Hello World!

This is my blog.

I develop software for Canadian Accounting Professionals.  I started in 1985, when one of my techie friends from the local computer store introduced me to Henry Zimmer, then a prominent financial author.  Together, Henry and I created the CanTax T1, the first commercially available software designed to help Canadians prepare their own tax returns.  We did everything ourselves, operating out of Henry's basement... Henry interpreted the tax regulations and wrote the tax guide. I did the coding, wrote the user manual and provided technical support.  Henry's wife Shana answered the phone, opened the mail and processed orders.  His kids took our printed manuals, diskettes and renewal forms and stuffed them into plastic sleeves (we hired some Henry's university students to do this too).  We all packed them into boxes and shipped them across the country to software stores, bookstores, and to our customers.  In 1985, the CanTax T1 cost $39.95.

Although we intended the software for do-it-yourselfers, it wasn't long before accountants started buying the CanTax T1 and using it to prepare returns for their clients.  Since I was a university student at the time, we put and answering machine on our technical support line while I was at school.  I would come home to what felt like a hundred messages asking us to add schedules for farming and fishing, multiple jurisdictions, forward averaging and invoicing.  So in 1988, we did.  We added a new product which we called the CanTax T1Plus.  The product was different from the standard CanTax T1 in two ways.  First, we added schedules for farming and fishing. And second, we charged $109.95.

Accountants liked T1Plus.  It wasn't quite as comprehensive as our early competitor - TaxPrep.  But it was easier to use, faster and less expensive.  It wasn't long before we had a few thousand accountants using our program.

We had a few struggles, too.  

On a Thursday late in February, 1987 I got a phone call from one of our good customers.  He described a problem with our calculation of the "Alternative Minimum Tax".  He told me that our CanTax T1 was calculating an Alternative Minimum Tax payable for some of his clients when it shouldn't.  I was pretty confident that our program was correct, but I spend some time looking into it.  Unfortunately, the customer was right.  We had a bug.

I was nervous about telling Henry about the bug we'd just found.  Henry was calm, which was reassuring for me.  We investigated the problem further.  I don't remember all the details but we estimated that about 10% of our clients would get the wrong answer.  Unfortunately we didn't know which 10%.  Henry and I spent an hour or so trying to figure out what to do.  There weren't any good options.  In 1987, no one had the internet.  There was no auto-update, and no one could download a software patch.

In the end, we took the only option available.  I went back to my desk and fixed the problem.  Henry tested my solution,  at least twenty times, and in every scenario he could think of.  Shana ordered 10,000 diskettes, envelopes and labels.  We bought $5,000 worth of postage for our Pitney Bowes stamp machine.  I wrote an open letter to all our customers describing the problem, of which we made 10,000 copies.  Then I called my friend Art, who knew how to run our disk duplicator.  He started duplicating the corrected diskettes on Friday morning.  By early afternoon, our friends and family had come to the basement office where we packaged the diskette and the letter I wrote into labeled envelopes.  At 6pm we ordered 10 large pizzas and 20 litres of Coke from "Pizza Bank" in Glenmore Landing, and we worked through to about 10pm.

On Saturday morning, Canada Post picked up 10 large burlap bags fill with the disks we made.

I was worried about how this incident would affect our customers.  Would they lose faith?  Maybe next year they'd buy another product.

Fortunately, the reverse happened.  Our customers knew that if we found a bug, we'd do the right thing.  Our business more than doubled in 1988.  And that meant we would have to hire more staff...

Comments

[Kathleen]

Where can I buy your books? I read your article and you are interested in me but you did not specify where you can buy it! I would be happy to become the owner of this brochure!
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