Excerpt from The Philosophy of Bookkeeping It is then very easy to see that the difference between these two sides represents what we have left, the remainder or balance in our hands This balance changes with every change made on either side. If we receive more the balance rises, if we spend more it sinks; but it is quite clear that we cannot in hard cash spend more than we have got; so that the Cr. Side can never become larger than the Dr. Side; it can only become equal to it, and then our balance becomes nil, we have nothing left. Let me take a simple illustration of the working of the cash-book. A farmer with GBP500 capital pays GBP200 for the various kinds of stock on a farm, He sells some of the cattle, pigs, and sheep; does a daily business in milk and eggs; parts with some surplus hay and straw, as well as a little wheat. He pays his wages weekly, buys a plough and some other machines and tools, purchases cake and artificial manures, incurring freight on both purchases and sales, and draws a monthly sum for household expenses. The transactions mav be set out thus, and I may add here that it has long been a convention that the entries on the Dr. Side are prefaced by the word To and those upon the Cr. Side by the word By. If the two sides of the Cash Account are on one page of the bookthe word Cash in the centre is sufficient. But if a page is given to each, as is usually the case, it has become a con vention to head them as shown, cash for the Dr. Side; contra for the Cr. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.