Part 45

=Development of Billing Machines.= This text has been prepared by taking the simplest forms of billing and order work, and leading up gradually to the more complicated forms. This is actually what took place in the improvement of office and factory work.

A bill and a copy were first made—an extra sheet was made for some additional purpose. The advantages of doing two or three things at once led to further investigation. This resulted in still additional sheets being used for other purposes. Every time an additional sheet was added, the labor of typewriting that sheet separately was eliminated.

Gradually it developed that it would be useful to copy a part only of the typewritten information on some of the under sheets. Means were found for accomplishing this. For instance, on an order form, it was desirable to have the prices show on the office copy, but not on the copy which was intended for the warehouse or factory.

In some cases it was desirable to write all the information on the top copies and split up the information thereon on the sheets underneath. The final development of all the above ideas is embodied in the compound form, in which all sheets for the office, customer, warehouse, factory, shipping room, and loading platform are typewritten at one operation, and the invoice and duplicate finished as a separate operation.

Wholesale and manufacturing lines are used mostly in this text to illustrate the evolution and improvement of billing and order work. Some of the conditions which have to be considered in installing office systems are as follows:

Whether the orders are received from customers or salesmen or both, and which are in the majority.

Whether the goods are carried in stock or manufactured or bought outside, or all of these.

Whether the orders can be filled completely, or nearly so.

Whether or not the factory may know the prices.

Whether the goods are shipped by freight, mail, express, or all of these.

Whether copies of the bills have to be made for any other purpose.

Whether a copy of the sales sheet has to be sent to the home office, or made for any department.

If additional copies of either are necessary, what colors to use for readily distinguishing them.

How many ledger clerks, and how to sort their work to the best advantage so that each clerk handles his work only.

How to file office and factory copies for quick reference.

How to plan all the above so that improper filing of sheets does not destroy the chain of record.

The reasons for these considerations will be better appreciated after further progress is made.

If the business student learns the capabilities of office machinery, the advantage of manifolding, the use of colored papers, and the important feature of correctly grouping statistics (which is almost an art in itself), he will have accomplished much. He should learn also to develop his own power of originality and suggestion.

The natural order in which order billing and shipping ought to be presented is the way in which the transactions occur. Methods of billing (making out invoices) in many businesses govern the manner in which the orders are made up, and therefore will be considered first.

In order to more clearly bring out the advantages of new methods, it is deemed advisable to consider old-style methods and contrast them with the newer ideas. By showing the weak points in the older methods and why the new are better, the gradual evolution and improvements can be traced.

=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.