Dundeemedia Ltd

I realised that as I get older spend more time programming, my chair needs are not being met with the £50 deal of the day and I must look for something better:

1. The knee chair didn’t work for me - well, it was comfy, but my legs always looked like I’d been recently testing hair removal products. And the Villain chair didn’t look comfy for programming

2. The Aeron by Herman Miller is the embodiement of the dotcom era. A beautiful naked alien-like chair. Ok, so the one I want would cost about £700 before VAT, but with a 12 year warranty that works out at £58.3 per year.

3. Then I realised that the Aeron has been out now for a long time - surely there have been improvements, like the Mirra again my Herman Miller. A little cheaper now (a fully loaded model is available for around £500 - or £41.6 per year

4. Browsing the site now because a) I was a little bored looking at chairs, and b) in my sugar reduced state I clicked the wrong link showing me all their chairs - and what beauty did I see - the Embody…

the problem - I want one because it looks dead comfy and has some kind of spine/hex design, but it costs at least £1000.

AT LEAST.

Probably closer to £1200 (and that’s £100 a year!)

So, I possibly maybe want to spend £1200 on a chair that looks like it could possibly replace my spine and £1200 is a lot of money, ok, it’s a vast fortune in these times of crunching and unemployment, so surely there’s a place in Scotland where I can go to have a look at one, nay, someone should bring it to me on a golden pedestal. Aye Right!

What features do you need in document management software? I’ve come up with a list, using standard paper based (real) document management, over software based (virtual)

1. Easy to file - You don’t walk over to a filing cabinet and start building one everytime you need to put a document in, the first time perhaps you add an index card or a new colour tag, but mostly you open a drawer and put a document inside. Hopefully it’s in the right place too.
2. Easy to retrieve - Ok, this is a hard comparison, as long as number 1. is done correctly, then it should be easy to retrieve the document.

Well, I think I covered the main points. That is how easy document management software should be, and it will be, just watch this space!

Being in the final throes of writing a custom software package, and implementing the much needed “Export to Sage” functionality, I’ve found myself in a bit of a pickle. Why? you ask? Well, it’s all down to rounding, and VAT.

Because I don’t use Sage - I first used excel, and now use my homegrown invoicing software - when I create my invoices I total up the amounts, multiply by 0.175 to get the VAT amount and multiply by 1.175 to get the Total. I then cunningly round up using the method I was taught at school, ie 0.5 or higher becomes 1 (and 0.05 becomes 0.1) - also known as the symetric implementation.

Bankers rounding is slightly different, but statistically better. It’s also known as round to even, which does describe the workings a lot better - ie, 3.15 becomes 3.2, and 3.45 becomes 3.4. Bankers rounding also seems to be the default when programming (more on this later…)

Now on to Sage…

Sage uses bankers rounding Sage uses symetric rounding, but it also rounds the VAT amount per line. This can cause a difference between Sage’s VAT calculation vs multiplying the subtotal by 0.175.

 Eg,

So which is right for VAT purposes? Well, they all are. As long as you stick to one method and don’t mix and match. Personally, I’m sure that HMCE would prefer the last method as it can net them an extra 1.74p per £100!

 Ah well, lesson learned, and 90 mins wasted redeveloping the accounting side of my custom software to match up with the values Sage will give on export…

 UPDATE:

Well, after spending hours last night checking my code and putting orders through sage and checking the amounts with my system I realised something - the utility I use to transfer data from my system into Sage appears to calculate the VAT itself based on the products tax code - clever I hear you say - well, my program uses symmetric rounding, Sage uses symmetric rounding… This utility uses Bankers Rounding, not good, and I’m not happy.

I do a lot of work remotely, and whilst ctrl+alt+end is a lifesaver when using terminal services / remote desktop, there’s no easy way to send ctrl+alt+del to open Task Manager in the “no-preinstall” remote assistance tool that I use (well, there is a way but it takes longer at the client side, and longer to connect to the desktop so it’s only really useful when I know I need to login as a different user on a remote machine)

Well, today I found the answer, and surprisingly I must have seen it a million times….

Right-click an empty space on the taskbar, or the system clock and Task Manager is available from the pop-up menu!

I decided to get a microwave oven today. Whilst browsing through Asda’s website, I came upon this:

http://www.asda-electricals.co.uk/shop/product/sony/-dat.html?

One thing I never imagined Asda selling. I just hope they do a great discount on RME cards when they get them in!