combined with the minimum of labour, but as
dishonesty has to be guarded against, no system of book-keeping can be
regarded as adequate which does not enable the record to be readily
verified as a true and complete statement of the transactions involved.
Such a verification is called an audit, and in the case of public and
other large concerns is ordinarily undertaken by professional
accountants (q.v.). Where the book-keeping staff is large it is
usually organized so that its members, to some extent at least, check
each other's work, and to that extent an audit, known as a "staff audit"
or "internal check," is frequently performed by the book-keeping staff
itself.

Formerly, when credit was a considerably less important factor than now
in commercial transactions, book-keeping was frequently limited to an
account of receipts and payments of money; and in early times, before
money was in use, to an account of the receipt and issue of goods of
different kinds. Even now what may be called the "cash system" of
accounts is almost exclusively used by governments, local authorities,
and charitable and other institutions; but in business it is equally
necessary to record movements of credit, as a mere statement of receipts
and payments of money would show only a part of the total number of
transactions undertaken. As for practical purposes some limit must be
placed upon the daily record of transactions, certain classes show only
a record of cash receipts and payments, which must, when it is desired
to ascertain the actual position of affairs, be adjusted by bringing
into account those transactions which have not yet been completed by the
receipt or payment of money. For instance, it is usual to charge
customers with goods sold to them at the date when the sale takes place,
and to give them credit for the amount received in payment upon the date
of receipt (thus completely recording every phase of the transaction as
and when it occurs); but in connexion (say) with wages it is not usual
to give each workman credit for the services rendered by him from day to
day, but merely to charge up the amounts, when paid, to a wages account,
which thus at any date only shows the amounts which have actually been
paid, and takes no cognisance of the sums accruing due. When, therefore,
it is desired to ascertain the actual expenditure upon wages for any
given period, it is necessary to allow for the payments made during that
period in respect of