Cash book

“ Thus the cash account and the bank account are frequently bound together in one separate book called the cash book, showing in parallel columns the movements of office cash and of cash at the bank, and by the addition of a third column for discounts the necessity of keeping an additional book of first entry as a discount journal may also be avoided. Of late years, however, most businesses pay all moneys received into their bankers without deduction, and pay all accounts by cheque ”

“ It is stated by competent witnesses that a cash book, a journal, and a ledger are indispensable books of account for an efficient system of accounting, and that, in the smaller shops, even simpler entries showing merely the daily records of sales and record of purchases of merchandise would be sufficient. ”

“ In that event the check and the promissory note and the bill of exchange, operating as orders to the book-keepers of banks and clearinghouses, would effect transfers of debits and credits the world over so that all Trade would be barter systematized—plain barter freed from the obstructions incident to barter in primitive Economic circumstances. Except for the use of “pocket cash,” Money pieces of every kind, whether metal or paper, would be like children’s toys to grown-ups. ”

“ The first business taken up for consideration under the head of partnerships is a retail shoe business. The stock is kept in three classes: men's, women's, and children's shoes. Purchase and sales books, ruled to segregate transactions of each class, are used. The bank account is kept in the cash book, which is also provided with two columns for discount. All sales, whether for cash or on account, are recorded on sales tickets. ”

“ The disadvantage of the credit basis is the expense of bookkeeping which, of course, has to be added into the price of the goods sold. Our losses through unpaid bills have been negligible. Our customers are honest. But it has seemed unfair that the customer who pays cash should have to bear the cost of the credit accounts.
As our business has worked out more than fifty per cent. of our whole trade is on the cash basis. ”

“ In the system of cash payments, a man must keep money idle in advance lest he be caught in the embarrassing position of lacking it when he most needs it. With book credit, he knows that even if he should be caught without a cent in his pocket, he can still get supplies on credit. ”

“ The habit of "charging," i.e. using book credit, tends to increase the velocity of circulation of money, because the man who gets things "charged" does not need to keep on hand as much money as he would if he made all payments in cash. A man who pays cash daily needs to keep cash for daily contingencies. The system of cash payments, unlike the system of book credit, requires that money shall be kept on hand in advance of purchases. ”

“ The economical or saving advantages of paper money are appropriated by the issuers to themselves, in the form of a non-interest bearing loan, which they make to those owners of money or to those who are entitled to a money-claim and to whom the paper money is acceptable instead of cash money.913 A diminution for instance of the number of bank notes or of state paper [pg 445] money does not diminish the available capital of the people. ”

“ All shopkeepers in good business can afford to buy proper wrapping-paper, and they generally do so. It is very cheap. See also that they do not wrap your purchase in so small a bit of paper as to squeeze and crush it.
If you go out with much money, (which is never advisable,) divide it into two portions, putting part in your pocket-book or porte-monnaie, and the remainder into your purse, so that if you lose it, or have your pocket picked, the loss may be less. Do not carry notes in your purse, but keep them in your pocket-book. Little gold dollars had best go into your porte-monnaie. ”

“ Many modern and entirely worthy businesses are conducted under the strident banner of "Cash Only." Fortune, East and Sabre's did not know the word cash. One would as soon look for or expect a till, to say nothing of one of those terrific machines known as cash registers, in the vestry, the classroom or the study as one would look for a lectern or an adjustable school desk in a beer-house. ”

“ The Manchester and Salford Equitable Co-operative Society "combine the securities and facilities of a bank with the profits of a trade." But the business by which they mostly thrive, is by the purchase and sale of food, provisions, groceries, draperies, and other articles, with the exception of intoxicating liquors.
The sole secret of their success consists in "ready money." They give no credit. Everything is done for cash; the profit of the trade being divided amongst the members. Every business man knows that cash payment is the soundest method of conducting business. ”

“ A private individual usually feeds his purse from his bank account; a retail commercial firm usually feeds its bank account from its till. The bank acts as intermediary for both.
In a given community the quantitative relation of deposit currency to money is determined by several considerations of convenience. In the first place, the more highly developed the business of a community, the more prevalent the use of checks. Where business is conducted on a large scale, merchants habitually transact their larger operations with each other by means of checks, and their smaller ones by means of cash. ”

“ It is almost unnecessary to state that Libro sold the book—the only book he ever parted with—for a fabulous sum—more than its weight in gold,—and for many thousands of dollars. A noted collector purchased it immediately, and it is now the chief attraction of his wonderful library.
With the money jingling in his pocket he returned to the scene of his former misery. He was to redeem his pledges with the broker's own money. ”

“ With the bookselling proper was joined a stationery business, and perhaps on the whole it was a little harder to sell a newspaper or a quire of note, or a bottle of gum, than to take an order for a volume or part with one from the shelves; still, no mortal is above satisfaction in receiving cash payment, part whereof is calculable profit, and the very till soon began to be more than endurable in our friend’s eyes. ”

“ The question uppermost in a man's mind in regard to whatever is offered as a circulating medium is: Will it pass? That means: is it the money of account, in which prices and contracts are set, so that it will be accepted as cash, without discount, dispute, or delay? If the money of account is specie, paper notes may still be cash; namely, if they are at once exchangeable for the coins whose name they bear. If they are not so exchangeable, they degenerate at once into negotiable instruments, and are not cash. ”

“ No paper should circulate in a commercial country, which is not a representativ of ready cash; it must at least command punctual interest, and security of the principal when demanded. Without these requisits, all notes will certainly depreciate. Most of our public securities want all the requisits of a paper currency. [pg 111] But if they did not; if they were equal in value to bank notes or specie, still the sums are much too large for a circulating medium in America. ”

“ But in connection with banking and in ordinary commercial parlance it means money taken to a bank, left there, and understood to be subject to check or draft. [2] Money thus deposited and drawn on enters largely into the commerce of the country: checks and drafts are mercantile instruments, part of the machinery of trade, having commercial value and bearing no resemblance to the 'pass-book' held by the poor seamstress, or washerwoman, or cook, who can go but four times a year and after notice to have a debit entered in it. ”

“ If you would get rich, don't deal in bill books. Credit is the "Tempter in a new shape." Buy goods on trust, and you will purchase a thousand articles that cash would never have dreamed of. A shilling in the hand looks larger than ten shillings seen through the perspective of a three months' bill. Cash is practical, while credit takes horribly to taste and romance. Let cash buy a dinner, and you will have a beef-steak flanked with onions. ”

“ Manufacturer: There is nothing so essential to relieve the constant strain upon individual credit and mobilize the really liquid wealth of the country, as the creation of the kind of paper you have just described. Think of it for a moment; there are the goods in transit, the shipper, the buyer and the banker back of the paper that will be coming due within the next sixty or ninety days. You can hardly imagine anything safer, and more quickly convertible into cash. ”

“ Nothing can be held over without risk, no matter how heavy the day's work. The rule in every bank is to clean up all the work on the very day it is received. None of this daily balancing of cash, or books, can be commenced until the last check has been cashed, the last depositor has come in, and the last payer of a collection has settled. For instance, the payment of a single draft or note after banking hours, necessitates the holding open of several sets of books or the erasure and changing of various totals by the bookkeepers. ”

“ He remained standing, opened the pocket-book, and showed me that it contained twenty bank-notes of fifty pounds each.
“These,” he said, “are of comparatively little importance. These pages of memoranda are worth more. At any rate, there are people in the City who would have given you a good deal more for them. If you had read them you would have had very little difficulty in finding your market. Don't you think you had better have slipped the book into your pocket and said nothing?” ”

“ We could imagine that in an epidemic fit of the passion of gambling, all dealers, instead of giving only their accustomed orders to the manufacturers or growers of their commodity, commenced buying up all of it which they could procure, as far as their capital and credit would go. All prices would rise enormously, even if there were no increase of money, and no paper credit, but a mere extension of purchases on book credits. ”

“ Promissory notes, interchanged between scheming individuals, are liberally discounted at the banks, which become so many mints to coin words into cash; and as the supply of words is inexhaustible, it may readily be supposed what a vast amount of promissory capital is soon in circulation. Every one now talks in thousands; nothing is heard but gigantic operations in trade, great purchases and sales of real property, and immense sums made at every transfer. ”

“ It enables the banks to sell their credit and make a gain, to use a part of their money deposits to buy mercantile paper with, and so get a bank interest on them; it enables dealers in commodities [302] to realize in cash minus the discount the sum of what they have sold on time; and by means of accommodation notes or bills, which only differ from the others in that there is no actual debt between the parties, business men may swell the volume of their business temporarily, and non-business people may borrow small sums for convenience or emergencies. ”

“ Unlike gold and silver, the new currency possesses no intrinsic value, but it consists simply of orders or cheques drawn on the State as the sole possessor of all articles of sale.
Every labourer in the service of the State receives once a fortnight a series of money certificates in the form of a coupon booklet. The name of each holder is printed on the cover, and with a view to preventing the use of the coupons by other persons, it is enacted that the photograph of every individual holder be attached to his book of coupons. ”

“ What good had come of my hoarding every cent to purchase it? Wasn’t it unfair of wealthy men who attend auctions never to give the poor student a chance? I had gone to that sale with fifty-seven dollars in my pocket. It was an enormous sum for me to invest in one book, and I really doubted that anyone would want this particular volume badly enough to pay more than fifty dollars for it. Imagine my surprise when this stranger overbid me by three dollars! ”

“ The fact is, I don't mind tellin' you I've a deal on, an' I've undertaken t' put up this money in cash—to-night."
The banker ruminated for a few minutes. Experience had told him that with a certain class of men money in bills was more valuable than money in a cheque or draft. The very bulk of the currency seemed to impress them. He had seen an old-timer refuse a twelve-hundred-dollar marked cheque for his property, and yet surrender greedily at the sight of a thousand one-dollar bills piled on a table before him. ”

“ So long as bank directors conform, in this respect, to the rules of prudence, their notes obtain such a degree of confidence, on account of the readiness with which they are handled and circulated, that cash is often brought for the purpose of buying notes on their treasury. ”

“ If you had no cash to spare, that did not matter. Your credit was good, and your note, as an acknowledgment of the purchase, and a formulary of trade [Pg 31] all that was wanted. To give a note of ten thousand dollars, to-day, for a piece of property that there was a fair chance of selling, in a fortnight, for twenty thousand, was, certainly, a temptation. Of course you had to sell, if you did sell, as you bought, for paper, not for cash. But that was nothing. Every body was getting rich, and, therefore, everybody was safe. ”

“ The bookseller who enjoys the luxury of a shop, gets credit from the auctioneer, and gives credit to his customers. He has to put as large a margin of profit as possible on his books, and an average of sixpence each has to be added to the original cost of every item catalogued. The bookstall-man is, naturally, handicapped in many ways, and if he finds the sweepings of his more aristocratic confrères' shops a long time on his hands, he, at all events, makes as large a profit with much fewer liabilities. ”