8 INTRODUCTION 



goods and materials on hand as accurately as the cash 

 balance is known, and so to prevent an undue accumulation 

 of capital in unproductive forms. 



Every enterprise working to supply a market has two 

 sides, the technical side involving the use of special skill 

 in the various processes involved in the production of the 

 particular commodities concerned, and the managerial side 

 working to control this technical skill to the end that effort 

 may be economically applied so that the final product-cost 

 will be brought out a<* low as possible. As a business grows 

 in size so does the tendency increase to separate the func- 

 tions of the technical and the managerial staff, until, in the 

 great industrial organizations of to-day, we find a fairly 

 complete division between them, and a demand has sprung 

 up for individuals who, knowing little or even nothing of 

 the technical side of a business, are able to control it success- 

 fully by a system of management based on the compilation 

 of records of cost in every process and department. ' A man 

 who is 100 per cent, efficient as the manager of one par- 

 ticular business is 90 per cent, efficient as the manager of 

 any business ' is the dictum of a certain successful manu- 

 facturer who values technical knowledge in a manager at 

 no more than 10 per cent, of his total equipment, and it is 

 certainly true that most of the large industrial enterprises 

 of our day are controlled by men who are well versed in 

 management and the means to analyse the processes of 

 production rather than in their technique. 



Thus, the analysis of adequate records is the keystone 

 of the productive enterprise, upon which the stability of 

 the whole structure of industry depends. Its advantages 

 have received general recognition in all countries where 

 the factory or industrial system has been developed, but 

 in regard to the great industry of agriculture the possibility 

 of closer and more intelligent control of production by its 

 means is only very slowly being realized. Agriculture has 

 advanced gradually, but continuously, from the self- 

 sufficing stage, and, although the tendency to promote the 

 greater efficiency of labour by an increase of capital in the 



