Rustic Hearts

Sophie

 

I walk into the kitchen after brushing down Huck to find Aunt Doreen and Aunt Ria rummaging through a huge stack of papers and receipts on the table.

“Here, you sort these into alphabetical order, and then we’ll start by date, I guess,” Aunt Doreen says as she pushes a pile in Aunt Ria’s direction.

“Alphabetical order, you say?” Aunt Ria mumbles as she assesses the mess.

“What are you guys doing?” I ask as I pour myself a glass of lemonade and sit down.

“The books,” Aunt Doreen answers.

I take in the table and the green ledger portfolio sitting in front of her. “You’re joking, right?”

“I wish I were. Gram always handled all of this, and … well, the end of the year will be here soon, and we have to get our ducks in a row for the accountant.”

“You mean to tell me, Gram was still keeping the ranch’s records on a paper ledger?” I squeak in disbelief.

“Yes. She would keep it all recorded. She kept all the receipts and paperwork so nice and neat, and she wrote all the checks and kept the accounts balanced. Paid payroll to the employees and—oh my, we don’t know what we’re doing.” Aunt Doreen places her head in her hands.

“Don’t you guys have a computer?” I ask.

“Yes. There’s one in Madeline’s office. She uses it to run the stable’s website for her camps for the children with disabilities.”

“You guys need to get a QuickBooks account for the ranch and start moving all this over.”

“What’s a QuickBooks?”

“It’s an online accounting and record-keeping program that you can use for the business. It will keep track of your accounts payable and accounts receivable and even do payroll for you. It’s pretty user-friendly. A lot better than keeping all this straight.”

“I don’t really know my way around a computer.” Aunt Doreen sighs.

“Surely, someone here does. Madeline? Elle?”

“Yes, Elle does, but she’s not very interested in the ranch. She has big plans for being a news reporter or something.”

“This week anyway,” Ria adds.

“Think you could teach us?” Aunt Doreen turns her hopeful eyes to me.

“I guess it couldn’t hurt to try. I’ll grab my laptop.”

“Oh, thank you, sweetheart.” She exhales in relief.

We spend the rest of the evening with me giving a crash course tutorial for a basic QuickBooks home office program. None of which seems to sink in too well.

At some point, the men show up, looking for di

“What’s all this?” Daddy asks as he surveys us crowded around my laptop with both of his sisters frantically taking notes.

“Sophie is trying to teach us how to use the computer to keep better records of the ranch’s business affairs,” Aunt Doreen answers him as she narrows her eyes at the screen, trying to read the numbers in the columns. “I don’t know how you can see that screen, Sophie. All I see is glare at this point. It’s giving me the worst headache.” She removes her reading glasses and pinches the bridge of her nose.

“Is that thing safe?” He looks at the computer like it might bite him.

“It has a firewall.”

“A fire what?”

“A firewall. It’s a security program that keeps your computer safe from malware and viruses.”

“How does a machine catch a virus?”

All their eyes focus on me.

“Not an actual virus. You know what? That’s enough for tonight. I don’t want to overload you. We’ll do some more tomorrow.”

“Oh, thank goodness.” Aunt Ria stands from the table and walks over to the freezer. “Anyone else need a drink?” She raises the mason jar in the air.

“I’ll have a nip,” Aunt Doreen accepts.

I stand and start to close my laptop.

“I appreciate your efforts, but I’m not sure we’re going to be able to operate that thing,” Daddy says as he sits opposite me.

“Somebody has to learn. You can’t keep doing business this way. I can’t believe Gram was still doing everything by hand. That’s insane.”

“Accountant’s been complaining for years, but she’d put him in his place, and as long as all the numbers added up, I reckon he let her slide.”

I shake my head. “How do you all measure profit and loss or forecast for the next season?”

“If there’s money left in the accounts after we take the cattle to auction at the end of the year, it’s profit. If there’s not, it’s loss.”

“What?”

“Where’d I lose you?”

“You can’t measure profit that way. You have to keep a record of material costs, man-hours, service fees like vet bills and heating and air contractors. How do you pay the ranch hands?”

“With cash.”

“Cash? Are you serious? Are they considered self-employed contract employees, or do you pay their social security and income taxes?”

“They are just guys who work, and I pay them with cash.”

“You can’t do that. What if one of them is hurt out there? Does workers’ comp cover them? If you don’t have a contract and they are working under the table, they could sue Rustic Peak.”

“Those boys have been working for me for years. They aren’t going to sue me.”

“Really? You don’t know that. If one of them ended up under the tractor and lost their leg and couldn’t work again, what choice would they have? Or better yet, what if it killed them? Do you know every one of their next of kin well enough to know they wouldn’t sue the ranch?”

“No,” he reluctantly admits.

“Honestly, if the IRS found out the way you had been ru

“Sophie, we’re a small family business, and we’ve done just fine.”

“You’re an eight-thousand-acre cattle ranch. That’s not small, and you, as a businessman, should want to protect that.”

“I’m not a businessman. I’m a rancher.”

“You need to be both.”

He raises his weary eyes to mine. He’s only fifty-five years old, but the lines around his eyes and the gray in his mustache make him seem older.

“We weren’t prepared to lose Gram. She was healthy as a horse one minute, and the next, she was sick. It all happened so quickly. Too quick for her to teach us the ins and outs. But we’ll figure it out. We have to. Too many people’s families depend on us.”

I sigh and calm down. “I’ll help while I’m here. Maybe if I can get everything set up and all this”—I gesture to the mess covering the table—“sorted, then it will be easier to start from there and move forward. Although I’m not sure Aunt Doreen and Ria are the best choices to be taking over the operation. Madeline, Elle, or even Braxton would be easier to train.”

“Braxton would love that.” He snorts.

“I bet.”

“Let me talk to Madeline tonight. I’m sure she’d be willing to learn, and I can try my hand at it, I guess.”

“This is going to be a good thing. Once you get everything set up and see how much more efficient and how much more legal it is, you’ll be glad you did.”

“I trust you.” He stands. “Thank you, Sophie.”

“Don’t thank me yet.”

He smiles at me, and then he walks out the back door.

I take in the table. Crap. It’s going to take more than a few weeks to straighten this out.