Dealing with ‘The X Factor’

By LOU ANTONELLI

Managing Editor

We’re already in Week Four of the Lou and Patricia Show – also known as The Clarksville Times is under new management – and I have to say I’m pleased but tired.

In addition to keeping up with the normal work of getting the paper written and to the printer, we’ve had to deal with a myriad of activities required with the change of ownership.

One big step was forming a new LLC to own The Times. We did NOT buy the old company, which still owns the papers in Jefferson and Ashdown, Arkansas. The New Clarksville Times LLC bought The Times’ assets.

Then we had to do all the other things related to starting a new corporation – getting an Employee Identification Number (EIN) from the IRS, getting account set up to pay withholding to the IRS, setting up an account to the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) to pay unemployment withholding, getting ready to pay personal property taxes on the business’ assets – the list goes on and on.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the term “The X Factor”. It originated years ago to mean that thing that’s going to go wrong that you don’t know about.

“X” in formulas mean the unknown. The X Factor means you have to assume as you move forward in your plans something will go wrong, you just don’t know what.

Our X Factor was processing credit card payments. Many subscribers – and some businesses – like to pay using credit cards.

The old account with the company that processed credit cards for the previous owners of The Times was closed, but then we couldn’t get a new account of our own with them.

You would think processing companies would welcome the opportunity to collect the attendant fees – free money – but the hang-up is that our new company has no history, credit or otherwise. I’ve been told such start-ups are screened because the government is concerned they will be used for money laundering.

It took us a week with the first company, and then we tried a second company. It took us another week to come up dry with them, too.

Finally on Monday we got an account set up so we can take credit cards. Hooray!

That may have been the last major substantial hurdle in the transition process. Things are otherwise going great, and as you can see, the paper is doing quite well.

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