By their work shall they be known;

              90 HASKINS & SELLS October
By Their Work Shall They Be Known
By W. H . ADAMS, of the Cleveland Practice Office
RE C E N T L Y Mr. Brown, president of
the Brown Manufacturing Company,
applied to his principal banking connection
for additional credit and submitted a
financial statement prepared by the com­pany's
accountant in support of his re­quest.
The banker made a very careful analysis
of the statement and informed Mr. Brown
that, based upon the statement submitted,
the bank could not grant the additional
credit.
Mr. Brown was very sincere in the
belief that he was entitled to the credit.
The demands for more capital were be­coming
more pressing, and, as is usually
the case, after trying all of the home
remedies without effect, the doctor was
called. A prominent firm of public ac­countants
was retained in the hope that
the accountants might be able to pre­scribe
some remedy which would keep
the patient alive.
Fortunately for the client, the ac­countant
assigned to the work was one of
broad business experience as well as of
marked accounting ability. He was more
than an ordinary "figure hound" who
simply verifies the transactions as they
appear on the records and summarizes
them in the form of a balance sheet and
income statement. He went deeper into
the affairs of the company than simply
making a brief review of past transactions.
He found an opportunity to get out into
the plant and, as he went through, made
mental notes of everything that occurred
to him which might be of benefit to the
client. During the progress of the audit
he looked into every possible angle of the
business.
When he had finished his work he was
in possession of facts in connection with
the business which, when presented to
the client, not only placed the latter in a
position to secure the necessary credit from
the bank, but also brought to his atten­tion
a number of changes in policy and
methods which resulted in a great saving
to the company.
Many who are entitled to credit pre­sent
their facts in such shape that they
do not secure it; and many who are not
entitled to credit so distort their facts