going to demand to see the time logs to cross-reference them with the checks. Now, everything runs smoothly with that one woman, but the rest of them? My goodness!!!! 🙏 They send me the exact same spreadsheets every single month with barely any changes, for crying out loud! They work shifts! And the best part? One girl hands me a sheet and tells me: "It doesn't matter, if something looks off, just fix it!" Excuse me? I tell her straight up that I have nothing to "fix"—if she wrote it down and SIGNED it, I am running the payroll based on her numbers, and she can be the one to explain to the auditor why her math doesn't match reality. This happens month after month... it's exhausting!!!

It truly is awful. I was practically interrogated today—it was honestly humiliating. You simply cannot reason with some clients! It’s madness. I completely empathize with you! Honestly, let the inspectors go after those massive corporations where employees are pulling 12-hour shifts without a single day off—they barely get one day off a MONTH!!! I would love to see how they manage to log those hours legally!!! Why don't they target them instead of picking on small businesses and local shops with ten employees? It is always the same story. These huge companies get a free pass, even though it's an open secret that they run people ragged for pennies on the dollar. But of course, nobody wants to audit them! What a disgrace this country can be sometimes!!!!!!!! I am constantly getting a headache from these endless new regulations and "innovative" ideas being pushed on us—all these new fees and paperwork—but what is the actual purpose of this oversight and worker protection? Is this really protecting workers? People are working 12-hour days with zero time off and no one says a word! They should go hunt down those shady outfits—everyone knows which ones they are!

Henry Edwards33 said:Of course you can't be the one keeping track of everyone's hours. First off, under US labor laws, that responsibility falls squarely on the employer—they're the ones who have to maintain those records. Second, you aren't even there to see when people actually clock in 🙂
If they keep pushing, just tell them fine. Go ahead and fill out some spreadsheets showing everyone working a standard 7-to-3 shift and using their PTO in August 😬

Look, I get it. Clients can be incredibly demanding, but I refuse to bend over backward for every little whim they have. If I start catering to every irrational request, I’ll end up being their personal doormat (pardon my bluntness). Once I started telling people they were more than welcome to find another accountant, their "urgent" demands miraculously vanished
Trust me, no legitimate accounting firm in the country is going to take on the task of tracking employee hours for you. 😉

Exactly—I couldn't agree more—but honestly, explaining this to them feels like an impossible task. They seem to think everything is our responsibility... we're the villains when they get a notice from the IRS because they neglected to pay their payroll taxes! Hellooo? We constantly remind them: "Please, just pay these, or you're going to face a levy." And yet, they just don't care. Then, when the levy actually hits, suddenly it's our fault! It's truly unbelievable what people allow themselves to do. They receive their invoices every single month, they know exactly what needs to be paid, yet somehow we are still the ones to blame—and then they act shocked: "Wait, why do we owe so much?!"
aaaaaaaa

These endless record-keeping requests are absolutely exhausting... it is so difficult to explain things to them—they simply refuse to listen, no matter what you do...

I wanted to reach out to those of you working in accounting—who is actually responsible for maintaining time logs? Isn't that strictly the employer's duty? Specifically, shouldn't the employees themselves be recording their own hours? They are currently trying to force us to take this on as part of our accounting duties, which seems entirely impossible, doesn't it? It feels like they want us to just make things up—and if we dare to push back, they’ll turn on us. What is the best way to handle this? How do I explain to them that this responsibility lies solely with management? To me, it seems logical that when an audit or inspection occurs, the logs should already be completed and ready to go, rather than having them tell us, "Wait, let us find those hours"—isn't that a task for the business owners, not the accountants? Do any of you actually manage these records for your clients? We simply cannot seem to find common ground with this particular client...