Aucbvax.2312
fa.works
utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!works
Thu Jul 16 11:57:43 1981
Re: Reliablity
>From cosell@BBN-UNIX Thu Jul 16 11:54:49 1981
I agree with Ben that the `real' accounting fellows really did figure
it mostly out (several hundred years ago!), with Journalizing and
autid trails and the like.  I would like to make a tiny correction:
if I remember correctly from some accounting courses I took, double
entry bookkeeping has nothing really to do with the `journal' aspect:
the double entry name comes from the fact that both debits and credits
are simultaneously maintained and every financial transaction is fully
entered on both sides.  Thus, at any moment, you can check a set of
books for a simple addition error by simply totaling up all of the
accounts and the balance should always be zero. (I think that this
is called taking a trial balance).

  /Bernie