Uniform sales invoices;

              90 HASKINS & SELLS December
Uniform Sales Invoices
STANDARDIZATION has been one of
the outstanding characteristics in the
economic development of the United
States. For the most part, however, this
standardization has been confined to the
field of production. Notwithstanding the
fact that for nearly a decade there have
been in existence uniform invoices of one
kind or another, a glance at a day's receipt
of invoices in many of our business concerns
today would indicate that there is still con­siderable
room for improvement in the use
of standardized forms.
John Smith may render his bill for elec­trical
supplies on a white invoice, seven
inches wide and very long. Bill Jones may
send his bill for repairs on a green invoice,
six inches wide and four inches deep, ruled
with red lines, and ornamented with fancy
lettering. The A. B. Machinery Company
will have an invoice, of odd size and ex­tremely
heavy paper, with pictures of its
factories all around the border. William
Wong, the laundryman, renders his bill on
a small scrap of brown paper, the writing
on which is made up of Chinese characters,
so that only the amount is legible to the
average person. Not only is there dis­similarity
in the size and form of invoices,
but there also is considerable lack of uni­formity
in the arrangement of the items.
Customer's order number may be on the
left side just below the address in one in­stance
and in another it may be located in
the upper right-hand corner. Add to this
the partial obliteration caused by the pur­chaser's
rubber stamp or rider and it prac­tically
is inevitable that the handling of
invoices should result in some confusion.
In some organizations hundreds of in­voices
are received in a day, including
many of different sizes, with differences in
arrangement and wording, and diversity of
appearance, with the result that the con­cern
is almost precluded from dealing with
such invoices in any systematic manner.
The excessive time and effort necessary to
check, audit, approve, file, etc., such in­voices
may be considered an economic
waste. Various estimates have been made
as to the amount of saving that could be
effected with the use of standardized in­voice
forms. Suffice it to say that there
is considerable opportunity to cut down the
expenses attendant upon the handling of
sales invoices.
With this in view conferences were held
under the sponsorship of the National
Association of Purchasing Agents, for the
purpose of standardizing the sales invoice
form. Efforts began in 1919 and in 1921
the national standard invoice was adopted
and recommended for use by several trade
associations. In January, 1925, the Divi­sion
of Simplified Practice of the Depart­ment
of Commerce endorsed the national
standard invoice form and presented it to
all branches of industry and commerce as a
means of eliminating waste in office pro­cedure.
The principal features of this in­voice
form were the standardization in the
size of the form and the uniformity in the
arrangement of the information to be
placed thereon. The information for the
vendor and customer was grouped so con­veniently
as to eliminate the necessity for
either a rubber stamp or an invoice rider.
The problem of combating the heter-