Old-Style Method of Billing and Making Wet Copy in Tissue Book. There are enough firms who still follow this plan of billing to resent the term "old-style." The best that can be said for this plan is that it is shorter than writing the bill-and-sales book, or sales journal, separately. The wet copy takes the place of rewriting the bill. One objection to this method of copying bills is that if all the bills are copied some of them are either blurred or are too light when the copy has dried on the tissue leaf. This is a difficulty which can be corrected by careful attention.
The worst feature is that one never knows whether all the bills have been copied, and there is no way of knowing this unless the copies in the tissue book are checked back with the orders from which the bills were made. Many firms spend thousands of dollars in advertising, traveling expense, labor, etc., ship out and bill large invoices of goods, "double check" the invoices, and leave the copying of the invoices in tissue books to a young office boy. They never think to check back the invoices with the orders to be absolutely certain that the goods have been charged as well as invoiced (billed out).
Fig. 4. Old-Style Cloth Bath. Underwood Typewriter Co.
If one should ask them how they know that all invoices are charged (or copied into the tissue books) the invariable answer would be, "Oh! we never lose any bills before they are copied." Ask them how they know none are lost and, after thinking a while, they will admit that they really do not know for sure. They begin to check back the tissue book after some customer brings in a bill for payment which has never been copied into the tissue book, and hence has not been posted to the customer's account.
Fig. 5. Old-Style Copy Press. Underwood Typewriter Co.
Fig. 4 shows the old-style cloth bath, Fig. 5 the old-style copy press, and Fig. 6 the old-style sales book (tissue paper leaves).
LOOSE-LEAF SALES SHEETS AND INVOICES
This style of billing was the first variation from the plan of using copying ink, or pencil, on invoices and then transferring the ink to tissue paper books, by wetting the leaves with water and then absorbing the surplus water with paper blotters. Or this was done by placing damp cloths on the under side of the leaf and covering it with a leaf, placing the invoice downward on the tissue leaf, closing the book, and placing it in a copying press. The ink from the invoice was sufficiently transferred to the tissue paper to make an impression thereon.