=2. Distinctive Features of Single Entry.= The distinctive feature of single entry is that only personal accounts are kept. When goods are sold or purchased, records are made of the transactions as they affect the persons to whom sold or from whom purchased. The records do not show the increase or decrease of any specific form of assets, like merchandise, for no property accounts are kept. An account is usually kept with cash, but this approaches double entry, for when a person pays money to the business, cash is debited and the person credited; and when money is paid out, cash is credited and the person debited.
Sometimes, in a set of books otherwise kept by single entry, such accounts as merchandise, expense, and real estate are found, but when such accounts are introduced the books begin to take on double entry features.
=3. Books Used=. The principal books of a single entry set usually consist of day book or journal, cash book, and ledger. Both the day book and cash book are books of original entry, from which transactions are posted direct to the ledger. Auxiliary books used are order book, bill book, and check book.
The day book or journal is the familiar two-column form, the left-hand column being used for debits and right-hand column for credits.
The _cash book_ has two columns on each page, and these columns are used to separate the items affecting personal accounts, which are to be posted, and all other items, none of which are posted. See illustration.
The _ledger_ is the same form as used in the double entry method.
The _order book_ is usually the regular two-column journal form. In retail businesses it is used as a principal book, transactions being posted from it to the ledger. Sometimes the first column is used for prices, the extensions being made only when the order is filled.
The _bill book_ is quite essential in a single entry set for the reason that no Bills Receivable and Bills Payable accounts are kept in the ledger.
=4. Rules for Debit and Credit.= The rules for debit and credit are the same in single entry as in double entry, except that no debits and credits are recorded which do not effect persons or cash—when a cash account is kept. Briefly, these rules applying to single entry are: