A NEW, SPEEDY, AND EFFECTUAL METHOD OR PLAN FOR DETECTING ERRORS IN ACCOUNTS OF ALL KINDS, AND WHEREBY SUCH ACCOUNTS WILL BE KEPT AND ADJUSTED IN A MUCH MORE REGULAR AND CONCISE MANNER THAN BY ANY OTHER METHOD HITHERTO KNOWN
Year: 1796

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, EDWARD
THOMAS JONES, of the City of Bristol, Accountant, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date nt
Westminster, the Twenty-sixth day of January, in the thirty-sixth year of His
reign, give and grant unto me, the said Edward Thomas Jones, His especial
licence that I, the said Edward Thomas Jones, during the term of years
therein mentioned, should and lawfully might use, excrcise, and vend, within
England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention of
"A NEW, SPEEDY, AND EFFECTUAL METHOD OR PLAN FOR DETECTING ERRORS IN
ACCOUNTS OF ALL KINDS, AND WHEREBY SUCH ACCOUNTS WILL BE KEPT AND ADJUSTED
IN A MUCH MORE REGULAR AND CONCISE MANNER THAN BY ANY OTHER METHOD
HITHERTO KNOWN;" in which said Letters Patent there is contained a proviso
obliging me, the said Edward Thomas Jones, by an instrument in writing under
my hand and seal, to cause a particular description of the nature of my said
Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be inrolled in
His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within one calendar month after the
date of the said rocited Letters Patent, as in and by the same (relation being
thereunto had) may more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Edward Thomas Jones, do hereby declare that my said Invention is described
in manner following (that is to say) :—
The English system of book-keeping requires three books, called a day book
or journal, an alphabet, and a ledger, which must be ruled after the following
described method; viz.: the day book to have three columns on each page

page_text: for receiving the amount of the transactions, one column of which to
receive the amount of debits and credits, one column to receive the debits
only, and one column to receive the credits only; or it may be ruled with
only two columns on each page, one column to receive the amount of the
debits, and one column to receive the amount of the credits. There must also
be on each page of the day book four other columns ruled, two on the left
side, next the amount of the debits, and two on the right side, next the amount
of the credits, for receiving the letter or mark of posting and the page of the
ledger to which each amount is to be posted. The alphabet need not be ruled
at all, but must contain the name of every account in the ledger, the letter that
is annexed to it as a mark of posting, and the page of the ledger; the ledger
must be ruled with three, four, five, or seven columns on each page, as may be
most agreeable, for receiving the amounts of the different transactions entered
in the day book. And the process for using these books, or making up books
of accounts on this plan, is as follows:-When a person enters into trade,
whether by himself or with co-partners, he must have an account opened with
himself in the ledger, entering first in the day book, and then to the credit of
his account in the ledger, the amount of the property he advances into trade.
The account may be headed either with his name only, or else called his stock
account. If you buy goods, give the person credit of whom you purchase;
when you sell goods, debit the person to whom said goods are sold. If you
pay money, debit the person to whom paid, not only for what you pay, but
also for any discount or abatement he may allow, and give the cashier credit
for the neat amount paid; if you receive money, credit the person of whom
you receive it, not only for what he pays, but also for any discount or abate-
ment you may allow, and debit the cashier for the neat amount received,
taking care in these entries to have nothing misterious or obscure, but merely
a plain narrative of the fact, introducing not one single useless word, and
avoiding every technical term or phrase except the words debit and credit, which
are full and comprehensive, and the only terms that are applicable to every
transaction, and may be affixed to every entry. But as a hurry of business will
sometimes take place in almost every counting-house, which may cause the
entries to be made to the debit instead of the credit of an account in the day
book, and to the credit instead of the debit, 1 have endeavoured as much as pos
sible to counteract the evil by having only one column for receiving the amount
of every transaction, whether debits or credits, at the instant of making the entry;
and for the convonience of separating the debits from the crodits previous to
posting, which is necessary to prevent confusion and perplexity, I have two
other columns on the sunie page; that on the left side, into which the amount
of every debit must be carefully entored, and that on the right for the amount

page_text: of the credits, which columns must be cast up once a month, the column of
debits and credits of itself forming one amount, the column for the debits
producing a second amount, and the column of credits a third amount, which
second and third amounts, added together, must exactly agree with the first
amount, or the work is not done right. By this means the man of business
may obtain monthly such a statement of his affairs as will show how much he
owes for that month, and how much is owing to him; and the debits, being
added together for any given time with the value of the stock of goods on
hand, will, when the amount of the credits is substracted therefrom, shew the
profits of the trade.
I shall now proceed to the process of posting, which begins with opening
an account in the ledger with every person to whose debit or credit there has
been an entry made in the day book, affixing to each account a letter, which
is to be used as a mark of posting. The person's name, place of abode, and
the folio of the ledger must then be entered in the alphabet, with the same
letter prefixed to each name as is affixed to the account in the ledger. Next,
the page of the ledger on which each account is opened (and which will be
seen in the alphabet) must be affixed to each amount in the day book, in the
column for that purpose. The date and amount of each debit must then be
posted in the columns for receiving it in the ledger, on the left or debit side
of that account to which it relates, entering, as a mark of posting, in the day
book, against each amount, the same letter that is affixed to the account in
the ledger to which said amount may be posted, observing that the debits of
January, February, and March, &c. must be posted into the column for those
months in the ledger, and the credits must also be posted in like manner,
filling up each account in the centre, at the expiration of every month, with
the whole amount of the month's transactions, thus having in a small space
the whole statement of each person's account for the year, in the columns to
the right and left, the amount separately of each transaction, and in the
centre a monthly statement.
Having described the process of this method of book-keeping, I shall shew
how to examine books kept by this method, so as to ascertain to an absolute
certainty if the ledger be a true representation of the day book; i.é., not only
if each transaction be correctly posted as to the amount thereof, but also if it
be rightly entered to the debit or credit of its proper account. This exami-
nation differs from the modes that have heretofore been practiced, as well in
expedition as in the certain accuracy which attends the process, it being only
necessary to cast up the columns through the ledger debits and credits,
according to the example given, and the amount of those columns, if right,

page_text: must agree with the columns in the day book for the same corresponding
space of time. These castings should take place once a month, and if the
amounts do not agree, the posting must then, but not else, be called over; and
when the time, whether it be one, two, three, or four months, that is allotted
to cach column in the ledger, is expired, the amount of cach column should
be put at the bottom of the first page, and carried forward to the bottom of
the next, and so on to the end of the accounts, taking care that the amount
in the day book of each month's transactions be brought into one gross
amount for the same time. But although this process must prove that the
ledger contains the whole contents of the lay book, and neither more or less,
-yet it is not complete without the mode of ascertaining if each entry be posted
to its right account, which may be ascertained by the following method:-I have
laid down a rule that a letter which may be used alphabetically, in any form or
shape that is agreeable, shall be aflixed to each account in the ledger, and the
same letter prefixed to the names in the alphabet. These letters being used as
marks of posting, and affixed to each account in the day book as it is posted, it
is only necessary therefore to compare and see that the letter affixed to each entry
in the day book is the same as is prefixed to the same name in the alphabet.
A difference here shews, of course, an error, or else it must be right. At the
cind of the year, or at any other time when persons balance their accounts, if
there be no objection to the profits of the trade appearing in the books, the
stock of goods on hand at prime cost may be entered in the day book, either
the value in one amount, or the particulars specific, as may be most expedient,
and an account opened for it in the ledger, to the debit of which it must be
posted. The casting up of the ledger must then be compleated; and when
found to agree with the day book, and the amount placed at the bottom of
cach column, subtract the credits from the debits, and it will shew the profit
of the trade, unless the credits be the greater amount, which will show a loss.
In taking off the balances of the ledger one rule must be observed, and it
cannot be done wrong:-As you proceed, first see the difference between the
whole amount of the credits and debits on each page for the year, with which
the difference of the outstanding balances of the several accounts on each pago
must exactly agree, or the balances will not be taken right. By this means
every page will be proved as you proceed, and the balances of ten thousand
ledgers, on this plan, could not unobservedly betaken off wrong.
In witness whereof, I, the said Edward Thomas Jones, have hereunto set
my hand and seal, this Twenty-second day of February, in the
year of
our Lord One thousand seven hundred and ninety-six.
EDW JONES. (L.S.)

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Twenty-second day of February,
in the thirty-sixth year of the reign of His Majesty King George the Third,
the said Edward Thomas Jones came before our said Lord the King in His
Chancery, and acknowledged the Instrument aforesaid, and all and every
thing therein contained and specified, in form above written. And also
the Instrument aforesaid was stamped according to the tenor of the several
Statutes made in the sixth year of the reign of the late King and Queen
William and Mary of England, and so forth, and in the seventeenth and
twenty-third years of the reign of His present Majesty King George the Third.
Inrolled the Twenty-second day of February, in the year last above
written.