Figure 3.
| SALES BOOKS vs | CASH REGISTER |
|---|---|
| 1. Can be carried by the salesman, thus saving steps for him. | 1. If a cash register is used the salesman must go to it to record every sale, and therefore if the Manifolder is located at the cash register no unnecessary steps are taken. |
| 2. Cost of 100 duplicating books of simple design with total capacity of 5000 sales is $6.50. Triplicating books more expensive. No first cost for machinery. | 2. Rolls of paper are used; cost of rolls for duplicate records of 5000 sales is from $4.50 up, depending upon the amount of special printing on the rolls. Each machine like Fig. 3 costs, retail, about $15.00. |
| 3. Practically no counter space is necessary for using a sales book. | 3. A convenient place must be left on the counter for use in recording sales. |
| 4. Uniformity in size of slips results in facility in handling and filing. | 4. By exercise of reasonable care the size of the slips approaches uniformity closely enough. |
| 5. The various copies of a slip made from a sales book are more apt to be “in register”—that is, the various lines and spaces of a lower sheet are more apt to be exactly under the corresponding ones of the upper or original sheet. | 5. Sometimes trouble and the expenditure of a sales slip results from the various rolls getting “out of step”. This accident, however, is easy to remedy. |
| 6. The slips can be tampered with, by dishonest salesmen, unless a “slip-printing” cash register, or some special device is used. | 6. By using a machine in which the triplicate roll is wound up inside the machine as it is used, no tampering with the sales records is practicable. |
| (If triplicate records are desired) | |
| 7. We may use either two sheets of carbon paper[1] or only one double-faced carbon sheet below a tissue duplicate and over an opaque triplicate. | 7. We ordinarily use at least two sheets of carbon paper, and all copies are opaque. The machine is adjustable, and will either duplicate or triplicate according to the number of rolls used. It can also be used with a transparent roll. |
| 8. If two carbon sheets are used, both must ordinarily be shifted for recording each successive sale. | 8. The carbon sheets once fixed in the machine require no further attention except when they are worn out or the rolls renewed. |
| 8a. By using a transparent duplicate and a double faced sheet of carbon paper, the latter is the only sheet that requires handling. | 8a. But the slips do not protect us so well because the sales are not recorded on the back of each slip (by reversed impressions) as well as on the front. |
| 8b. In this case, by leaving the transparent slips in the book we can easily check the consecutive numbers of the slips and see that all are accounted for. | 8b. By not tearing off the lowermost sales slip, but leaving it attached to the roll until the end of the day, we obtain a single strip of sales slips recording all the charge sales of the day. They need not be checked for consecutive numbering unless there is a break in the strip. |
| 8c. By previously clipping off the corner of these tissue sheets the book becomes self-indexing and in opening the book we turn automatically to the place for recording the next sale. | 8c. In tearing off the record of each sale we automatically prepare the machine to record the next sale. |
[1] Carbon paper is either single or double faced. By using the latter between two sales slips it is evident that we record our sale on the first and second slips and also secure a reversed copy on the back of the original. It is said that salesmen who alter such slips for their own gain are prone to forget or overlook this point and are caught thereby. No alteration on a sales slip should be tolerated; if the clerk makes a mistake he should be required to cancel and preserve all copies of the erroneous slip and to make out a new one correctly.
It is seen that the advantages and disadvantages of these two systems nearly counterbalance and that the particular system adopted must depend greatly upon the opinions of those in charge of the Exchange. In the following description, the use of triplicating records will be assumed.
In order to facilitate the assorting of the slips handed in by the various “Departments” of the Exchange, it is a good idea to assign distinctive colors to the original charge sales slips of each. (Of course, if there is a very large number of departments, this idea would have to be applied with discretion, as it is hard to recognize certain colors at night by artificial light.) For example, let the original sales slips used in the store be white; those in the market, buff; those in the shoe shop, pink, etc. The duplicate slips should have their own distinctive color and this color should be the same for all departments. If a triplicate slip is used, it should be of still another color and the same for all departments. Following out this scheme, the utility of which will appear presently, a color scheme might be as follows:—
| Department | Colors Assigned to Charge Sales Slips | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Original | Duplicate | Triplicate | |
| Store | White | “Newspaper” | Yellow |
| Market | Buff | ” | ” |
| Lunch | Salmon | ” | ” |
| Tailor | Green | ” | ” |
| Barber | Blue | ” | ” |
| Shoe shop | Pink | ” | ” |
If a system of distinctive colors similar to the above is not adopted, one of two things will be necessary in order that we may identify the slips of each department, unless we wish to do so by wasting the time in deciphering the articles on each slip and decide therefrom the name of the responsible department; we must either have the names of the departments printed on their respective slips when they are made, or these names must be marked on the slips when the sales are made. Neither of these methods is as efficient as that involving the use of various colors, which tells automatically to what department that slip belongs. By using distinctive colors, the printer would set up only one form for printing our whole assortment, and our printing bill would be correspondingly reduced.
In this connection, it might be stated for the benefit of the uninitiated that ordinarily the principal items in our bills for printing, especially in the case of blank forms, will be found to consist of the cost of “composition”, “make-up”, “lock-up”, and “make-ready”. These operations are necessary if but one form is printed; they need cost us no more if 50,000 copies are printed. Paper is comparatively cheap, so it usually costs us little more to print 5,000 copies than to print 1,000. So we can see that in the case of blank forms the cost per unit varies inversely as the quantity ordered at one time. Hence, if we need such forms as sales slips, of which we may use hundreds per day, we should order, say, a year’s supply at a time. Other forms or sheets that are used once a week or once a month must be ordered in lots sufficient to last for a longer time. As we take these up on our Stock Record, such purchases in large quantities will not disturb the worth of the Exchange.