Bills are occasionally rendered a second time after being paid, not the least, perhaps, from an intention to defraud, but simply from carelessness. People omit to enter the money they receive in their books, and forget they have got it; and to keep all receipts is a way of protecting oneself against such a happy-go-lucky style of doing things.
Receipts should be folded in the same way as letters, and marked on the outside with all necessary particulars. Thus:—
12th August, 1886.
Griffin and Constable,
Manchester.
Washing Machine
£3 15s.
If you have a set of pigeon-holes, receipts should have a pigeon-hole all to themselves; if not, keep them tied up in a bundle and arranged in alphabetical order.
When you have to make out accounts always do it as neatly as possible. A neat account has a well-to-do air, and may do as much good to one’s credit sometimes as a handsome balance at the bank. Hard-up people are seldom neat either in accounts, or correspondence, or anything else.
Accounts or invoices in business are usually made out on ruled and printed forms, and are headed with the address of the seller. After that come the names of the buyer and seller, thus:—
Miss Rachel O’Flinn,
Bought of Leigh, Goldhawk, and Still.
Or the wording may be,
Miss Rachel O’Flinn,
To Leigh, Goldhawk, and Still,
which mean that Miss Rachel O’Flinn is debtor to the firm named, the word “debtor” being dropped in practice.