THE NEW YORK JOURNAL OF PHARMACY 



3. He should know his percentage or 

 net profit. 



4. He should know his entire income 

 from the business as a whole. 



With this information a merchant can 

 so price his goods and so conduct his 

 business as to make a decent profit, 

 without it he is simply groping in the 

 dark and quite as likely to fail as to suc- 

 ceed. These four things are easily dis- 

 covered. They do not call for any elabo- 

 rate system of bookkeeping. They do 

 not necessitate any great amount of 

 work. They do not require mathemati- 

 cal or bookkeeping skill. They are all 

 very simple indeed, like most things 

 that are of vital importance — quite as 

 simple as plain honesty or plain virtue. 



The Necessary Records. 



I propose to indicate, as briefly as pos- 

 sible, just what records are necessary in 

 order to arrive at these four essential 

 facts. Your ledger need cover only the 

 following items : 



1. Sales. 



2. Purchases. 



3. Expenses. 



These three things are practically all 

 you need, except that occasionally you 

 will desire, if you are a wise druggist, 

 to repeat this record of sales, of pur- 

 chases, and of expenses with some par- 

 ticular department in your store. You 

 will frequently want to know, for in- 

 stance, whether your candy case, or your 

 soda fountain, or your cigar department 

 is vielding what it should, and you will 

 then keep tab on the sales, purchases 

 and expenses of these special depart- 

 ments. Waiving that for the moment, 

 however, let us ask how shall you keep 

 this ledger? 



As for the original entries, these may 

 be treated exactly as you treat charges 

 or credits for or against customers. 

 Make them in a day book if you use 

 a day book ; put them on slips if you 

 use slips. Every time you buy a bill of 

 goods, or pay out money for an expense, 

 or figure up the day's sales, or do any- 

 thing else falling within the scope of 

 these business records, simply enter it 

 as you would when a customer buys 

 goods on credit. In posting from the 

 day book or the slips carry the custo- 

 mers' accounts to the regular ledger, 

 and the business records to the special 

 ledger, giving totals only. If it takes 

 you ten minutes every morning to do 

 your regular bookkeeping, it won't take 

 you three minutes more to include this 

 special business bookkeeping. Is it not 

 with this slight expense of effort? The 

 advantages are great and far reaching. 



An Annual Statement. 



At the end of the year it is necessary 

 for the druggist to get his facts together 

 and to draw up some form of annual 

 statement. Here is a simple method 

 which will answer the purpose, and 

 which I have already suggested on sev- 

 eral occasions : 



1. Total sales. 



2. Purchases. 



3. Stock increase or decrease as 

 shown by the inventory. 



4. Cost of goods sold. 



5. Gross profits. 



6. Expenses. 



7. Net profits. 



8. Total income. 



9. Inventory of stock. 



10. Inventory of fixtures. 



Item No. 2, purchases, must have add- 

 ed to or substracted from it the increase 



