page_title: Time book
section_title: Factory accounting, late 19th century
hierarchical_section_title: Time book / History / Factory accounting, late 19th century
caption_attribution_description: English: Railways, Time Book of Locomotive Engineers, 1907
context_page_description: A time book is a mostly outdated accounting record, that registered the hours worked by employees in a certain organization in a certain period. These records usually contain names of employees, type of work, hours worked, and sometimes wages paid.
  In the 19th and early 20th century time books were separate held records. In those days time books were held by company clerks or foremen or specialized timekeepers. These time books were used by the bookkeeper to determine the wages to be paid. The data was used in financial accounting to determine the weekly, monthly and annual labour costs, and in cost accounting to determine the cost price. Late 19th century additional time cards came in use to register labour hours.
  Nowadays the time book can be a part of an integrated payroll system, or cost accounting system. Those systems can contain registers that describe the labour time spend to produce products, but those registers are not regularly called time books, but timesheets.
context_section_description: With the further development of machine shops into machine factories late 19th century, a new type of accounting, called factory accounting, emerged which to related to that new more complex practice. In the 1886 Captain Henry Metcalfe was the first, to proposed a new system for piece work in the machine shop. This system introduced an additional service card for the direct registration of working time spend on the work floor. Metcalfe (1886) explained: 
  A man working on piece work, who has completed a suitable batch of pieces, makes out a ticket to correspond, and gives it with the pieces made to the foreman or inspector. If the work receives the inspector's approval, he punches the service card and forwards it with the other cards. Whatever deductions are necessary, are indicated on the face of the card, so that it may tell its own story completely. The amount space may be filled, or not, at pleasure; it is for convenience in saving recomputation.
  Besides making a charge for his labor, it is almost as necessary that the piece workman shall inform the office of how much time he has spent on his work, so as to guide the office in future adjustments of the tarif...
  ... The cards go to the Cost Clerk and are shuffled, first, by names of workman ; second, by shop-order numbers under each name. The time is then entered in the time book... opposite to the shop-orders on which the man has been employed. This is to enable each workman's wages to be charged to the proper appropriation....
  In Metcalfe's proposed system the time book is no longer register for the primary registration of labour time. The time spend is first recorded on  a "service" or labor record card. About the use of the service cards in relation to the time books Metcalfe (1885) further explained:
  When the service cards, duly stamped by the foreman, are received by the cost clerk, he sorts them first by names if they require it, and then by shop-orders, and enters the gross results under each shop-order on the time book... Except for piece workers, the time book carries the subdivision of the order no further; details of the employment must be looked for on the service cards.
  Another system for time recording in railways was described by Marshall Monroe Kirkman in his The science of railways, Vol 9. 1895. In this system a division was made in a general time book and several specialized time books for different sorts of employees: 
  A general time book should be kept by each foreman of the force he employs; it must be closed and sent forward to the proper officer on the first day of the month. Before sending it, however, the foreman should enter the amount on his "report of supplies received and expenses incurred," as already directed.
  In Kirkman's system different people were involved in governing the labor practices in employing labour, keep up the time and make up the accounts. Kirkman first explained the theory of the subject, before taking up specific regulations necessary In handling the labor of a great corporation:
  The amount that a railroad expends for labor is so great that the rendering of accurate returns in connection therewith, including the making of true and faithful pay rolls, is a matter of the utmost importance. 
  
  Wherever men are engaged, whether at shops, roundhouses, yards, warehouses, storehouses, depots of supply, upon the track, at stations, upon trains, or at any other place, intelligent provision must be made for keeping accurate, account of the time they work, whether the work is done by the hour, day, month or piece. Otherwise It cannot but follow that injustice will result, either to the employee or to the company....
  And furthermore:
  ... the details (distribution) of each man's time should also pass through the hands of the local officials. These details are shown in the time book; this book should accompany or follow the pay roll.... The timebook is then ready for use in making the pay roll... The correctness of each time book should be formally certified by the timekeeper (i.e. person who makes it) as follows: 'I hereby certify th
caption: Time Book of Locomotive Engineers, 1907
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image Software": "Microsoft Windows Photo Viewer 6.1.7600.16385", "Image DateTime": "2014:12:09 16:37:05", "Image Artist": "Karina", "Image ExifOffset": "2232", "Image XPAuthor": "Karina", "Image Padding": "[]", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2014:12:09 17:01:27", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2014:12:09 17:01:27", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "01", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "01", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}