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Bulletin HASKINS & SELLS 25 Division of Mechanical Devices Ledger Posting by Machinery M A N Y of us have witnessed the broad-ening of accounting methods during the past twenty-five years. We have carefully studied and devised plans to meet the requirements for the control and guidance and safe conduct of big business. Twenty-five years ago a million dollar corporation was considered a big business. Today we have corporations spending vast amounts each year for office records. The office appliance industry of today has an interesting history in connection with the growth of business and has done much toward getting data without an amount of. expense inconsistent with good management. The investment in the industry is probably more than one hundred million dollars. With the present scarcity of clerical help the mechanical devices are in greater need than ever before. Who would have thought, years ago, that bookkeeping would ever be done by machinery? It is now being done in many offices. Probably the most advanced work applied to machinery is ledger posting on adding typewriters. There are several adding typewriters and some adding listing machines equipped to do ledger posting, but explanation here will be made only of how the work is done by the most advanced type of adding typewriters in comparison with pen and ink methods, and the results obtained. It is easily seen that with a typewriter one can head up a loose leaf ledger sheet with name and address, post the date, folio and amount, and write the descriptive matter, and if that were all that could be accomplished nothing perhaps but legibility would be gained and that at a sacrifice of speed. The typewriter itself, therefore, would not induce a business man to do ledger posting on a machine. In the early development of the bookkeep-ing machine, the typewriter was equipped with two adding registers, so set as to add, the debit and credit postings. The operator could make a comparison at any time between the amounts posted as shown in the adding registers, with the pre-determined amount of the posting medium. If the totals agreed it was accepted as a mechanical proof that all amounts were correctly posted. The posting to the correct account is another matter. With this equipment the mechanical proof was gained without additional time or effort. The adding registers were set in their respective adding zones, that is, over the money columns, and when posting debits or credits the adding registers were simultaneously engaged. This original ledger posting method did not give one the balances at the end of the month. The work of balancing the individual accounts was left to be done after completing the month's business. The desire to relieve this congestion and meet the business man's wish to mail his statements on the first of the month required further results. These results are now being obtained by mechanically computing new balances at each posting. These new balances are obtained by additional effort and time. The machine is equipped with two additional registers, making four all told, and a cross-footer. Computing a new balance requires the writing of the old balance to which a debit or credit posting is added or subtracted in the cross-footer. When copying the new balance from the cross-footer it automatically subtracts the amount, and if correctly copied the cross-footer is cleared. As a mechanical "fool-proof" arrangement they have added a key which can only be depressed when the cross-footer is cleared. The key prints a star which is treated as a symbol of audit.
Object Description
Title |
Division of mechanical devices |
Subtitle |
Ledger posting by machinery |
Author |
Anonymous |
Subject |
Accounting machines Office equipment and supplies |
Office/Department | Haskins & Sells. Division of Mechanical Devices |
Citation | Haskins & Sells Bulletin, Vol. 01, no. 03 (1918 May 15), p. 25-26 |
Date-Issued | 1918 |
Source | Originally published by: Haskins & Sells |
Type | Text |
Collection | Deloitte Digital Collection |
Digital Publisher | University of Mississippi Libraries. Accounting Collection |
Date-Digitally Created | 2009 |
Identifier | HS Bulletin 1-3-p25 |