The Norfolk weekly news-journal., 1905-12-29
THE INVOICING SEASON
BUSINESS MEN ARE FINDING OUT
WHERE THEY ARE AT.
MEANS GREAT AMOUNT OF WORK

| "eTChdnNs dTc ldkIn9 advantage o
the Quiet Days After Christmas tc
Get This Necessary but Disaereeablc
Task Out Of the Way.
The invoicing season Is here. Many
of NOrfolk's business houses are tax
ink advantage of the quiet week after
! Christmas to cast up their accounts
and prepare for the new year. The
task that confronts some of the larger
commercial establishments Is no easy
nor small one.
In the establishments where thou
sands of dollars worth of goods are
carried, the taking of the inventory
means much more than the uninitiatod
can realize Goods that have been
carried over must be appraised at
their present value and not what they
were worth one. two or three years
ago or even longer. New clerks can
not set the values on such goods II
requires experienced men in the par.
ticuar line.
In the manufacturing industries this
is greater task than in the retail
stores and shops, Raw material is
constantly changing in price and what
was good last year may be entirely
worthless when the inventory is taken
this year. Again, experience and the
best of judgment must be brought
into play.
one place In particular comes to
mind where the entire force was en-
gagged in this invoicing work They
had a measuring instrument for the
purpose of measuring cloth in the bolt
without unrolling the same. II looked
like whole arithmetic on all four
sides and had nickled slide which
could be set to the width and thickness
Of the bolt of material which was to
be measured Then by using some
subtraction, a little addition, and that
followed by the multiplication table
with little division to prove the prob
lem, the cloth was measured. Now
that was dead easy and the boss" ,"
who was manipulating the machine
will need to have an extra face mas
sage when Saturday night comes to
remove the wrinkles caused by invoic-
ing week.
Then, they have a machine to mea.
sure the vinegar and molaSses, kero.
sene and other liquids, that does away
with all that complicated figuring.
The prunes are weighed and not
counted like the examples in mental
arithmetic, where, ''if Bob has three
apples and John takes two away from
him and throws him down-how many
has Bob left?" No, they weigh them
and other goods of that class in the
grocery department.
Take the work in a department store
if you want something of interest for
the clerks who have an inventory on
hand.
The wholesale fruit man also has
picnic at this season of the year when
he counts up his bananas, oranges, ap-
pies; but still he is fortunate, as he
can use dry measure, and weights
help him out. 1t is the hen who has
to stop and count her eggs, who has a
lesson in numbers, as eggs are sold by
the dozen in this county, instead of
by the stick, as is the custom in the
East Indies, where they are tied be-
tween two sticks and sold at so much
per stick
There are many companies and
firms in the larger cities who pay as
much as $25,000 every year for invoice
expenses and they consider it as one
of their absolutely necessary expenses
in order to know what is required to
eXpend for improvements, and to set
tie the size of the dividends they must
pay the stockholders about annual
election time.
Unfortunately, Norfolk has no large
institutions of that class, but the busi-
ness men here have their troubles and
costs, as WELL if not on so large a
scale.