Page:Willich, A. F. M. - The Domestic Encyclopædia (Vol. 1, 1802).djvu/345

Rh ruled with three, four, five, or seven columns on each page, as may be most agreeable, for receiving the amounts of the different transactions entered in the day-book.

But in order to prevent any mistakes that may happen from the hurry of business in a counting-house, Mr. has given only one column for receiving the amount of every transaction, whether debits or credits, at the instant of making the entry: and, for the convenience of separating the debits from the credits, previous to posting, which is necessary to prevent confusion and perplexity, he has two other columns on the same page; that on the left side, into which the amount of every debit must be carefully entered, and that on the right for the amount of the credits; which columns must be cast up once a month. The column of debits and credits of itself forms one amount; the column for the debits produces a second amount; and the column of credits a third amount; which second and third amounts, added together, must exactly agree with the first amount, or the work is not done right. By this means, the man of business may obtain monthly such a statement of his affairs, as will shew how much he owes for that month, and how much is owing to him; and the debits being added together for any given time, with the value of the stock of goods on hand, will, when the amount of the credits is subtracted therefrom, shew the profits of the trade.

The patentee's manner of examining the books kept by this method, also professedly differs from that hitherto practised, as well in expedition as in the certain accuracy which attends the process; it being only necessary to cast up the columns through the ledger debits and credits, according to the examples given, and the amount of those columns, if right, must agree with the columns in the day-book for the same corresponding space of time. These castings should take place once a month, and if the amounts do not agree, the posting must then, but not else, be called over; and when the time, whether it be one, two, three, or four months, that is allotted to each column of the ledger, is expired, the amount of each column should be put at the bottom of the first page, and carried forward to the bottom of the next, and so on to the end of the accounts; taking care that the amount in the day-book, of each month's transactions, be brought into one gross amount for the same time.

Having already enlarged upon this subject, we shall only observe, that this new system of book-keeping, however ingeniously contrived, has not met with that general approbation to which it is apparently entitled. To enforce his claim to public patronage, Mr. concludes the specification of his patent by asserting, that upon his plan every page will be proved in the progress of calculation, and "the balances of ten thousand ledgers could not unobservedly be taken off wrong."—We give him full credit for this assertion; though it has, perhaps by invidious rivals, been objected that his method is more complicated than the old Italian system of book-keeping; which has, by experience, been found fully adequate to