When postings are not checked daily a form should be prepared to which daily totals will be carried. Columns are provided for each book from which posted, and these are footed at the end of the month and compared with the footings of the books. If the ledger does not balance a comparison of this proof slip with the column footings of the books will show in which book the error has been made. The form of the monthly proof slip is illustrated in Fig. 19.
=21.= Bookkeeping, if it is to fulfil its mission, must furnish a complete record of the transactions of a business. The record must show, as well, the results of each transaction or class of transactions, with respect to their bearing on the business as a whole, or on specific sections or departments of that business. From a mere record of personal debits and credits, bookkeeping has grown into a detailed history of a business.
The principles of bookkeeping are the same regardless of the nature, size, or condition of a business. But different businesses require different kinds of information; vital facts in one business may be valueless in another. The success or failure of each depends upon certain elements which must be recorded in its history. It is the work of the bookkeeper to record these facts—to write the history of the business in language that will be understood by anyone who may read it.
Laying out the business history is the work of the accountant. He makes an analysis of those elements which bear on the success of the business, and determines what facts, when properly recorded, will furnish the clearest and most understandable history. And when he has determined what facts should be recorded he must plan how they are to be recorded—in what form they will present the most concise history of business transactions. His work should result in a system of bookkeeping that will present the most vitally important information, with a minimum expenditure of labor.
The increasing demand for more intelligible records—for facts—has stimulated the ingenuity of accountants in devising forms that will not only accommodate the records desired but will permit of their being made with the least labor. Special forms exactly suited to the records which they are to contain, are now made for every purpose. Labor-saving devices and methods have minimized the drudgery of bookkeeping.