The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1917-10-25

work is not sufficient. Tie book
keeping work, being divided as il
is in business practice OF today,
needs constant mastery supervi-
sion and management. The threads
must be woven together. All
parts of the system must act in
harmony with each other. Errors
must be detected and corrected.
Peculiar situations will arise from
unusual transactions. The new
circumstances must be brought to
light and handled in keeping with
the plan Of the system. These are
only few of the things that may
happen daily that the executives OF
business realize necessitate the ad-
vice and counsel of the trained and
experienced accountant. They
realize this necessity to the extent
of retaining the service of such a
one by yearly contract.
Every business has it's fiscal
year at the end of which the books
must be balanced or closed and
then reopened for the receipt of
the records of the ensuing year.
The complete statement covering
the progress ON the retrograde of
the enterprise during the year to.
gether with the statement of its
status at the close of the year must
be made. The audit must be per-
formed. The earnings and costs
must be analysed. Statements
comparing the year ended with
previous years must be drawn off.
All of the mass Of detail must be
summarized and presented to the
prOprietors in a terse, clear and
brief yet alI-lnclusive manner. Men
of substantial business standing,
realize that this vital work must
be executed by those who know
how such work is done. And just
as they have their agencies for the
sale of their wares or their credit
men to keep the customers ac,
counts in as nearly liquid or cash
form as possible, so do they have
their contracted accountants to
supervise the recording or his
torical side of the business.
Then there is the matter of bank
rupt enterprises. Receivers are
appointed. Before the receiver
can act, after closing the front
door, he must have what is tech
nically known as the Deficiency
Account and Statement Of Affairs.
The drawing off of these requires
care and precision, for they an
swer his first big question: Shall
he carry on the business and at
tempt to turn insolvency into SOL
vency, or shall he make a settle.
ment and thereby ruin for a good
while the merchants already pre-
carious standing among his credit
ors? To answer that question be
must know the assets and the
liabilities of the business and what
they consist of. In short. he must
know the thing to do before be
even plans his way. The profess
sion of accounting is the asylum to
which he turns. The accountant
must be retained to diagnose the
sick business, to point out the
weak spots and to uncover the
leaks that have caused the embar.
rassment. A great many failures
can be traced to the inadequate
methods of bookkeeping. In such
cases had the proprietors realized,
through being informed as to the
exact condition of their businesses,
how very near to the chasm of in
solvency they we're, the diagnosis
would have come in time to give
the opportunity Of remedying the
causes that make destruction i'm
minent, wrong methods could have
been been supplanted by right
ones. Leaks could have been STOP
ped. Assets could have been con-
served and the Indebtedness which
has swamped the business could
have been liquidated. The man of
business has need to be authen-
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