Post Exchange Methods / A Manual for Exchange Stewards, Exchange Officers, Members of Exchange Councils, Commanding Officers, Being an Exposition of a Simple and Efficient System of Accounting Which Is Applicable to Large and to Small Exchanges Alike.

by Paul D. Bunker

Figure 24

As previously noted, the receiving clerk (or stock clerk, whoever handles this work) hands in at the close of business each day, two copies of Form 17, one covering the selling price of all stock which has arrived or been transferred during the day, and the other covering the cost price of same. Attached to these forms are all requisitions and receiving records (Form 28) covered by these Forms 17. The Steward sees that each receiving record is correctly calculated and properly entered on both copies of Form 17. (He, also, at this time, sees that the requisitions are properly entered on both forms.) The receiving records are then filed in a Shannon drawer to await the arrival of invoices or for comparison with them if they have already arrived. For convenience, they are filed behind alphabetical guides according to the names of our creditors. When the invoices arrive, they are filed in the same manner and in the same drawer. They would, therefore, naturally tend to find each other.

Before the receiving record is sent from the office to the receiving clerk in the first place, the order is entered in our Purchase Record, which, as its name indicates, is a chronological record of all our purchases of merchandise of whatever sort. Hire of services, of course, is not entered in this record.

Figure 25, (Reduced in size)

There are various forms in use for Purchase Records, invoice Records, etc., and a study of several of them leads us to advocate the use of Form 29, shown in Fig. 25 as being the best suited to the work in hand. This is specially ruled and printed and like most of the other forms described is as well suited to the needs of a small exchange as a large one. They will cost about $12.00 per thousand and a good substantial binder for them will cost from $2.75 to $11.00, depending upon the quality of the binding. One and a quarter inch back is large enough for our purpose; the sheets are 10¼ × 10½ inches, the former being the binding side.

When our order is first made out, we enter in the proper column of the purchase record, the name of the firm on whom the order is drawn. This is the only entry made at this time, and the retained copy of the order (the receiving record) is then sent to the receiving clerk. When the invoices arrive, they are stamped as shown in Fig. 26, the 1st and 2d lines of this stamp are filled in, their date is entered in the left hand columns of the purchase record and the invoices are then filed as before described. In this way, the office keeps track of how fast the stock is arriving, because the number of firm names entered on the purchase record will show us the number of outstanding orders, and the number of dated entries will show us the number of invoices that have arrived which have not yet been checked up by the Steward (usually because the goods have not arrived). When the goods arrive, whether they follow or precede their invoices, and the receiving clerk has checked them into stock and returned Form 28 to the office, the purchase price is entered in the Purchase-Credit column shown. This purchase price disregards our cash discount, which is cared for in the cash book. However, if there is any allowance due us for returning all or a part of the goods on any invoice, the amount of such rebate is entered in the Debit-Purchase column. This is the only use to which this column is put.

Figure 26