Business Hints for Men and Women by Alfred Rochefort Calhoun (important of reading books .TXT) 📕
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Wilmington, Del. August 17, 1910.
$80.00
Received from Alfred Thompson eighty dollars to apply to the account of Hiram O. Wells. Baker Jones & Co., per, S. N. Thorp.
Receipts and other documents signed with a mark X should be witnessed.
Payment on a note:
Bridgeport, Conn. July 1, 1910.
$150.00
Received from Casper N. Work one hundred and fifty dollars to apply on the payment of his note to me for six hundred dollars, dated March 8, 1910. Ruben Hoyt.
The maker of the note should, in addition to getting his receipt, have the amount of his payment endorsed on the back of the note by the holder.
Where a receipt is given to the administrator of an estate his position should be named as “Robert Fields, administrator of the estate of John Jones, deceased.”
WHAT IS AN ORDER?
An order is a command or instruction by one person to another to do a stated thing.
An order may be given for the delivery of goods or the payment of cash.
This is the usual form:
Dayton, Ohio. August 3, 1910. Mr. G. W. McBride: Please deliver to Edward Lott goods from your store to the amount of ten dollars, and charge to my account. F. T. Leroy.
This would be an order for cash:
Holden, Ind. June 18, 1910.
$30.00
Mr. P. T. Mayhew. Please pay to Thomas Jackson thirty dollars and charge same to my account. F. R. Wilson.
A DUE BILL
The customary form of a due bill is:
Durham, N. C. May 1, 1910.
$10.00
Due George Smith ten dollars, payable in merchandise from my store. S. T. Long.
To have any value, business accounts, whether of a great or a small concern, must be accurately kept.
Every man and woman, having unsettled dealings with others, should keep some sort of book accounts.
Storekeepers must keep accounts, and every farmer and mechanic, who would know just what he owns and what he has spent during the past month and year, should keep an exact account of every cent received and paid out.
Lawyers and doctors know how to keep accounts, or if they do not they are neglecting their own side of their professional duties.
Workers, skilled and unskilled, and even the hired girl who is paid by the month, should keep a record of the compensation received, and how the whole or the part has been expended.
No woman can be called a really good housekeeper who does not know to a penny what has become of the money she has received for the upkeep of her establishment, whether she have a score of servants or does all her own work.
In order to keep such accounts, as have just been indicated, it is not necessary to be a trained bookkeeper, or to know anything more about the art than a good common school education gives.
Another word as to the farmer. I am not thinking in this connection of the old-time, deep-in-the-ruts farmer, who never learns and knows nothing to forget, but of that wide-awake producer who tries to keep up with the times.
Not only should the farmer keep cash accounts, the form may be quite simple, but all his business affairs should be kept in the best possible trim.
Personal agreements without some kind of writing to back them up, are dangerous.
Verbal contracts feed the lawyers.
All transactions involving labor or money should be recorded in black and white.
Don’t trust to your memory.
Don’t rely on the memory of another.
AN ACCOUNT WITH CROPS
Every farmer should keep an account with each crop he raises and even with every field he cultivates.
Against the farm should be charged—
1. Its annual rental value. 2. What all the labor would cost if hired. 3. New machinery. 4. Wear, tear and repair of old machinery. 5. Taxes. 6. Insurance. 7. Doctor’s bills. 8. Interest on mortgage if any. 9. The cost of fodder, fuel, etc., consumed.
The farm should be credited with—
1. The rent. 2. The cost of everything produced and consumed on place. 3. The farm products sold. 4. The stock sold. 5. Increased value of stock. 6. Increased value of property, if any.
Such accounts you say will cause trouble; well, you cannot do anything of value without trouble. The question is will the effort pay? Those who keep such accounts say it does, and they are usually the successful, progressive farmers.
WORKING-MEN’S ACCOUNTS
The working man, skilled or unskilled, and the working man’s wife as well, should keep some form of cash book that will show from week to week the receipts and expenditures.
One can be thrifty without being miserly.
Where did the money go?
Look at your book, where every cent expended has been set down, and you will be surprised to find how the little sums total up.
Look over the list of little things bought and you will be surprised to see how many were not needed.
Here is a simple form for a home record:
Cash Received
1910.
Jan. 2. Balance on hand………$45.50 ” 3. Work for Mr. Jones……. 1.75 ” 3. Smith paid bill……… 13.75 ” 9. Work for Mr. Brown……. 7.50
Cash Paid
1910.
Jan. 2. Two shirts……………$1.50 ” 3. To wife for house…….. 8.50 ” 4. Doctor C’s. bill……… 6.00 ” 5. Fare to Troy…………. 2.25 ” 6. Horse car……………. .20 ” 6. Postage……………… .06 ” 7. Church Contribution…… 1.00 ” 8. Shoes mended…………. 0.60 ” 9. Newspaper bill……….. 1.00
Never “lump” what you receive or what you spend.
Set down each item separately, even to one cent.
When you have filled out each page of “received” and “paid” foot it up and carry it to the next page set apart for the purpose.
An account book will cost but a few cents. Use the left-hand side for receipts and the right for expenditures.
At any time the excess of the left hand over the right should show the amount on hand.
Strike a balance at least once a month.
OTHER RECORDS
Never mix up another’s accounts with your own.
John Smith, treasurer of some church, society, or club, is a different person before the law from John Smith, the trader or mechanic.
Funds not your own, and which may be added to or decreased from time to time, as in the case of a society, say like the Odd Fellows, should be kept in the bank not as John Smith’s but as the funds of “John Smith, Treasurer of Washington Lodge 110, Independent Order of Odd Fellows,” or whatever the name of the society, club, or church may be.
In the same way, “a treasurer’s book” should be kept and all the receipts and expenditures carefully recorded.
COPIES
If a business proposition is made to another by mail, or if you hand another in writing your proposition as to a certain contract you are willing to undertake, for the consideration named, be sure to keep a copy of the letter or contract; such a precaution may save trouble.
No instrument of trade has done so much or is more essential to the safe and progressive business of the world today than the bank.
Every department of business, in our modern civilization, must keep in touch with the bank.
Money is the blood of trade and the banking system is its heart.
The bank is as necessary to the thrifty farmer as it is to the greatest railroad or the most wide-spread trust.
Banks are depositories for money not in circulation.
Banks have facilities for the safe-guarding of money which the ordinary business man could not provide for himself.
Instead of running the risk of paying bills with money carried about on his person, the business man, and every man with ready money should follow his example, deposits his money in a convenient bank, for which he receives a proper voucher in the shape of a credit in a deposit book.
When he pays a bill, he draws a check for the amount, payable to the order of his creditor. This check, when endorsed by the receiver and paid by the bank, is in itself a receipt for the money.
NATIONAL BANKS
As I propose to say something about savings banks in another chapter, the present will be devoted to what are known as “banks of deposit.”
Banks of deposit are either National, State, or private.
A National bank is, as the name implies, chartered and incorporated by the Government, with special privileges and restrictions.
The Government in the organizing of National banks had in mind the protection of the public without unduly limiting the profit of the stockholders.
The sum the stockholders must contribute to the establishment of a National bank varies according to the population and the business importance of the place in which the bank is to be located.
The capital must exist in a prescribed form.
Certain forms of investment are prohibited, as for instance the ownership of real estate, except under certain restrictions.
This is done that the National bank may be able to convert its securities into cash in the shortest order.
In consideration of a prescribed amount of United States bonds, deposited with the Treasury in Washington, the Government issues to the National bank a prescribed sum in printed bank notes of varying denominations.
If the bank should close for any reason, the bank notes or their equivalent must be returned, when the bonds deposited as security are released.
Every bank must have a board of directors, a president and a cashier. Receiving and paying tellers, with bookkeepers, and many clerks are necessary to carry on the business of a large bank.
In addition, the National banks are under the supervision of regularly appointed Government inspectors.
A National bank may fail, but its notes are still “as good as gold.”
BANKS AS LENDERS
The bank not only receives money on deposit, but it loans money under certain conditions.
Many merchants, builders, contractors and others often find it necessary to borrow money in order to carry on their business successfully.
If a man’s business reputation is good, and the banks keep well posted in such matters, he may secure a loan on his own note, though even in such cases the name of a good endorser is required.
If in addition to his note the borrower can offer security in the way of bonds of good character, or other reliable collateral, he can usually be accommodated.
Of course, the banks charge interest for loans. They also make collections on notes and other commercial paper and they issue foreign and domestic bills of exchange.
Every man with a sum large or small in excess of his expenditures, should open a bank account. Even if not in business this will encourage thrift and lead to good business habits.
INTEREST ON DEPOSITS
Some banks, particularly those known as “state” or “private,” and National banks in smaller communities, allow interest on deposits. This interest varies with the demand for money, but in the eastern states it seldom goes over four per cent.
It is well to know when interest begins and ends.
If the dates set by the bank for reckoning interest are the first day of January, April, July and October, money deposited March 31st will begin to draw interest next day, but if deposited April 2nd, it would not begin to draw interest till July 1st.
But if you have the money and would insure its safety, deposit it at once regardless of time or interest.
If a depositor withdraws his money before the day when interest is due, he forfeits the interest. But banks vary as to that.
CHECK AND DEPOSIT BOOKS
Every depositor is given a book in which the teller or cashier credits him on the left-hand side with
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