Suspicious activity on your Social Security Number! Really?

Already These Fools Have Called Me Six Times Today!

Rapacious phishers want to score your social security number and possibly banking information.  But not mine; I'm wise to their game.   

They believe if they call enough times, perhaps the recipient will become anxious and frightened.  If so, it's likely that person will take action and attempt to call Social Security Administration.  

But if one tried to call today, I'd bet the SSA phone lines are bombarded trying to reassure fearful folks.  

Once you become so anxious, unable to speak with someone at SSA, that just plays into the scammers game.  The next time they call, it's easy to just Press One to get hooked into their favorite sport.  Be it identity theft or some other twisted racket, beware of major consequences.

Robo-Bot Dials for Your Dollars  

I listened to the robotic male voice.  His message seems to have been written by a non-native English speaker.  Who knows, it could be a communistic plot, there's so many these days.  Is is China, North Korean, or Russia?  I wish I could say.  Here's the voice mail message transcribed: 

" .....case just press one thank you. This call is from the department of social security administration. The reason you have received this phone call from our department is to inform you that we just suspend [sic] your social security number because we found some suspicious activity. So if you want to know about this case just press one thank you. "

Toll-Free Phishers

Maybe you think they are legitimate if they have a toll free number.  It's easier than you think to score a toll free number.  Frankly I have two.  Today's list of toll free numbers used by these crafty little bots.  

• 888 810-0927
• 888 810-0917
• 888 810-0922
• 888 815-0011
• 888 815-0014

Urgent: Quick Tip

The clue to avoid falling for this or any other phisher is because they want you to believe it is so urgent that you won't give it a second thought.  It's precisely how very smart folks fall prey to pressing matters.  It's the rush to fix.  So they don't pause to consider that the information is coming from a random, unreliable source.  Be alert, be diligent. 

Do more than pray that you don't fall prey.  Checkout the source.  All I did was do an internet search for one of those numbers to discover it was previously identified as "Unsafe Caller." 

Why Doesn't Congress Act? 

Right now the FTC has a useless "Do Not Call" registry.  Congress should outlaw all automatic dialers.  But, no.  Our congressmen cling to this technology for their own purposes.  

It's OK for them to use robotics to call you to get out the vote or ask you to participate in a survey, or provide "information" as to why we should care about their particular platform. Hey, You there in Washington, how about legislating penalties upon service providers.  I'd suggest a 100K fine for each incidence of deceptive information transmitted for the sole purpose of fraud.     

Quickbooks for Mac 2019 - Wait for it....

 An tic-ipa-tion..... QB for Mac 2019 is coming! 

BTW, it's not the smashed up Mac browser tool that hooks up to QuickBooks Online.  

QB for Mac 2019 desktop is almost here.  It' s going to be sold as a licensed version for $299.  I expect this new release will come out late 3rd quarter 2018.

Plus, it's a regular software license, not a subscription SKU.  Realistically, at this pre-release stage, Intuit may change pricing.  But right now I don't see any changes to license SKU. 

Stay tuned!

Hints for QuickBooks for Commercial Real Estate Companies - Part 2

Here's how to generate an invoice for CAM, Common Area Maintenance for commercial tenants.

Start by opening the Unbilled Costs by Job to show you a list of tenants with unbilled expenses.  

Review this list thoroughly before taking the next step.  You need to make sure you have collected all of the unbilled charges.  Use prior CAM reports and invoices as a resource to double check.  First, make sure you have all tenants listed.   It will take some time to make sure you have all of the CAM charges for the period.   If you find a cost that is not on the report, the most likely reason would be the date of transaction.  Either change the date range of the report or modify transaction date (as long as it is in the same fiscal/tax period).  Once you have fixed all of the issues, you can begin the CAM invoices.

Let's Invoice CAM Charges

Step 1 - Create invoice 

Find the tenant in the Customer list, Click on New Transactions, and Invoice.  Notice the pop-up window offers Unbilled charges.  Click on the button to select the outstanding bills and OK.

Step 2 - Select charges 

The next pop-up window offers four tabs.  Click on the fourth tab, "Items" .  Check mark each one using the mouse or Select All.  Click OK.

  
Step 3 -  Preview invoice

Here's the invoice assembled with the CAM charges.  It's ready to print or send via e-mail.

Step 4 -  Print invoice 

Send to the printer to create a paper document.  And/or generate a PDF.  Either way, keep a copy in your files either as a PDF or printout. 

 Step 5 - Send invoice to tenant via email and snail mail.

Exposed: Thank you for placing an order with Intuit QuickBooks!

An email arrived this morning letting me know I could download my purchase.   Except --  I didn't place an order.  Had I downloaded the file, I probably would have to spend days troubleshooting random problems.  Eventually I would surrender in favor of my sanity by taking the only safe way out, "nuke and repave".  To fix the opps, is exponential to the n'th degree, after just one click. 

Thank goodness Norton Anti-Virus caught this one before I took action.  Most trickster are not obvious to unsuspecting computer users.  To get to know this phisher, we'll  need to look under the covers.  

In Outlook, select from the menu, Message Options. It may be fairly well hidden.  This will reveal metadata to give us clues to track down where this nasty little message came from.    

Below, see the Message Options, for the senders codes.  BTW, Message Options is a very oblique use of English language.  No wonder it's rarely used.  

At first glance it looks gnarly.  Notice two areas that are highlighted.  That's all the info you will need to follow up to protect your InBox.   

Return-path: <6aa2cbbaf@domainsya.com>
Envelope-to: info@XXXX.com
Delivery-date: Tue, 23 Oct 2017 08:00:37 -0400
Received: from impinc02.ourhostgacct.com ([101.1.13.102] helo=impinc02.ourhostgacct.com)
    by mailscan15.ourhostgacct.com with esmtp (Exim)
    id 1TQd9x-0000gj-CL
    for info@XXXX.com; Tue, 23 Oct 2017 08:00:37 -0400
Received: from [194.176.60.209] ([194.176.60.209])
    by impinc02.ourhostgacct.com with NO UCE
    id Ec0b1k00T4WrvRu02c0cDC; Tue, 23 Oct 2017 08:00:37 -0400
X-EN-OrigIP: 194.176.60.209
X-EN-IMPSID: Ec0b1k00T4WrvRu02c0cDC
From: "Customer Service" <6AA2CBBAF@domainsya.com>
To: <info@XXXX.com>
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2017 15:00:34 +0300
MIME-Version: 1.0
Reply-To: "Intuit No Reply" <2EF89473@abeystudio.com>
x-job: 77895_6181
Message-ID: <20121023150034.4575483F4581345DD4A4E.CBDC8F@MW7LUTC12PZFJ4>
Content-Type: text/html;
    charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Subject: Order Confirmation
X-Brightmail-Tracker: AAAABhv0UkcWWC+kHCeIDxwngKUcJ3XiHEUfPg==
X-Brightmail-Tracker: AAAAARxVCNc=

I probably should block future email from two email address:
 - 6AA2CBBAF@domainsya.com
 - 2EF89473@abeystudio.com.  

Better yet, I can block all email from this IP address: 194.176.60.109.  I took the time to look the originating IP, internet provider.  It was sent from a Lithuania host.  

Geez, I guess I won't be hearing from them anytime soon!

 
 

Hints for QuickBooks for Commercial Real Estate Companies - Part 1

Quit using a spreadsheets to track CAM, Common Area Maintenance.  QuickBooks is outstanding for just this purpose.   First, make sure you have set up QuickBooks correctly.  The recommended structure is as follows:

• Entity
• Property
• Unit
• Tenant

Here's how I set up these in QB:

• Entity (database - separate QB file)
• Property (QB Customer and/or QB class )
• Rental Unit (QB Customer)
• Tenant ( as a subset of Unit, QB "Job")

Calculate the % of total square footage.  Let's say you have two tenants, one we'll call "Deli-Licious & Liquor"  with 30%.  The other, "Bigger Box Store" has 70%.

Notice the highlighted area.  This sets up the billable.  Target the tenant to rebill by selecting the Customer:Job.  

Tip:  If you need to calculate the split between tenants, the amount box does quick calculations.  Here's how:

1. Enter the total charge in the amount box.  Do not click next or move away from this field.
2. To multiply by the percentage, click on the * asterisk.  A mini calculator opens.
3. Use the percent, if it is 5%, enter .05 to calculate and press Enter

Be sure to check mark that line "billable".

One more hint, for regular expense payments, use Memorize, CTL M, to replicate and set up recurring transactions. You don't have to set up a fixed amount if it is variable, but you can list the tenants to help.  If the amounts are the same each month, you have already calculated the cost by percentage of square foot occupancy.

In part two, we'll review how to flip this into a an invoice for tenants. 

Victoria Marechal
Intuit Solution Provider/QB Advanced ProAdvisor 

www.qb-it.net