2 BTTLLETIX 811, U. S. DEPARTMENT OE AGRICULTURE. 
if the highest degree of success is to be attained. Accordingly a 
system of accounting was devised by the Bureau of Markets for 
country elevators and published in 1915. This system has now 
been adopted by a large number of elevators located in all of the 
grain-producing States. 
With the passage by Congress of the Grain Standards Act, and the 
consequent promulgation by the Secretary of Agriculture of official 
standards for grain, a revision of the former bulletin has become 
advisable. The present bulletin describes the Bureau of Markets 
system of accounting for country grain elevators, which has been 
developed in conformity with these standards. In this revision. 
several features suggested by the practical operation of the system 
during the last three and one-half years are incorporated. 
TYPES OF ELEVATOR ACCOUNTING SYSTEMS. 
Xo system of accounting in grain elevators has been generally 
accepted as standard. While the principle of double-entry book- 
keeping is correctly followed in a limited number of elevators, every 
variation in type is found, from patented systems to mere handbook 
entries kept in memorandum form for the benefit of the manager. 
All systems of bookkeeping now existing in elevators may be clas- 
sified under three headings: Complete double-entry systems kept 
in the elevator office; incomplete systems, consisting of reports and 
memoranda kept in the elevator office; and systems of reports pre- 
pared at the elevator and sent to some outside agency where the 
records of the company are kept. 
Although the third system may furnish definite information, the 
details of that information, as a rule, are not within easy reach of 
the men who are most interested in them. For this reason a complete 
double-entry system kept in the elevator office will be found most 
satisfactory. 
The benefits to be derived from a complete double-entry system 
of bookkeeping, so constructed that it can be adopted by all elevators, 
are: First, the possibility of determining, on short notice and with 
accuracy, each elevator's financial condition; second, the advantage 
of having readily available statistical data relating to operating 
costs ; third, the possibility of distributing and interchanging valuable 
statistics among elevators; and, fourth, the training of managers 
and bookkeepers so that they will obtain a cumulative knowledge 
of elevator accounting. 
