Accounting Basics

I have a couple of horror stories that came about due to my previous employer, an entreprenuer, who decided to let his new wife take over book keeping. She was not very bright to say the least and certainly not qualified to handle book keeping. I was working in Las Vegas I was the supervisor over four schools that were on the books at the time. the way it worked out was I would spend most of my time on the school that was in full production. The other schools were either finishing up(punch list) or preparing to start (show up to do a little here and there). I was being paid prevailing wage non-union. I would dispatch employees from the union hall and lay off as needed for different phases of different projects. The union employees had a benefits package that was paid monthly by the employer: a vacation fund that was kept in a credit union, and a retirement and health benefits that was paid to the union itself. One day Victor comes to me and said that he wrote all of these checks using the credit union and they all bounced which accrued several nsf fees. Most people had a regular bank to do banking but Victor used his credit union as his normal bank. I had the B.A. out visiting me the next day. It turned out that not only had the vacation fund not been replenished , but non of the benefits package was paid either, for any of the Protec union employees in Las Vegas. Victor was my friend and now I was caught in the middle of Protecs stupidity and the union which was ready to walk off the job. The general contractor got word of it and now it became a huge mess and the only one down there to deal with evil glares was me.
Next story, the blundering book keeper turned in miss matching w4's to the IRS mine wich didn't match my pay stubs. The company goes out of business while I'm trying to get this all straightened out. I end up getting a bill from the IRS for $30,000 dollars and threat of lean on my house within 20 days. Fortunately I had all of my pay stubs and w2 forms to prove the discrepencies and actually got money back after it was all said and done.