DEPARTMENT OF ENTRY BARRIERS |
| DIRECTOR Lars Familiaris |
ABOUT
At this point it may be advisable to admonish the young, accountant not to be led away by a sophism which will frequently assail him, viz., that whether he keep his books by one method or another the result is the same. Whoever duly considers that the purpose of book-keeping is not only to ascertain the actual state of a concern, but to know what that state ought to be by virtue of all its transactions, will immediately see the impossibility of arriving at that complete knowledge by single entry. One example will make this clear. In weighing the iron, the quantity uoul'i l>e found as heavy by single as by double entry, but it is by double entry alone that you can know whether that quantity is the right one. If you wish for satisfaction, as you naturally must, on so interesting a point, double entry gives you at once, and upon system, that satisfaction which single entry drives you to obtain through the laborious'unrertain process of'picking out," carrying within itself no principle of certainty, and harassing the mind with the consciousness of perpetual liability to error. Single entry is in factjittle better than loose memorandums of account, valuable undoubtedly as far as they go, but so incomplete and disjointed, that they throw no useful light upon the past progress of affairs, and are utterly incapable of showing what the present facts ought to be.
Double entry is of quite a different character. It begins, proceeds, and ends in as much certainty as human fallibility admits of. Whatever may become of the property in a concern, the matter of account is subject to no possible diminution. Not a single atom can be admitted into its sphere without being ranged under two heads of account, to the credit of one and to the debit of the other. Not an atom within the sphere can change its character, as, for instance, when a bill receivable is paid in cash, without producing a credit in the account it has abandoned, and a debit of equal value in the account it has entered.