RE: Quickbooks link for accounting with A5
I think the point is that large customers result in large (and often very unreasonable) demands.
For example, the company I work for has a couple very large customers. One of them recently told us that $250,000 in prototype parts was "just the cost of doing business" and they were NOT going to pay for them. (No problem - it will only take about 6-8 months of production to repay and we can just cut everyones salary during that time!) They also demanded that we run a test which will take 3 months of continuous running on 12 test stands even though we can prove to any reasonable engineer that we can accomplish the same thing in 2 weeks - another $150,000+ down the tube. I've also spent many full days at meetings that I had to take an airplane to get to (literally) where I only had about 5 minutes of minimal input and received no other value from the meeting - BUT, the customer DEMANDED our attendance. (I could have sent them the charts since they were already familiar with the issue.) On top of all this, they expect us to cut our prices 5% every year because of "efficiency improvements" in the plant - after all, we've only been building our product for about 100 years so we still have a lot to learn about the best manufacturing methods!
When dealing with a large company, there is a chance to make big $$. There is also a chance for many large headaches and a lot of additional expenses. And, if you are about the go bankrupt the big company will probably just find someone else and claim that you didn't know how to run your business.
One reason I'm trying to get into database development full time is so that I can get away from that lunacy. I don't wish it on anyone.
I think the point is that large customers result in large (and often very unreasonable) demands.
For example, the company I work for has a couple very large customers. One of them recently told us that $250,000 in prototype parts was "just the cost of doing business" and they were NOT going to pay for them. (No problem - it will only take about 6-8 months of production to repay and we can just cut everyones salary during that time!) They also demanded that we run a test which will take 3 months of continuous running on 12 test stands even though we can prove to any reasonable engineer that we can accomplish the same thing in 2 weeks - another $150,000+ down the tube. I've also spent many full days at meetings that I had to take an airplane to get to (literally) where I only had about 5 minutes of minimal input and received no other value from the meeting - BUT, the customer DEMANDED our attendance. (I could have sent them the charts since they were already familiar with the issue.) On top of all this, they expect us to cut our prices 5% every year because of "efficiency improvements" in the plant - after all, we've only been building our product for about 100 years so we still have a lot to learn about the best manufacturing methods!
When dealing with a large company, there is a chance to make big $$. There is also a chance for many large headaches and a lot of additional expenses. And, if you are about the go bankrupt the big company will probably just find someone else and claim that you didn't know how to run your business.
One reason I'm trying to get into database development full time is so that I can get away from that lunacy. I don't wish it on anyone.
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