Chapter 59 of 68 · 1627 words · ~8 min read

CHAPTER XX

SYSTEM IN MANAGEMENT

The housekeeper should learn to use the labor-saving devices for her records that are now employed so largely in the world of business. This equipment should include a desk with fittings for systematized and rapid work. A roll-top desk, with pigeonholes and drawers is convenient, but a flat-topped desk with drawers below gives a larger space for writing, although it has to be supplemented by boxes to take the place of pigeonholes. Such desks may be purchased for twenty dollars and upward, in woods to match other furniture. It is a pleasure to have artistic desk furnishings, but a large amount may be spent on these, and the desk still be unequipped for practical purposes.

=Files and loose-leaf books.=——A card file is as advantageous to the housekeeper as to the business man. Some desks contain a place for the card file in the upper right-hand drawer.

Guide cards are furnished in several colors to indicate divisions of the file, and these are plain, or with printed numbers and letters. The record cards also are made of several colors, to indicate different uses. The suggestions here cover only a few of the possibilities. Visit some office furnishing department or shop to see what an array of conveniences has been devised for the dispatch of business. If you once form the habit, you will find new uses for the card file almost daily, and will keep on the cards, addresses, engagements, cash accounts, shopping lists, inventories of clothing and furnishings, menus and recipes. A loose-leaf book is preferred by some people for inventories and accounts.

A letter file shaped like a pocketbook can be purchased for only twenty-five cents, and will serve the purpose for a small correspondence. Large files with guide cards are made for a larger correspondence.

The small file will answer for filing bills and is useful also for clippings. Some desks have bill files in the pigeonholes, and a letter file in one of the large drawers.

Have regular hours daily for attending to work at the desk, stated times for planning menus, making shopping lists, looking over the inventories, recording expenditures, and balancing accounts.

Order in time and place are studied further in the chapter on Housewifery.

=Keeping of accounts.=——This has been called by many, drudgery and tedious routine. Many business men go through much such drudgery to attain their goals, why should not the housewife be willing to make a similar sacrifice in her home for the sake of the service she is rendering the members of her household? The aim in keeping the accounts is to register the amounts spent for various purposes so that all phases of life will be considered and so that the manager will be able to profit the second year because of the experience of the first year. This makes housekeeping interesting and businesslike. The expenditure is made to produce the maximum of value received and is accompanied by the greatest possible pleasure.

In keeping accounts there should be some method of showing the receipts and expenses, the income and the outgo, so that a balance can be made at any time. The items should be so listed, too, that it is possible to tell what expenditure has been made for any one item, as rent, or food, or other necessities. It is only in this way that the accounts become of value for future use.

There are many ways of keeping such accounts. The simplest one for the housewife is the best if it shows the points mentioned above. The envelope system is used by some when the income is small, and a certain amount of money according to budget plan is put in labeled envelopes for various purposes, as rent, food, operating expenses, etc. As sums are drawn from the various envelopes, a slip of paper put in the particular envelope registers the amount drawn. It is easy at the end of the month to balance the accounts. This system necessitates the presence of a good deal of money on hand, and sometimes of confusion of accounts, if money is borrowed from one envelope for use in another.

Various systems of card catalogues, journals, and ledgers are in use, and all have more or less value. The simplest form for the average young woman or housewife can be kept in an ordinary blank book and the spaces ruled according to one’s need. The account book can be started in somewhat the following manner, with the dates of expenditures in the first column and the respective amounts opposite under their proper heads. In this way it is possible by using double pages of the blank book to keep all the items for each month in horizontal series. The columns for items of expenses should be ruled as needed, but it is desirable to keep them under as few heads as will suffice to give the information which may be desired. The use of the double page is advisable, for then the outer edge of the left-hand page can be used for the dates of purchase and plenty of room for columns of expense left across the two pages. The total in the various columns can be easily calculated at the end of the first month and a new set of pages ruled for the second. The expenditures should be entered daily so as not to be forgotten. A slip of paper kept in one’s purse is of help if amounts are jotted down while one is shopping. The totals for each month should be entered in another part of the blank book. Rule spaces for the year with columns for the months across the page and items of expense corresponding to those in the daily entry at the left-hand side. In this way at the end of twelve months the totals for each item of expense can be easily found. If one desires to know from day to day of a month how the balance stands, it is possible to add to Form I two columns for this purpose. One column should show the income or amounts received with dates, and the second the total sum expended each day. This sum is found by adding the expense of each item across the page for the day and entering in the expense column.

Form II

+------+------+------+------+------+------+--------+ | JULY | AUG. | SEP. | OCT. | NOV. | DEC. | TOTALS | +------+------+------+------+------+------+--------+ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | +------+------+------+------+------+------+--------+ | | | | | | | | +------+------+------+------+------+------+--------+

Somewhere in the book there should be kept an account of the receipts from all sources. The balance of the yearly expense account with the sheet of receipt can be easily made.

Some plan must be made for showing which purchases are paid for in cash, and which are charged. A simple method is to record the articles charged, with the place, date, and price on a card in the card file in a division kept for this purpose, and labeled “Purchases charged.” When the bill is rendered, it can be checked up from these cards, and the purchases entered in the permanent account book. The record in the account book gives thus the date of payment, but not the date of purchase, unless this is added too. The date of purchase can be recorded in the inventory of household goods (see