Someone literally stole our content!

Maybe you’ve noticed (and maybe you haven’t) that it’s been mighty quiet around here and I’ve been an absent blogger for well over a year, so I thought I’d hop in here and let you all know what is going on —- finally!

First of all, let me assure everyone that:

• I haven’t stopped supporting QuickBooks
• I haven’t stopped supporting contractors using QuickBooks
• I haven’t run out of tips and tricks to write about
• and I really haven’t fallen off the face of the earth 🙂

What has happened (and I’m going to be REALLY blunt here) is that I have become very aggravated and disillusioned by the people who are supposed to be my “peers” – namely other so-called “QuickBooks professionals” and I use that term quite loosely.

Now, I have put a lot of free content here on this blog and it’s sister site “Learn to use QuickBooks in your construction business” and I do so willingly and without hesitation because any contractor (or bookkeeper working for a contractor) needs a lot of help – and frankly I like helping people overcome many of the pain points that contractors face when using QuickBooks.

But what I absolutely detest is when one of these so-called “peers” comes to this site and copies word for word (right down to to the graphics/pictures I used) posts that I’ve put up here and put them on THEIR website and claiming it as their own content!   That’s what happened early in 2015, not only to myself but to several other bloggers that I know.   So we all banded together and confronted this ProAdvisor – she claimed that she had hired a ghost writer and it was that persons fault – and after enough pressure from us, she took her blog down – without any apology to the bloggers she stole from.  Shortly after that, this ProAdvisor became the “payroll expert” for one of the two major QuickBooks Accounting Professionals training groups.

Needless to say this, well, it pissed me off to no end!  Maybe, I’m REALLY old school – but I don’t think that someone who would do something like this is should be treated as a “respected peer, an expert, or a professional”.  And while it is said that the greatest compliment that a blogger can receive is when someone copies their content – I personally didn’t feel that way.

Also about this time, I started having issues with rheumatoid arthritis in my hands and lower back – so I decided it was time to take a break from blogging – it’s really difficult to type when your fingers are like fat, overstuffed sausages!

So, what does the future hold?

Well, Sunburst is going to hire an employee and hopefully I’ll be back to blogging after the first of the year – so stay tuned.  There will be new content, both here and on the “Learn to use QuickBooks in your construction business” website.

Until then, feel free to utilize the information I’ve put on both websites – and if you are an accounting “professional” – act like it and don’t make it sound like the material you implement for a client from either site is something YOU developed.